If you are thinking of buying a walking machine, you might want to consult people who have been using one for a year.

I bought the walker in September 2020 and continue to use it. There is a gap between expectations and reality.

For fat loss exercise

The walker was my first fat-loss exercise tool. At the peak of fat loss, the exercise mode was almost only treadmill running, with the highest monthly running amount of 200KM.

At first, the walker worked very well. Exercise anytime and anywhere, not affected by the weather or epidemic, and can also take care of the children. Sports can be combined with leisure, while running while brushing drama, it is not too cool.

The bottleneck soon arrived.

  1. There’s no show I want to watch.
  2. The heart rate starts to slow down.

The core requirement of a fat loss exercise is to have a heart rate in the fat loss range.

For me, it’s between 110 and 140. Jogging at the highest pace on a walking machine:

  • Heart rate starts at 130,
  • A week or so 130 down,
  • After two or three weeks, it’s hard to get to 120.
  • With my high running rate, my maximum heart rate is fast enough to break 115,
  • I finally stopped running on the treadmill when I couldn’t even reach 110.

It took months for my body to fully adjust to the treadmill. For the purpose of burning fat, the exercise effect is greatly reduced.

In addition, the walker has a very low difficulty ceiling. It can only be placed flat can not climb, the speed limit of 6KM/H. What is this concept? It takes 10 minutes per kilometre at the fastest. Many ordinary outdoor runners can easily run at four to seven minutes per kilometer. You want to get your heart rate up by running faster, and you can’t do that on a walker.

Don’t forget the common risks of walking and treadmills, where a single stimulus can amplify poor posture and cause injuries. With my high run rate, I’m lucky I’ve been able to get away with it for months.

For time balancing

As I mentioned, I watch TV while jogging. Why not try to do some input or output? The value per unit of time is higher: the same amount of time, both exercise and growth. This is what I originally hoped for.

The first thing to be let go is output. Output has two ways: hand typing, mobile phone voice input.

The former is really difficult, bought a lift table in front of the walking machine, maintaining balance and coordination has become difficult, let alone typing.

The latter is good. Iflytek voice recognition is great, but it takes a lot of work and makes you dizzy. In addition, I do not pronounce standard Mandarin, the recognition rate is not very good, if not timely correction, I can not recognize what said.

Then the input is let go.

Browsing the web requires frequent operations. This is as difficult as typing on a keyboard. It’s good to listen to lessons and audio. I still do it, but it’s still hard work.

Inertia is that they are more willing to choose a good drama to motivate themselves to run longer to watch a movie, or run longer than 3-5 km to get the length of 40 minutes (domestic drama) or 50 minutes (two American dramas).

Besides, one can’t go many days without entertainment. If the rest of the time is full of business, thinking every day, and then even running time continues to input and output… That’s great. You don’t need to clear your head, do you?

You can still buy it

I’m not telling you not to buy it. My intention is only one: there are scenarios for walking machines, and you’d better decide if it’s right for you.

In these cases, walking machines are very useful:

  • Not suitable for going out, need to exercise at home: the weather, watching children, want to watch TV
  • The amount of exercise required is not high: an average of 30-60 minutes of brisk walking or jogging a day is sufficient, and will not reach the bottleneck of the walking machine
  • Need to make better use of time, want to exercise while watching TV to relax or grow

By the way, there’s one thing about walking machines that I have to warn you about. The mileage and speed are significantly higher than the walking machine’s own counting, and the fat burning value is even several times higher than the walking machine’s own counting. Your perceived difficulty is also significantly lower than running outdoors. — I can barely run half a horse on a treadmill and 10 kilometers outside.

If you don’t know what’s more believable, you might:

  • I burned a lot of fat today, so I ate more. — You may eat more fat
  • I really can run, endurance is really good, speed is really good; — To the outdoors or rookie, a slightly improved rookie

But… This feature is not without its benefits. A novice who has been inactive for a long time needs to build up a sense of how good I am as soon as possible (even if it is an illusion) in order to build a positive motion-effect-continue cycle.

Finally, I would like to add that I still use the walking machine to jog or brisk walk, but the amount of exercise and frequency is not very high, several times a week. Basically with watching videos or movies and TV series.

I wonder if my personal experience can enlighten you? If you have ever used a walker and have a different point of view or technique, please let me know in the comments.