Walking back to happiness. How the Co-Founder of trundl went from doing everything at speed to getting fitter and healthier with a daily walk

Walking as a form of fitness is under-rated from the get-go

Learning to walk is a much-anticipated early childhood milestone that is quickly overtaken by other achievements like sleeping through the night and  unlocking a smartphone. Once into adulthood, walking is rarely presented as a ‘marketable’ form of fitness.  As a result, it can be seen as a dull way of getting from A to B if there’s no wheeled alternative .

Like most people, I’ve been lucky enough to be mobile for most of my life.  But, I didn’t really see it as ‘proper’ exercise until injury, the lockdown and trundl came along.

‘Proper exercise’ is about getting sweaty, right?

Being a dog-owning and light-car-using household, there was a lot of walking in my childhood.  Or at least there should have been had been.  Why walk if you can run was my motto. And if there was the chance to jump over and off or climb up things, I’d add that in too.  At school I was the ‘hyper’ kid, as we were called then, who wanted to be on every team.

Later, when I had to fit exercise in around studies or work, I chose activities that could satisfy that need for a ‘burn’. Invariably, exercise sessions could only be scheduled around city and social life and as a result, injuries mounted up.

Walking becomes the best exercise option

Running and impact needed to stop and as I am not a swimmer, walking was the most viable option.  Walking 3-4 times a week and fitting them in around a commute didn’t at first feel satisfying. But when Covid 19 forced us into our homes and a daily walk became the routine, I started to notice a difference.

While I no longer had the ‘satisfaction’ of being sweaty and out of puff, the daily walks were building much leaner muscle tone. Particularly with those hard-to-reach glutes and hip abductors. Back-pain, which I had always accepted as part of my life, became less recurrent too.  And provided I still did the set stretches, my hips became more stable and less prone to ‘popping’.  This improved joint performance is neatly articulated in an article from Harvard Medical School ‘Walking protects the joints — especially the knees and hips, which are most susceptible to osteoarthritis — by lubricating them and strengthening the muscles that support them’.

Walking in nature for a purpose makes exercise even more meaningful

By now too, we’d launched  trundl the walking for charity app, and I was learning more about the scientific evidence behind the benefits of walking.  About how invaluable walking in nature is for our mental health, as outlined in this article from our friends at The Ramblers.  Running the trundl app meant we had to go out every day in all weathers. Soon, if I didn’t have a walking day for some reason, I felt quite out of sorts.  Particularly as that also meant my steps hadn’t added up towards creating donations for one of our causes. Save the Children has called that feeling of accomplishment at the end of a charity walk the ‘helper’s high’.

Knowing that you’re walking to help others as well as yourself has surprisingly strong benefits to self esteem and emotional wellbeing.  It’s a key element in the design of trundl’s virtuous ecosystem. You’re nudged to go out to help some important causes. In return you stay mobile and healthy and feel mentally rewarded for doing your bit and getting fitter and healthier with every walk and enriched from being outdoors.

Having barely a sound joint between us proved to be the inspiration that Hil Mines and I needed to create the trundl walking app.  And we hope that it not only becomes a force for good in charity fundraising, but that it also keeps us – and many like us – on the roads and paths for a lot longer than our dodgy hips, knees and backs might ordinarily have allowed.