May Walking Challenge: ASICS Runkeeper’s Walking Program “Movement for Mind”
Over the last few months, I’ve been completing a new walking plan with audio-coached sessions, provided for free by the ASICS Runkeeper App, also downloadable for free. There are also podcasts, for those who do not want to download the Runkeeper app.
ASICS Movement for Mind, an eight-week program is suggested to have been scientifically proven to improve mental well-being, lower anxiety, and boost mood. Each session incorporates walking along with other simple techniques to help you feel better, including breath work, mindfulness, being in nature, and meditation.
So this plan, Movement for Mind, has worked for me, really getting me to a point of looking forward to getting out there for my walks, excited to experience yet another new walking experience.
And it has made a big difference: its focus on breath allowed me to completely switch to nasal breathing on all walks and some runs. It has taught me about different walking paces and I learned new warm-up and cool-down routines.
So I thought we could wrap a challenge around getting to know some of the sessions of this plan.
And as its audio-guided walks is not everybody’s thing, we will only try out the first four of audio-guided walks for that make up the first two weeks of the 8-week plan. They are, by my personal reckoning, also the best 2 weeks of the plan, and I look forward to revisiting these myself. But of course you can choose to do more or less, depending how you feel.
The plan should be open to everyone, no matter the fitness level. There free, even if one only uses the free version of the Runkeeper app.
So here are the links:
1) On the free Runkeeper App (which would allow you to listen to your own music), once downloaded, in the app go to TRAINING, make sure the tab at the top is set to GUIDED WORKOUTS, and you should find a free plan there called WALKING: Movement for Mind.
2) But if you don’t want download the app, and rather use the podcasts, here are the Podcast links:
a. Apple Iphone: podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...
b. Google podcasts.google.com/search/...
c. Spotify open.spotify.com/show/0d7ok...
If you want to read more into this plan and how it was developed, here is the homepage website and detailed info about the plan asics.com/gb/en-gb/mk/asics...
So for our challenge, we will try to walk to the first 4 walks of this plan, just to get a flavour of this plan and experience doing this kind of challenge together.
Let us know how you like it! As mentioned above, I really enjoyed doing the whole plan, although the latter weeks had at times some more tedious, and poor music choices, in my opinion.
Let the walking challenge begin! And please do let us know how you find this plan.
🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
Just our usual links to our Active10 App, which one can run even whilst doing this challenge:
★ For those new to walking, or those who like to track and be rewarded for their walking, you can combine above challenges with the use of the NHS Active 10 App? The Active 10 app anonymously records every minute of walking you do. And you can just pop your phone in your pocket and it still tracks every mile. I have it on my phone with constant tracking on. Details at: nhs.uk/better-health/get-ac...
And if you are new to walking, have a look at the following guidance or plans:
★ NHS Guidance on Walking for Health, with plenty of ideas for getting those steps in and link to the Active10 app nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/r...
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