EDMONTON, Alberta, May 20 (UPI) -- An aerobics program that gets the heart pumping beats a walking program, but walkers may stick with their activity longer, Canadian researchers say.
Gordon Bell of the University of Alberta and colleagues compared for six months aerobic fitness training to a pedometer-based walking program among 128 physically inactive men and women ages 27-65 -- taking fewer than 5,500 steps per day over a seven-day period and not participating in any form of regular exercise.
"We gradually built up the number of steps that the walking group did until they were prescribed 10,000 steps per day to be completed every day of the week. They actually were able to complete 9,221 steps per day or 92 per cent of the prescription," Bell says in a statement. "Volunteers had to adhere to the intensity of exercise as measured by a heart-rate monitor and built up to about four classes a week by the end of the study and adherence was 77 percent for this group."
Nonetheless, all participants saw a significant reduction in body mass, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio and resting heart rate, after six months. Bell says.
