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<\/p>\nFor Dianne Bourne, the unique walking method was a “near-perfect” way to ease back into exercise in the new year.<\/p>\n
Ewan Mowat Deputy Lifestyle, Trends, & Showbiz Editor and Dianne Bourne<\/p>\n
20:00, 12 Feb 2026Updated 20:28, 12 Feb 2026<\/p>\n
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The MEN’s Dianne Bourne turned to Japanese walking in a bid to improve her fitness(Image: Dianne Bourne\/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n
The start of a new year is often a time for a fresh fitness<\/a> regime. People see it is a good opportunity to get over a Christmas<\/a> period of eating and drinking a bit too much, kicking off a new year in the right way.<\/p>\n For Manchester Evening News Lifestyle Editor Dianne Bourne<\/a>, that was certainly the case. She had “failed to set foot inside her trainers, let alone a gym” for most of 2025 and had “over-indulged” during the festive season.<\/p>\n Thinking back to the dark days of the coronavirus<\/a> pandemic, one of the bright spots for Dianne was getting into the “best shape of her life” by using the one hour a day we were allocated for exercise<\/a>. While that in itself is a wild memory, it gave Dianne the time to start running.<\/p>\n Starting by doing intervals of walking and running, she was “running 10ks with ease” after a wee while. Her fitness dropped off after the country opened back up again and exercise took an understandable back seat compared to dining out and socialising.<\/p>\n Bringing it back to this year, Dianne admitted she was “left seriously out of breath” just by walking up the stairs. Because of this, kicking off any big fitness regime “filled her with dread”. But then she remembered something she had read about a method of swiftly building up fitness.<\/p>\n The ‘Japanese walking’ concept is interval-based exercise: walking<\/a> for 30 minutes in alternating three-minute intervals of slow walking and fast walking. For best results, it is suggested people do this four or five times every week.<\/p>\n It’s known as Japanese walking as the method was first researched by experts at Shinshu University in Japan. They found that it was a great way for participants to improve their cardiovascular health, boosting endurance in a low-impact way.<\/p>\n Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google\u2019s preferred sources. Click HERE<\/a><\/p>\n It is also said to be a more effective way to improve fitness than just setting daily goals, like the 10,000 steps that many people strive for. For Dianne, one of the best parts of the method is that ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ is entirely personal, so the pacing is based on your own fitness and not some predetermined number.<\/p>\n The quicker walking should be brisk enough that you’d struggle to hold a conversation, while the slower periods should give you time to get your breath back. There is no step goal and no fitness tracker required, just something to time the three-minute intervals and, of course, comfy shoes.<\/p>\n Having struggled to find the time to hit 10,000 steps every day in 2025, Dianne was keen to see how she got on with Japanse walking. She did choose to use her fitness tracker to check her progress, including her heart rate levels and how far she was walking each session.<\/p>\n Dianne said: “If this method, with a commitment of four days a week and only 30 minutes, could work just as well [as walking 10,000 steps daily], then that was a winner to me. I’m a 48-year-old mum of two children so fitting any kind of fitness into the schedule can sometimes feel like a juggle.”<\/p>\n Dianne walked four days a week and saw improvements in her health and fitness very quickly(Image: Dianne Bourne\/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n Read on to see how Dianne got on.<\/p>\n Week one<\/p>\n “I’ve had my fill of Christmas over-indulgence, and on New Year’s Eve I start my plan for Japanese walking for the month. Heading out I admit at first I found the fast walking was getting me really out of breath, but the three minutes slow walking recovery helped to get me through.<\/p>\n “Knowing it was only three minutes of fast walking at a time made it so much easier to complete the full 30 minutes, rather than thinking I was having to do brisk walking for an extended period.<\/p>\n “I started out by simply walking around local housing estates, and finding new routes and streets that I’d not been round for years, so I got to have a nosy about my local area too. In that first week I was averaging around 3,000 steps for each walk, and average pace according to my tracker was a pretty slow 17 minutes per km.<\/p>\n “This starter week I was still eating up all the last of the Christmas chocolates and cheese though. So with all the walking in the world I knew it would not be good news on the scales, and yep, I lost nothing.”<\/p>\n Resting heart rate: 75 bpm<\/p>\n Average speed: 17’07 per km<\/p>\n Week two<\/p>\n “Oh great, and then the snow came. This is the one downside of choosing walking for fitness – the Great British weather.<\/p>\n “Trying to keep on track, I did attempt to venture out on the first really snowy day that we had – but the snow was just too deep to get any kind of “fast walk” going. But I did still make the effort to trudge around for half an hour which I feel worked my muscles anyway just trying to stay upright.<\/p>\n “Thankfully, the snow all melted again within two days, so I was able to head back out to pound the streets with the interval walking. And I could start to feel a real difference already.<\/p>\n “This swiftly showed on the Fitness tracker, as my resting heart rate reduced by the end of week two, and it showed that I was burning more calories too. I seemed to have really picked up pace since the first week – the tracker showing I was now at an average of 13 minutes per km.<\/p>\n “This week I also started to tackle my diet as well in a bid to shed some pounds as well as get back into fitness. I’ve been following the new-look Slimming World diet (of which I’ll be writing more about in a future feature), and getting back into the swing of that saw me hit a big weight loss of 6lbs this week, which really gave me a boost to continue with the fitness side of things too.”<\/p>\n Resting heart rate: 70 bpm<\/p>\n Average speed: 13′ 39 per km<\/p>\n Dianne said the results in just a few weeks were ‘incredible'(Image: Dianne Bourne\/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n Week three<\/p>\n “I’d really hit my stride this week, and no matter what the weather, I was pulling on my big padded coat and hitting my local park and walkways to enjoy feeling more energised. I started to really look forward to the three minutes fast, and the feeling of the blood pumping round my body.<\/p>\n “Keen to fit walks in when I could, I roped friends into giving it a try too, in between coffee house stops which made it more fun and social too. It felt like this was now a routine that just fitted into my daily lifestyle – and I think that’s ultimately the best kind of exercise.<\/p>\n “It made me keen to venture out to other local parks and wildlife areas to give myself a change of scenery and enjoy the fresh air. The tracker showed I was steadily improving my speed too – again without feeling I was doing anything different as I was simply going as fast as I could on those three minute intervals.”<\/p>\n Resting heart rate: 65 bpm<\/p>\n Average speed: 13′ 04 per km<\/p>\n Week four<\/p>\n “By this week I was feeling well into the routine of the walking, and started to combine the 30 minute sessions with the school drop off in the morning. Completing the session early left me feeling energised for the day of work ahead.<\/p>\n “By the end of this week I was able to look back through my fitness tracker to see the overall fitness gains from week one through to week four. The big change was my resting heart rate, down by more than ten points from the start of January when it was 75bpm, to 62 bpm by the end of January. I did genuinely feel so much fitter – walking up stairs no longer got me ridiculously out of breath.<\/p>\n “On the start date, I covered 3,000 steps in the 30 minutes, but by the end I was nearer 4,000 steps in the same time. And the average speed was showing that across that 30 minute I was clearly overall walking much faster – covering a km in an average of 12 minutes on the final week as opposed to 17 minutes at the very start.<\/p>\n “If you’re looking at the average speed thinking “that’s ridiculously slow” remember this is averaging both the fast walks and the slow intervals across the full 30 minutes.<\/p>\n “What I also found interesting was that on the four days each week I was doing the 30 minute session, on almost all of those days I ended up hitting 10,000 steps or more without even trying. I could also see a steady progression of my overall walks getting faster, even though each time I was doing essentially the same thing – walking as fast as I could for three minutes, and then slow for three minutes.”<\/p>\n Resting heart rate: 62 bpm<\/p>\n Average speed: 12’48 per km<\/p>\n Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community!<\/p>\n Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today.<\/p>\n You’ll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland.<\/p>\n No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team.<\/p>\n![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0_Dianne-Bourne.jpg\")
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