Look, going for a walk can just be… going for a walk – that’s often more than enough to greatly support bot our physical and mental health. The simple act of moving more, getting outside and ticking over your daily steps carries serious benefits for your body and your head.
But if you want to kick things up a notch – to turn your walks into something that challenges your fitness, builds conditioning and gives you a bit more ‘bang for your buck’ – coach Corey McBride has a handful of simple protocols you can lean on.
These are easy ways to add intent: take the same, basic movement, throw in some structure – and suddenly your morning stroll becomes effective, purposeful training.
Below are McBride’s five ways to level up your next lunchtime walk.
1. The 5K Benchmark Walk
5k for time
- Set up a consistent route
- Time your walk
- Aim to beat it once per month
This is your baseline. Pick a flat (or repeatable) 5k route and treat it like a time trial. Walk with purpose – move the arms, keep a brisk cadence and hold a good pace throughout. Note your time and revisit it every few weeks, aiming to shave minutes off.
Simple, measurable and a lot tougher than you might think once you start to push it.
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2. Interval Walk
1 min fast, 2 mins easy × 20 minutes
- 1 min fast pace
- 2 mins easy recovery
- Repeat for 20 mins
Think of this as walking’s answer to classic conditioning intervals. Your 'fast' pace should feel purposeful – right on the edge of uncomfortable – while your easy pace allows you to recover without fully stopping.
Over 20 minutes, the repeated surges elevate your heart rate and build cardiovascular fitness without the joint impact of running.
3. Weighted Walk (Rucking)
20–40 mins with a backpack or weighted vest (5–15kg)
- Load a backpack with 5-15kg, or throw on a weighted vest
- Walk for 20-40 minutes
A personal favourite of McBride’s, rucking adds a strength element to your walks. The added load forces your core, glutes and upper back to work harder, while increasing overall energy expenditure. Keep your posture strong and avoid leaning excessively forward.
Start lighter and shorter, then build up as your tolerance improves.
4. Step Target Walk
10-15k steps across the day
- Accumulate 10,000-15,000 steps
- Break it up across the day
Not every session needs to be intense. If your day is packed, this approach keeps you moving by slotting walks into the gaps – morning, lunchtime, post-dinner. It’s less about pace and more about consistency. Where do you want to be by lunchtime? What about the end of work? How many steps do you want to be left mopping up on your evening walk?
Perfect for staying active without needing to carve out a dedicated training window.
5. Pyramid Walk
1 min fast, 1 min easy / 2 mins fast, 2 mins easy / 3,3 / 4,4 etc. then back down
- Build intervals up and back down
- Choose your peak duration
Start with 1 minute fast, 1 minute easy and continue climbing. Once you hit your chosen peak, reverse the ladder back down. The increasing intervals challenge your pacing and endurance, while the descending side lets you push harder as the durations shorten.
How high you go is up to you – how much time you have, and how hard you want to work.
The Bottom Line
Whether you’re looking to build a base, burn more calories or simply make your daily movement more engaging, these protocols prove that walking doesn’t have to be passive. With a bit of structure, that daily stroll becomes strenuous training.
With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.
As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.
Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.
You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.
