A Quick 5-Minute Warm-Up Routine for Walkers

Warm-up Before Walking 

It’s important to gradually warm-up your body before you exercise. A warm-up helps your joints move more freely and lengthens muscles that may have been held in a shortened position during inactivity, improving your ability to generate strength and power.^1,2  

Jumping straight into a brisk walk without warming up can leave muscles stiff, limiting movement and making it harder to maintain speed and power.² Cold muscles are like a stiff, frozen rubber band – they’re tight and less flexible, which can increase the risk of injury. A quick warm-up makes them pliable and ready for action.³  

Warm-up exercises should be tailored to match the specific movements and intensity of your activity.⁴ While a leisurely stroll doesn’t require a warm-up, walking for exercise usually means picking up the pace. A brisk walk engages many muscles and joints that benefit from warming up, including: 

• Hips  
• Glutes 
• Thighs (quadriceps & hamstrings) 
• Knees 
• Calves 
• Ankles.⁵  

You also use muscles in your upper body as you swing your arms in line with your lower body including the muscles of your torso, shoulders, and arms.  

5-Minute Warm-Up Routine  

Here are a few exercises that can help warm-up your body before your next walk. Do each for about 30 seconds or 10 repetitions (at least 5 on each side or in each direction, where applicable). 

Upper Body 

• Shoulder rolls – Standing with your feet hip-witch apart and arms relaxed at your sides, lift your shoulders slowly rotating them in a circular motion. Rotate 5 times forward and 5 times backward.^6,7,8  
• Arm Circles – Standing with your feet hip width apart, hold your arms out to your sides at shoulder height, palms down. Move your arms in small circles progressively increasing the size of the circles as you become more flexible. Do a set of circles forward and backward.^6,9  
• Arm Swings – Standing with your feet hip width apart and holding your arms loosely at your sides, swing your arms forward and backward. Keep a loose, relaxed swinging motion. You can gradually increase the range of motion as you swing your arms back, allowing them to go further behind you or in front and above you. Next swing your arms horizontally across your chest and back out at shoulder level, switching the top arm each time you swing across your chest.¹⁰  
• Torso Rotation – Standing with your feet hip width apart (your knees can have a soft bend). stretch your arms out in front of you with one hand clasped on top of the other. Slowly rotate your torso to one side, come back to stop momentarily at the center, then rotate to the other side.^11,12  

Lower Body 

• Hip Hinges – Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and your hands at your hips, hinge at your hips slowly bending over at the hip pushing your buttocks back. Come back up to standing. You should feel this in your hamstrings (back of your thighs) and buttocks. You can keep a soft knee, but be sure you’re “hinging” at the hips, not squatting at the knees.^3,13  
• Hip Circles – Standing with your feet hip-width apart and your hands on your hips, gently rotate your hips in a circular motion (like you’re using a hula hoop, but in a slow and controlled movement). Switch directions.^14,15  
• Hip (Gate) Openers & Closers –  Standing tall with your hands on your hips (next to a surface, if needed for balance), lift one knee up to about 90 degrees, rotate it out to the side as far as you’re able without rotating your torso, touch down with your toe then lift your knee again and bring it back in to the starting position. (You can let your knee fall in toward your body to feel the full hip rotation when returning to the original position).¹⁶
• Squats – Stand with your feet hip-width apart, sit back into a squatting position, as if you were sitting down in a chair. Keep your chest up and spine tall and your weight evenly distributed between both feet. Stand back up.^17,18  
• Heel-to-Toe Rock – Standing with your feet a few inches apart, gently roll up onto the balls of your feet and toes lifting your heels off the ground; then gently roll back onto your heels lifting your toes off the ground. Roll forward and back as one repetition.^8,19,20  
• Marching High Knees – Standing tall with your feet hip-width apart, begin marching. Once you’ve marched a few times, place your arms out in front of you and raise your knees slightly higher to try to touch your knees to your hands as you march. This is a great way to get your heart rate up a bit before you begin your walk.^7,21,22  

When you’ve completed the warm-up exercises, don’t go straight into a brisk walk. Start with a few minutes of slow walking to allow your muscles to get progressively warmer before you move to a faster pace.⁵ Enjoy your walk!