“Walking can improve lower-body strength if you’re not used to doing exercise, but to really improve it you need regular resistance training – ideally twice a week – with exercises like squats and lunges,” he says. “If you enjoy walking but aren’t comfortable with running, and want to increase the intensity of your workouts, adding resistance training is a great option.”

Another twist on interval walking is “eccentric walking” which means including muscle-lengthening movements like lunges and up and downhill walking, adds exercise scientist Professor Ken Nosaka from Edith Cowan University.

“If you can incorporate these movements into a walk it can improve leg strength,” says Nosaka whose 2023 research with Japanese colleagues found that eight weeks of eccentric walking also improved balance and cognition in a group of older walkers. “It may look eccentric if we include lunges while going for a walk, but the more people do it and benefit from it, the less eccentric it will become.”

Does interval walking have brain benefits compared with regular walking? There’s not enough research to know – but there’s evidence that regular HIIT can, and that its effects are long-lasting. Last year, researchers at the University of Queensland found that six months of HIIT training improved brain function, including memory, in healthy 65 to 85-year-olds. Their training involved three weekly treadmill sessions switching between four minutes working at 85 to 95 per cent of their maximum heart rate with three minutes of recovery at a slower pace.

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“Five years later, the improvements to cognition were still there, even though the participants hadn’t continued doing HIIT,” says Dr Daniel Blackmore, research fellow with the Queensland Brain Institute.

But if your aim is to get fitter, Sabag’s advice is to see interval walking as a stepping stone towards better fitness, rather than an end in itself.

“It’s a fantastic place to begin – but not your final destination. It’s also important to do something you like doing and that you’ll keep on doing,” he says.

How intense is your workout?

If you don’t have a device to measure your heart rate, this guide from the Better Health Channel shows you how. Or use their talk test as a rough guide:

• If you can talk and sing with no puffing, you’re exercising at a low level.
• If you can comfortably talk, but not sing, you’re doing moderate-intensity activity.
• If you can’t say more than a few words without gasping for breath, you’re exercising at a vigorous intensity.

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