I did this 21-minute walking workout on my lunch break for a week—here’s what surprised me

Returning to exercise after a long break can feel daunting, especially if your fitness and strength is not what it once was. For me, recovering from a disc injury has meant learning to respect where my body is at right now, rather than jumping straight back into high-intensity cardio.

Recently, I’ve been looking for more gentle ways to support my cardiovascular health and landed on walking as an ideal low-impact option that still offers significant health benefits, but I’ve struggled to find the time. Many outdoor walking workouts seem to last at least 30 minutes and that simply doesn’t fit into my working day.

I came across a 16-minute routine that featured seven intervals of brisk walking. To align with the well-established recommendation that everyone should do 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week, I increased the intervals to 10 to make a 21-minute workout, which I did daily for seven days.

How to do the walking workout

• Warm-up: 3min leisurely walk
• Intervals: 1min steady walk followed by 30sec easy walk, repeated 10 times
• Cool-down: 3min leisurely walk

Some walking workouts suggest using heart rate zones to guide your effort. But if, like me, you don’t wear a fitness tracker or smartwatch, then you can use a simple scale of one to 10 to judge how hard you feel you’re working (also known as the rate of perceived exertion):

• Leisurely: 1-2 effort out of 10
• Easy: 3-5 effort out of 10
• Steady: 6-7 effort out of 10
• Fast: 8-10 effort out of 10

For this workout, I kept my warm-up and cool-downs between leisurely and easy effort, I did my brisk walk intervals at the higher end of steady effort and slowed down to an easy effort for the rest periods.

My experience of this workout

It’s flexible enough for a busy schedule

Committing to 21 minutes of moderate movement a day felt manageable with a busy schedule. But the structure of the workout also meant I could adapt it to suit my weekly schedule.

On days when I had more time, I extended the intervals to two minutes, which made for a 30-minute workout.

On other days, I did eight intervals but added on seven minutes of continuous brisk walking before the cool-down.

I had to be more mindful and disciplined with my lunch break to slot in this walk, but surprisingly, I still had time to eat lunch and even complete a quick household chore. It just goes to show, you don’t always need hours in the gym to stay active.

I realised the benefit of a work break

It’s easy to power through the day without taking a break outdoors, but committing to daily movement to hit the target of 150 minutes of moderate cardio a week forced me to pause work, lace up my shoes and get outside.

A change of scenery and a hit of fresh autumnal air energized me and left me feeling far less sluggish. In fact, most days I was even able to dodge the dreaded mid-afternoon slump, which felt great.

One-minute intervals felt surprisingly effective

Considering I used to complete high-intensity CrossFit workouts, I was skeptical about how effective one-minute walking intervals could be. I don’t wear a fitness watch—preferring to tune into my body—but I noticed that by the last few sets, I was breathing faster and felt noticeably warmer.

To make each interval count, I had to stay focused and push the pace from the start—there was no time for slacking when the work periods were this short.

On the days I increased the intervals to two minutes, the workout felt most effective because I spent longer at an elevated heart rate, but it still remained a low-impact activity.