[00:00:00] Josh Kennedy: Today's topic is the 20 minute walk test and this is one of our basic aerobic tests that we do within the Strength Matters assessments. We also do a 2k row, 10 minute salt bike test and, if and when appropriate, a 5k run. Um, it's a bit of an aerobic snapshot, shall we say, and I think When we give it to most people, they think it's going to be easier than it actually is.
[00:00:28] Josh Kennedy: And I think steps and number of steps, like taking 10, 000 steps, is becoming, being talked about much more, becoming more mainstream. We know For fat loss, you ideally need to do at least 8, 500 steps. So it's been talked about more. What's not being talked about, though, which is something that we're talking about, is walking at speed, which is the whole point of the 20 minute walk test.
[00:00:52] Josh Kennedy: James, we've got a little study. Well, we didn't do the study, but there is research out there about why you need to walk
[00:00:58] James Breese: at speed. Yeah, so [00:01:00] we were looking at volume. So when we built up WWF Walk, Water, Sleep, our method for like, before anyone starts to do any training plan or nutrition plan, they need to walk 7, 500 steps a day, they need to, 7, 000 steps a day, they need to drink seven glasses of water and sleep seven hours a night.
[00:01:15] James Breese: We started looking more into the research about walking. And then we came up with this study, the study of four, I'll read out exactly what it says here on the actual study itself. It was a study of 475, 000 people by the University of Leicester. They found women who walk briskly at over 4 miles per hour enjoy a life expectancy boost of up to 15 years over those who walk at less than 3 miles an hour.
[00:01:38] James Breese: For men, the life expectancy boost was even higher at around 20 years. Now, anecdotally, I've seen over the years Look at all the number of old people who shuffle around in the streets, who struggle to cross the road, who struggle to, you know, walk anywhere without a Zimmer frame potentially or a mobility scooter.
[00:01:56] James Breese: I am adamant that that's not going to happen to me. I do not [00:02:00] want to be that person when I'm 90 or 100 years old. I want to be snowboarding. So I was like in this going, ooh, this is interesting. So where do we go with this? Yes, we need volume as well, to improve health expectancy, life expectancy, and basic fitness.
[00:02:13] James Breese: There's a great way of boosting aerobic fitness too, in terms of doing it for long periods of time, but we need to look at the speed side of things. Yeah, exactly, 100 percent vitamin D, all that sort of stuff, right? But for this, for me, this was like, Ooh, this is potentially game changing. We now compare and contrast the two of them for a real boost.
[00:02:31] James Breese: So, let's give it a go. So, we did a variety of different tests. Obviously, you know, we tried it out. Then we just walked four miles in an hour. And it was okay. It was doable. But it was tough. Then I asked other people to do it. And they struggled. They really struggled, because they hadn't walked for that long period of time before.
[00:02:49] James Breese: Particularly the Americans. Sorry Americans, I'm going to pick on you guys here now. Because Europeans were used to this walking pace. And we're used to walking everywhere, whereas our American counterparts, if they don't live in a big city, [00:03:00] they're not. So we found, this is interesting, so we can't get them to do a 4 mile an hour walk test.
[00:03:04] James Breese: Let's bring them down a little bit first. So we ended up settling on this idea of like, can you walk 1. 5 miles, or 2. 41 kilometers for our European friends, in 20 minutes? And that was a really good way of finding a benchmark of getting people to do it. Most people couldn't do it. But, with a bit of training, right, we have people of all ages being able now to do it, from young to old in their 60s, right?
[00:03:30] James Breese: And that's the big thing, because you can't make a 60 year old go run a 5k test. It's just inappropriate. Or in some cases, a 2k row, or a you know, an assault bike test. It's just too much, or they haven't got the equipment. So, but what this is a great leveler, because we all hopefully need to walk, right?
[00:03:48] James Breese: And this is a great level for everybody. And I see a lot of people, even like good athletes, struggling to do this 1. 5 miles an hour in 20 minutes. They think, yeah, I [00:04:00] can do it easy. They go and try it, and they struggle. They struggle. So it's a great way of test of helping people get out and walk more.
[00:04:08] James Breese: It's a great way of help basic, uh, boosting basic aerobic capacity for a lot of people who don't move, but more importantly, we're doing it based on the studies to improve people's life expectancy, to maintain their walking speed as they age, which I think is more important than anything
[00:04:24] Josh Kennedy: else. Yeah, a hundred percent.
[00:04:25] Josh Kennedy: I mean, we're all about health and longevity here. If you haven't got your health, you don't have anything. So, you know, that's why we give everyone, no matter what your age or ability. When you do the assessments, you get the 20 minute walk test and we try to give it to everyone. Open to the point where they pass that test in an ideal world, get to 1.
[00:04:44] Josh Kennedy: 5 miles and not everyone can do it. We get people as close as we can. Um, but what I love is when people, when we give people the goal, we don't initially tell them what we want them to do. We just say, well, 20 minutes as fast as you can. And then when we say, Well, what do I [00:05:00] need to get to? Oh, it's 1. 5 miles.
[00:05:01] Josh Kennedy: They love it. They see it then as a challenge. Um, you know, we've had quite a few clients who's like, right, I'm going to do that three times, four times a week. And until I, until I nail that 1. 5 miles, it's a really
[00:05:11] James Breese: good challenge. Exactly. And the other good thing as well is it's something that you can do easily and incorporate as part of your daily life, walking into town, walking into places.
[00:05:19] James Breese: And it's also something that I find, normally, if I was going to say to somebody, Right, I want you to do a balls to the wall 2k road test every day for the next, They'd be like, no, six weeks. No, it's not a good, that's not a good way to improve your 2k road time. However, conversely, I found with this, is that the more often you do it, it's more like the SED principle.
[00:05:39] James Breese: Like, you do it often enough, and it literally is having an effect, and it doesn't affect Their training, their daily life, or anything else at all, it seems to have a positive effect on it. So, we're getting people to do, like I said, to do the test three, four, five times a week sometimes, or wherever they can, just to get used to building up this walking pace so it becomes natural.
[00:05:58] James Breese: So building, which we have this thing [00:06:00] called And we want to build your speed base, essentially, so you can operate below a certain threshold with some of our athletes we're working with, right? So, if we increase their speed from 20 miles an hour to 22 miles an hour, it means working and operating at 20 miles an hour becomes way more efficient, and it becomes less chance of injury.
[00:06:17] James Breese: That's essentially what the speed guy's doing for so many conditioning sports. Well, we're doing the same with this. We want to increase the speed, right, as far, as fast as we possibly can do, to increase their walking speed reserve, basically. To make it easier, so life becomes so much easier for them, and yeah, it works, and people love it.
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[00:07:12] Josh Kennedy: They do. And it's funny how you, when you're walking at speed, how you suddenly realize, Oh, I might need to work on my hip mobility or ankle mobility a little bit, because you shouldn't remember the first time I.
[00:07:22] Josh Kennedy: Tried it. I realized that the mobility in my right leg was horrendous because my foot was like just slapping on the floor as I was trying to like, walk really quickly and the, uh, and the burn in the shins was delightful as well at the end.
[00:07:35] James Breese: Exactly. I, you know, I do it every year, test it out and everything.
[00:07:38] James Breese: It's, it's still, it's a, you know, it's a good way just to humbly explain just to make sure you keep that base and you keep walking fast everywhere. But also, conversely, and you can probably explain a bit more about this as well, Josh, because... We've been working with one of our clients, Sarah Paquella, who has been rehabbing her knee, she had a knee surgery, didn't she, a year and a half ago, and she wanted to get back to running because she was a runner.
[00:07:58] James Breese: So, what did we do? [00:08:00] Just, well, talk us through the protocols, actually.
[00:08:01] Josh Kennedy: Well, obviously she got the walk test, she was fine to walk, and I was, uh, she'd given me some information from her physio, which we were trying to incorporate into the... Training plan as well. So we built up to pass the walk test. Then we extended out.
[00:08:13] Josh Kennedy: So we did 30 minutes and then 40 45 all the way up to 60 minutes. Once we got to 60 minutes, we then brought it back down to 20. We started doing weighted walks. So again, the goal was get back up to 60 minutes, but still be able to do with 5 percent body weight. And still be able to hit that four miles in 60 minutes, then you can do 10 percent 50.
[00:08:35] Josh Kennedy: I think we got up to like 15 percent body weight with her hitting the four miles over four miles in 60 minutes. So in fact, I think she got five miles once, which was incredible. Um, and then from there we went to walk, jog, obviously without a weight vest. And we've just, it's just built her conditioning up, you know, bones, tendons, ligaments, aerobic based, everything to enable her, she's like.
[00:08:57] Josh Kennedy: Running now, smashing it, doing 5k's, we're [00:09:00] building up to 10k in under 60 minutes. So from, from where she was a year and a half ago, uh, she's done incredible.
[00:09:06] James Breese: Didn't you do a 5k run test more recently at like 24 minutes for the first time she's run that? Since that, and she found it fairly, obviously not easy, but you know, she did a great job hitting that.
[00:09:19] James Breese: So that's without doing any running and building up to that stage where we're building up to that stage so she can start this post knee surgery. So it's a great rehab tool and more than anything guys, it's one of the best fat loss tools I think we have at our disposal. I think particularly adding on here, adding a 30 minute walk or 20 minute walk test into your day is doable.
[00:09:39] James Breese: You add this onto it, you add a bit of weight. Like when you can get to these sorts of stages, you're starting to add all these numbers up. And it's so, it's probably the most powerful tool we add on top of the training and nutrition to add this 30 minute walk with a bit of a weighted walk, but do it at speed and see how it goes.
[00:09:55] Josh Kennedy: Exactly, exactly. It's all about doing it at speed. And as you say, those Statistics for [00:10:00] increased life expectancy are, you know, incredible, aren't they? And who wouldn't want to live an extra 15 or 20 years? Exactly. Uh, that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. And if you want to find out more about our system of training, go to strengthmanners.
[00:10:14] Josh Kennedy: com forward slash system.