Super Charge Your Walks - A Walking Only Interval Workout
Interval training involves alternating "work" periods (sometimes otherwise known as "sprint" intervals) of higher intensity exercise with low intensity "recovery" periods. Each pair of a work interval including a recovery interval is often called a round, plus your total workout is defined by a warmup, a desired quantity of rounds, followed by a cool-down.
Walking
High Intensity Interval training (HIIT) is a very demanding type of workout, and the phrase "high intensity" often scares many trainees, so avoid being afraid to start out too basic and slowly increase the a higher level difficulty. When I was reading Turbulence Training, Craig Ballantyne stood a great explanation for interval intensity. If on the scale of 0 - 10, 0 isn't moving at all and 10 is running for the life.. then the ideal work interval is about an 8. A very important thing to remember though is that even 'running for your life' changes speeds for different people.
Understand that if you have not trained in quite a while... or have never tried HIIT before, then obviously any good work interval of 8 might be too much for you. In your case, a good work interval may well be a fast walk pace. It really is determined by you and you should definitely not afraid to start out too simple and progress to increased difficulty. You can always make it harder at the next workout, but when you go to hard before you are ready you could set yourself back with injuries or simply get discouraged.
An example Beginniner's Workout
3-5 minutes easy walking
Walk in a leisurely pace. Just receive the blood moving and acquire loosened up. Spend the past minute walking a bit faster to get you ready for your first interval.
Walking Routes
30 seconds of fast Walking
Recall the 0-10 intensity scale? If you're just getting started with some walking intervals than aim for a 6. This should actually be a fast/brisk walk. Imagine you might be late for a big interview and also need to hurry. If you fail to maintain this for A few seconds, shoot for 20.
90 seconds of slow walking
Immediately drop your speed to whatever you decide and need to catch your breath, but keep moving. A complete standstill is just too taxing on the heart. As you recover you can bring the rate up again slightly. If you need more than 90 seconds initially than go ahead and take it. Shoot for 6 rounds of the and then follow it up with another 3-5 minutes of easy walking being a cool down.
Do this Three times per week, being sure to take a day off in between each workout. Once you get a handle on the 30:90 intervals, add another round in. When it's possible to do 8 rounds of 30:90, then first give attention to cutting down the amount of time to recover. Go to 30 seconds of fast walking then 75 seconds of slow recovery. Again drop down to 6 rounds. When it's possible to handle 8 rounds again, cut another Just a few seconds off of your time to recover and drop back to 6 rounds. By doing this you aren't following a strict schedule which says you should be at this level doing X number of reps by day X, but you are steadily progressing your own rate. Be sure to log everything down in a very journal so that you can see your progress.
When you are back to 8 rounds of 30:60 second intervals, then try upping the project intervals by 15 seconds while keeping the recovery period fixed at A minute. Drop to 6 total rounds and work your way back to 8, adding 15 more seconds of labor until your rounds are A minute of brisk walking (apt to be almost a jog right now) and 60 seconds of slow recovery. Right now, I promise that you will be transformed for a inactive and ready (and hopefully energetic willing and able) to begin pursuing more intense styles of training.