Walking Slower May Be Better When You Have RA

I walk a lot. It’s my main form of exercise, and I walk at a fairly quick pace — one of my recent walks was a 16:30-mile.

And while I love the freedom that walking provides — it allows me to explore where I live, it gives me exercise, and it helps me feel better (both physically and mentally) - what I’ve noticed recently though is that the day after going on a strenuous walk, I experience some pain and heaviness in my joints, especially my knees and ankles.

After a few bouts of this, I decided that I would do a little experiment to see how fast I was walking contributed to the amount of pain I was feeling. The results were fairly surprising to me, and not really what I expected.

Fast versus a slow walking pace

To first test this out, I set aside a week where I would walk at my usual rate of about 17:20 minutes per mile. I kept the same distance, route, and time of day that I normally walk. Exactly 24 hours after I took my walk, I would journal about how I was feeling, what parts of my body were hurting (if any), and any other notes that I had. I kept the journal for a week and also included my average run time for each walk.

After this first week, I then transitioned into another week where I purposefully slowed my walking rate. I kept my rate at about a 20:00-minute mile. I still kept the same distance, route, and time of day that I normally walked in the previous week. Following the same journal procedure as the week before, I made sure to document how I was feeling and if I had noticed any differences from the prior week.

Less joint pain with a slower pace

What I found was that I had noted fewer instances of pain in my joints and felt more energetic during the week in which I walked at about a 20:00-minute mile. This surprised me because I always considered walking fast to be better to keep my joints moving and to burn more calories.

But now that I think about it, walking slower does make more sense since it's less pressure and less strenuous on the body. It’s the same rationale for why some experts say you shouldn’t strenuously run when you have rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Run or walk: What does the research say?

I do want to provide a quick caveat here. Experts are divided on this topic about whether running is beneficial for people with RA.

The general conclusion seems to be that unless RA has severely damaged your knees and ankles, running/jogging can be very beneficial. This comes mostly from the Mayo Clinic's article on the intersection between exercise and rheumatoid arthritis. They seem to also indicate that movement is beneficial but that, like anything, it is inherently personal and contextual to each person.¹

Find what works best for you

I can’t attest to what everyone experiences, and I am by no means indicating that my experiment can be replicated to everyone. This is just my experience and what I have noticed about my body! I hope that it will inspire you to think about exercise/how it’s affecting your body, too.