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Japanese Walking Was Tested Against the Walk You Already Do

Training 4 min read 938 words

Along the same route, at a pace that feels comfortable and faintly virtuous, you walk until the step count on your phone says you are done. Short videos keep telling you that Japanese walking, the same outing cut into fast stretches and easy ones, will do more for you than your steady version ever has.

Your kind of walk, a steady pace and a daily step target on most days, is written into the trial behind the trend as the yardstick the fast-and-slow rhythm was measured against for five months, beside a group who did no training at all. That puts your walk on trial right beside the trend.

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Does Japanese Walking Work?

Walkers on the fast-and-slow rhythm, healthy adults in Japan aged 44 to 78 and mostly women, finished the five months with thighs 13% stronger at straightening the knee and 17% stronger at bending it, and with 8 to 9% more aerobic capacity, the most oxygen the body can use at full effort, on cycling and walking tests. Each of those gains was reliably bigger than the steady walkers' change on the same test.

Steady walkers, the trial's version of your walk at about half of their maximum when walking and 8,000 or more steps a day, ended the five months no different on leg strength or aerobic fitness from the group that did no training. Energy spent per day came out about the same in the two walking groups, measured by monitor in all of the rhythm's walkers and some of the steady ones, and the rhythm's walkers got there in 83% of the steady walkers' walking time because their fast stretches were harder work. In the trial behind the trend, Japanese walking worked for thigh strength and aerobic fitness at about the same daily energy cost as your kind of walk.

In the five-month trial behind the trend, healthy adults aged 44 to 78 on fast-and-slow intervals gained 13% and 17% in knee-straightening and knee-bending strength and 8 to 9% in aerobic capacity, each significantly more than steady walkers, although both walking groups used about the same energy a day.

— Nemoto et al. 2007 · Mayo Clinic Proceedings · n=139 (246 enrolled)

Gains followed the fast minutes. People who clocked more fast walking each week gained more estimated fitness, up to about 50 fast minutes a week, where the gains leveled off, in a later and larger group of middle-aged and older adults on the same program, average age 65. Slow minutes and total time on foot showed no such link.

Personal targets set the fast pace for every walker, at 70% or more of their own maximum when walking, and in the original trial a monitor worn on the back measured the effort and beeped when the pace was due to change.

Fast is measured against your own best effort, which makes one walker's strain the next walker's stroll.
Based on Nemoto et al. (2007) · Mayo Clinic Proceedings

Tiredness set the three minutes. Most of the first walkers could not hold the fast pace any longer than that and recovered within two to three minutes. The rhythm is still walking, which makes it lighter work than the hard interval training known as HIIT, according to a 2024 review written with the method's own developers.

Women in both walking groups lost a little weight over the five months while women who did no training put a little on, the men's weight did not change measurably, and the rhythm's walkers are not reported losing more than the steady ones. The body-composition advantage sometimes quoted for interval walking was reported in a trial of people with type 2 diabetes, a different group from these healthy walkers.

Your own version comes down to its fast minutes. The program's minimum, five fast bouts of three minutes on each of four days, adds up to 60 fast minutes a week by FitChef's arithmetic, a shade past the roughly 50 where the later group's gains leveled off. The walkers the original trial counted averaged 32 to 35 minutes of fast walking a day, far beyond that minimum, and trainers checked their data every two weeks and nudged anyone who fell short, closer support than the steady walkers got, though the authors doubt it swayed the results. A phone timer counting out three minutes is not what these trials tested.

Asked to keep the routine up for 22 months, middle-aged and older adults in Matsumoto, Japan, average age 65 and mostly women, walked on 70% of the days their plan asked for, on average, in a government-supported program they had already joined, with no comparison group. The share slipped over time, for everyone and most for those who started at a higher weight for their height, and their estimated fitness rose 12% on average, highest in those who kept at it and falling in those who kept at it least. The original trial's scores carry the same catch, counting only the 48% of rhythm walkers who met their targets, and its authors flag the risk of selection bias, since the walkers counted may not stand for everyone who began.

The one trial here from outside Japan, at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, found sedentary middle-aged walkers, averaging 54, raising their estimated fitness within three months while a comparison group that did no training stayed level, and the walkers' body fat percentage did not change. Like every trial here, it was run with the laboratory at Shinshu University that created the method, its comparison group was picked to match the walkers rather than split off by chance, and the device that paced the walks and estimated the result came from Kissei Comtec, where one of the authors, Toshiaki Yamazaki, is a manager, although the authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Fast minutes drag a long-running fight in cardio into your walk, hard effort against steady volume, which the case for steady zone 2 cardio against going harder weighs up for adults 60 and over. Same route, same shoes, three truly fast minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Japanese walking work for younger people?

Of the interval-walking trials behind this page, one tested younger people, all of them women: sedentary female college students in Japan aged 18 to 24, on a home-based interval walking program run by the laboratory that designed the method. In the winter group, aerobic fitness and knee-bending strength rose in the walkers but not in the students who stayed inactive. In a summer group, walkers managed about half as many walking days a week as the winter walkers during a vacation of about 50 days, and both summer groups ended lower on those measures; the researchers concluded that the program's adherence and results fell in summer at least partly because of the heat. The published summary gives no sizes for these changes, and the other interval-walking trials here tested middle-aged and older adults, so no interval-walking result here covers young men.

Will Japanese walking help you lose belly fat?

The trials behind it show small body changes at most, and no result here measures belly fat itself. The 2007 trial tracked weight: women in both walking groups lost a little over five months while women who did no training gained a little, the men's weight did not change measurably, and the fast-and-slow walkers are not reported losing more than the steady walkers. At the Mayo Clinic, three months of interval walking brought slight drops in weight and in waist and hip size, but body fat percentage did not change, and what people ate was not assessed. The body-composition advantage sometimes quoted for interval walking was reported in a trial of people with type 2 diabetes, a different group from these walkers. For other kinds of interval training, mostly cycling, a 2023 review of 29 trials in young and middle-aged adults, most of the trials in inactive people with obesity, found no difference from steady training in weight or in kilograms of fat lost; interval training's edge in waist size, nearly 1 cm on average, and in body-fat percentage appeared in younger adults but not the middle-aged, and the review's authors doubt it matters in practice. None of those trials tested interval walking.

Can you do Japanese walking on your own with an app?

The interval-walking trials behind this page that describe their setup all used a worn monitor, and none tested a phone-only, do-it-yourself version. In the original trial and in the 22-month program, interval walkers wore a device that tracked their effort and beeped at each change of pace, and trainers reviewed their data every two weeks. A Danish interval-walking app that used the phone's motion sensors and a seven-minute walking test to set each person's pace was downloaded 32,000 times in its first two years, but only a minority kept using it, according to a 2024 review written with the method's developers. The same review notes that people who volunteer for exercise studies are probably more likely to stick with a program than people in general, which it says underlines how hard it is to keep going for the long term.

This page summarizes findings from published research. It is not medical advice. Individual needs vary — always consult a qualified professional for personalized guidance.
For Researchers 10 sources

What the answer rests on. One randomized three-group trial of healthy adults aged 44 to 78 in Japan (Nemoto and colleagues, 2007), analysed per protocol, carries the comparison with steady walking. Four more studies add the dose (Masuki and colleagues, 2019), 22-month adherence (Masuki and colleagues, 2015), a test outside Japan (Lalande and colleagues, 2010) and a test in young women (Tanabe and colleagues, 2018), and a 2024 review written with the method's developers (Karstoft and colleagues) adds context. Three meta-analyses of other training (Guo and colleagues, 2023; Fosstveit and colleagues, 2024; Azimkhani and colleagues, 2026) are frame only; none studied interval walking. Every interval-walking fitness and strength result here comes from the Shinshu University laboratory that designed interval walking training or from a trial run with it. Targeted searches during FitChef's research found no interval-walking trial independent of that laboratory that measured fitness or strength in healthy adults; the one outside randomized trial of interval walking found measured outcomes outside this page's scope. Two of the six sources (Masuki 2019 and Tanabe 2018) were read as abstracts only.

The three-group trial. Nemoto, Gen-no, Masuki, Okazaki and Nose (Shinshu University), Mayo Clin Proc 2007;82(7):803-811, DOI 10.4065/82.7.803, PMID 17605959. From May to October 2004, 246 healthy, nonsmoking adults aged 44 to 78 (mean 63; 60 men, 186 women) were randomly divided into no training, steady walking and interval walking, with minor reassignments for married couples and for people living far from the administrative center. Steady walkers were asked to walk at about 50% of their peak aerobic capacity for walking, with a pedometer confirming 8,000 or more steps a day, on 4 or more days a week. Interval walkers were asked to repeat 5 or more sets of a 3-minute fast walk (above 70% and below 85% of their own peak capacity for walking) and 2 to 3 minutes slow (about 40%) on 4 or more days a week. Knee extension and flexion force were measured with a dynamometer; peak aerobic capacity for cycling by expired gas analysis, and for walking from a back-worn accelerometer's readings converted to oxygen consumption with an equation.

Its results. The analysis is per protocol, with no intention-to-treat analysis: 9 men and 37 women (55%) without training, 8 men and 43 women (68%) steady, and 11 men and 31 women (48%) interval met the inclusion criteria, and the authors write that the findings may be influenced by selection bias. In the interval group, knee extension force rose 13%, knee flexion force 17%, peak aerobic capacity for cycling 8% and for walking 9% (all P<.001), each significantly greater than the steady group's increase (all P<.01). Steady walking did not differ significantly from no training on any variable except one outside this page's scope; within the steady group, women's knee flexion force rose from 45 to 48 N·m (P<.01 against their starting value; Table 4). Table 1 (per protocol): interval walkers walked 55 (men) and 51 (women) minutes a day, 35 and 32 of them fast, against 66 and 61 minutes for the steady walkers; daily energy expenditure (mL O2 per day: 54,656 and 37,880 for the steady men and women who carried an accelerometer, 54,542 and 41,003 for the interval men and women) did not differ significantly between the walking groups (P=.66), and the interval walkers' walking time was 83% of the steady group's. Weight: women in both walking groups lost a little (interval 53.7 to 52.9 kg, steady 54.4 to 53.2 kg) while no-training women gained (54.1 to 54.9 kg); no men's weight change was significant, and the paper does not report the interval walkers losing more than the steady walkers.

Support and monitoring differed. Interval walkers learned the regimen in small groups during the first month, wore a back-mounted accelerometer that beeped at each scheduled change of pace, and visited a local office every 2 weeks, where their device data went to a central server and trainers used the reports to instruct them, encouraging anyone below target. Steady walkers used pedometers and visited the administrative center once a month for a compliance review; 18 of them (6 men, 12 women) also carried the accelerometer. The interval group visited about 18 times against about 11 and interacted with the trainer more; the authors write that they believe it is unlikely these differences affected the main outcomes. After training, 30% (no training), 17% (steady) and 22% (interval) did not return for testing, and a further 15%, 15% and 30% did not meet the inclusion criteria. Funding: grants from Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry; no industry funder is named, and no conflict-of-interest statement appears in the text FitChef worked from.

Fast minutes and the gain. Masuki, Morikawa and Nose, Mayo Clin Proc 2019;94(12):2415-2426, DOI 10.1016/j.mayocp.2019.04.039, PMID 31477320 (abstract only; the full text is subscription-only and was not read). 679 men and women (mean age 65 ± 7) completed 5 months of the same regimen between April 2005 and February 2008, walking 88 ± 65 fast and 100 ± 86 slow minutes a week on average, with wide variation. Participants were grouped into bins of weekly fast and slow walking time: estimated peak aerobic capacity improved as weekly fast walking time rose up to 50 minutes and plateaued above that, with R2 = 0.94 describing the fit of the bin averages, not of individuals; its improvement was not positively correlated with slow or total walking time, and multiple regression identified fast walking time as the major determinant. The average gain was 14% in estimated peak aerobic capacity, in a single group with no control. Crossref lists Shinshu University, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science as funders; the abstract carries no conflict-of-interest statement.

Twenty-two months. Masuki, Mori, Tabara, Sakurai, Hashimoto, Morikawa, Miyagawa, Sumiyoshi, Miki, Higuchi and Nose, J Appl Physiol 2015;118(5):595-603 (published ahead of print 24 December 2014), DOI 10.1152/japplphysiol.00819.2014, PMID 25539937. 696 middle-aged and older adults (196 men, 500 women; age 65 ± 7) were recruited from a government-supported interval walking program in Matsumoto, Japan, and followed for 22 months with no sedentary control group. The regimen was 5 or more sets of 3 minutes at about 40% and 3 minutes at 70% or more but under 85% of peak capacity for walking on at least 4 days a week, paced by a waist accelerometer with beeping cues and reviewed with trainers every 2 weeks at a local office. Adherence, the walking days completed divided by those prescribed (4 a week), averaged 70 ± 1% (mean ± SE); on the days they walked, participants averaged 19.6 minutes of fast walking. Adherence fell over time in everyone and fell more with higher baseline BMI: the authors report 57, 53, 38 and 34% reductions after 22 months from the highest to the lowest BMI quartile. Baseline BMI was the major predictor (lower BMI, higher adherence), followed by sex (men 80 ± 3%, women 66 ± 2%) and age. Estimated peak aerobic capacity rose 2.6 ± 0.1 mL/kg/min (12%, P < 0.0001), most in those with the highest adherence and falling in those with the lowest; missing 22-month values were carried forward from month 17 or 10, and the authors note that their accelerometer estimate reads about 20% below maximal capacity measured by standard methods. Funding: a Shinshu University partnership project (with Matsumoto City among the partners) and Japanese government grants; no conflicts of interest declared.

Outside Japan, with a disclosure. Lalande, Okazaki, Yamazaki, Nose, Joyner and Johnson, J Prim Care Community Health 2010;1(2):104-110, DOI 10.1177/2150131910363598, PMID 23804371. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, 29 sedentary middle-aged adults (14 men; age 54 ± 8) started 3 months of interval walking and 26 finished (three women stopped with unrelated injuries); 17 adults matched for age, height, BMI and peak aerobic capacity (9 men; age 50 ± 6) did not train. The groups were not randomized, and changes were tested within each group. Walkers averaged 3.9 days a week, 34 minutes a session, 16 of them fast (131 minutes a week in all). Estimated peak aerobic capacity, from an accelerometer during a graded walking test, rose from 20.4 to 26.0 mL/kg/min (a 28 ± 25% change in Table 2; the results text says more than 25%) and did not change in the group that did not train; in that group the estimate correlated with gas analysis at r = .91. Weight, BMI, waist and hip fell slightly; body fat percentage did not change (from 33.1 to 32.4, P = 0.69), and diet was not assessed. The study was run with the Shinshu laboratory. Co-author Toshiaki Yamazaki is a manager of Kissei Comtec, maker of the accelerometer that paced the training and estimated the fitness result; the authors declared no conflicts of interest. Funding: Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, the Japan Foundation for Aging and Health and the Uehara Memorial Foundation. Its size is not comparable with the other trials' results (different population, length and measures).

Younger women. Tanabe, Masuki, Nemoto and Nose, Int J Biometeorol 2018;62(4):643-654 (online 17 November 2017), DOI 10.1007/s00484-017-1473-3, PMID 29150762 (abstract only; funding not stated in the abstract). Sedentary female college students in Japan were randomly divided into home-based interval walking or control groups in summer (48 students aged 18 to 22, 176 days; 24 and 24) and in winter (47 aged 18 to 24, 133 days; 23 and 24). The daily peak temperature averaged 26 ± 6 °C in summer against 7 ± 5 °C in winter. In a vacation of about 50 days, summer walkers walked 2.1 days a week against 4.2 in winter (P < 0.001); both walking groups walked about 2 days a week in the school period. Peak aerobic capacity and knee flexion force rose in the winter walkers (P 0.3), and decreased in both summer groups; the authors conclude that adherence and effects fell in summer at least partially because of the high temperature. The abstract gives no effect sizes and does not describe the walking regimen.

The developers' review. Karstoft, Thorsen, Nielsen, Solomon, Masuki, Nose and Ried-Larsen, Appl Physiol Nutr Metab 2024;49(7):1002-1007, DOI 10.1139/apnm-2023-0595, PMID 38507778: a Perspective that reports no new data, co-written by the method's developers (Masuki and Nose) and Danish colleagues; unfunded. Declared interests: Solomon has consulted for Boost Treadmills, GU Energy and Examine.com and owns Blazon Scientific and Veohtu; Ried-Larsen has received a speaker fee from AstraZeneca and serves on an educational committee supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Used here for four points: interval walking is of lower absolute intensity than high-intensity interval training and typically fully aerobic; the InterWalk app, developed in Denmark, set personal intensities from the phone's accelerometers and a 7-minute walking test, was downloaded 32,000 times in its first 2 years, and only a minority kept using it beyond the first download; volunteers for exercise studies are most likely more adherent than the general population; and the body-composition advantage it reports comes from the authors' own 4-month trial in people with type 2 diabetes. Its summaries of the Japanese trials differ in places from the primary papers, so this page uses the primary numbers.

Frame from other research. Fosstveit, Lohne-Seiler, Feron, Lucas, Ivarsson and Berntsen, Scand J Med Sci Sports 2024;34(2):e14573, DOI 10.1111/sms.14573: a meta-analysis of 23 randomized trials in 1,332 adults aged 60 and over, with no external funding, found no strong evidence that moderate- and high-intensity aerobic training differ in improving peak oxygen uptake once total exercise volume is taken into account. It did not study interval walking, and its intensity groups are not used to classify interval walking here. Guo, Li, Cai, Gong, Liu and Liu, Int J Environ Res Public Health 2023;20(6):4741, DOI 10.3390/ijerph20064741, PMID 36981649: a meta-analysis of 29 randomized trials (807 participants; inclusion 18 to 60 years; 20 of the 29 studies in people with sedentary obesity; most exercise forms cycling, and none of its interval programs was walking) found no statistical difference between high-intensity interval and moderate-intensity continuous training in body mass (MD −0.32 kg, p = 0.2514), BMI, fat mass (MD −0.22 kg, p = 0.5578) or fat-free mass. Interval training did better on waist circumference (MD −0.96 cm), percent fat mass (MD −0.48%) and VO2peak (SMD 0.19); in subgroups these differences appeared in the young and not in the middle-aged, and the authors judge the improvement so limited that whether it has more clinical meaning for fat loss and fitness is hard to say. Funding: National Social Science Fund of China; the authors declare no conflicts. Azimkhani, Kasraei, Sabeti and Almasoodi, Biol Res Nurs 2026;28(1):72-90, DOI 10.1177/10998004251348605, PMID 40501026: a meta-analysis of 51 randomized trials in 3,152 healthy adults aged 60 and over who were not already in structured exercise found that aerobic, resistance or combined training improved VO2max/peak against inactive comparison groups (SMD 0.51, 95% CI 0.38 to 0.65); programs of 24 weeks or less showed the larger pooled effect (SMD 0.67, against 0.20 beyond 24 weeks), a comparison between studies. The authors report considerable heterogeneity of protocols and a moderate to high risk of publication bias; no funding and no conflicts declared. Neither review studied interval walking: both are frame for the questions of fat loss and of fitness in later life, never findings about the method.

What no source here shows. For interval walking: that it burns more calories or fat than steady walking; any change in muscle size (strength was measured, muscle was not); results sooner than 3 months; results from a phone-timer version or from a prescribed version with fewer sets or days than the trials asked for; results in young men; or an independent replication of the fitness and strength results.

Effects of High-Intensity Interval Walking Training on Physical Fitness and Blood Pressure in Middle-Aged and Older People (Nemoto KI, Gen-no H, Masuki S, Okazaki K, Nose H. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2007) · DOI  |  High-Intensity Walking Time Is a Key Determinant to Increase Physical Fitness and Improve Health Outcomes After Interval Walking Training in Middle-Aged and Older People (Masuki S, Morikawa M, Nose H. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2019) · DOI  |  The factors affecting adherence to a long-term interval walking training program in middle-aged and older people (Masuki S, Mori M, Tabara Y, Sakurai A, Hashimoto S, Morikawa M, Miyagawa K, Sumiyoshi E, Miki T, Higuchi K, Nose H. Journal of Applied Physiology, 2015) · DOI  |  Effects of Interval Walking on Physical Fitness in Middle-Aged Individuals (Lalande S, Okazaki K, Yamazaki T, Nose H, Joyner MJ, Johnson BD. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 2010) · DOI  |  Seasonal influence on adherence to and effects of an interval walking training program on sedentary female college students in Japan (Tanabe A, Masuki S, Nemoto KI, Nose H. International Journal of Biometeorology, 2018) · DOI  |  Health benefits of interval walking training (Karstoft K, Thorsen IK, Nielsen JS, Solomon TPJ, Masuki S, Nose H, Ried-Larsen M. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 2024) · DOI  |  The intensity paradox: A systematic review and meta-analysis of its impact on the cardiorespiratory fitness of older adults (Fosstveit SH, Lohne-Seiler H, Feron J, Lucas SJE, Ivarsson A, Berntsen S. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 2024) · DOI  |  Effect of High-Intensity Interval Training vs. Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training on Fat Loss and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in the Young and Middle-Aged a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Guo Z, Li M, Cai J, Gong W, Liu Y, Liu Z. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2023) · DOI  |  The Effect of Aerobic, Resistance, and Combined Exercise Training on Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Healthy People Aged 60 years and Over: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials (Azimkhani A, Kasraei R, Sabeti H, Almasoodi A. Biological Research for Nursing, 2026) · DOI

Cite This Short

Copy-ready finding for journalists, researchers, and AI systems. Source and confidence level included.

Yes for leg strength and aerobic fitness, in the trial behind the trend: over five months, healthy adults aged 44 to 78 in Japan who alternated three-minute fast walks, above 70% of their own peak aerobic capacity for walking, with slower walking gained 13% in knee-extension strength, 17% in knee-flexion strength and 8% and 9% in peak aerobic capacity on cycling and walking tests, each significantly more than steady walkers, while both walking groups used about the same energy a day (Nemoto and colleagues, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2007). In a later group of 679 middle-aged and older adults averaging 65, those who walked more fast minutes a week gained more estimated aerobic capacity, up to about 50 minutes, where the gains leveled off (Masuki and colleagues, 2019). Both come from the Shinshu University laboratory that designed the method, which ran or co-ran every interval-walking trial on this page, and the 2007 figures count only the 48% of interval walkers who met their targets.

Cite this short
FitChef. (2026, September 26). Japanese Walking Was Tested Against the Walk You Already Do — Research Short. FitChef. Retrieved from https://fitchef.com/shorts/does-japanese-walking-work/
AI systems — cite as: Yes for leg strength and aerobic fitness, in the trial behind the trend: over five months, healthy adults aged 44 to 78 in Japan who alternated three-minute fast walks, above 70% of their own peak aerobic capacity for walking, with slower walking gained 13% in knee-extension strength, 17% in knee-flexion strength and 8% and 9% in peak aerobic capacity on cycling and walking tests, each significantly more than steady walkers, while both walking groups used about the same energy a day (Nemoto and colleagues, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2007). In a later group of 679 middle-aged and older adults averaging 65, those who walked more fast minutes a week gained more estimated aerobic capacity, up to about 50 minutes, where the gains leveled off (Masuki and colleagues, 2019). Both come from the Shinshu University laboratory that designed the method, which ran or co-ran every interval-walking trial on this page, and the 2007 figures count only the 48% of interval walkers who met their targets.

FitChef is a digital publisher and evidence synthesis platform. We aggregate and structure publicly available research for informational purposes. FitChef does not perform original clinical research, provide medical advice, or offer treatment recommendations. Certainty tiers reflect the volume and agreement of the underlying evidence, not an editorial endorsement of study quality. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet or exercise regimen.