A 15-minute follow-along walking workout for PAD — warm-up stretches and walking intervals to improve blood flow and manage claudication, resting as you need to.

Hi. Today I'll be leading you through a walking workout designed for those with PAD. This will be good practice for exercising and monitoring your symptoms. When you start to experience muscle cramping, or claudication, try to note what time it started. Keep walking as long as you can, and whenever the cramping becomes severe, pause the video and take a seat to rest. You should also note how long you walked for. Keeping track of the time your symptoms started and the total time you walked can be helpful to see your progress over time. You'll want to walk at a good walking pace that is challenging and can help you progress. Remember that exercise can help your blood flow better and improve your symptoms over time.

This workout is about 15 minutes. You can pause the video to stretch in between bouts of exercise, and after pausing and resting you can play the video to continue. Do as many bouts as you can, and repeat the video as needed.

If you ever experience any chest pain, discomfort, dizziness, lightheadedness, or extreme shortness of breath, please stop exercising and call your doctor. If the symptoms do not get better with rest, please call 911.

Okay — you can start an exercise session on your watch to track your heart rate if you have that available, and let's get moving. Before we get started, we're going to do a five-minute warm-up to stretch our leg muscles, get our blood flowing, prevent injury, and slowly increase our breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure. Let's start with our lower body and do a couple of stretches.

First, a calf stretch: have one foot forward with the back leg straight (hold onto something for balance if you need to), lean forward into the front leg for a couple of seconds, keeping both feet planted on the floor, then straighten all the way up. You should feel this in your calf muscle, in the back of the leg. We'll do this five times total and then switch sides.

Next, a hamstring stretch: keep one foot in front of the other, with the back leg bent and the front toes pointing up towards the ceiling. Sit up tall, straighten the front leg, and lean forward slightly with a flat back — you should feel this all the way up the back of the leg, behind the knee and thigh. Hold for a couple of seconds, then sit up, and switch sides.

Next, an IT band stretch to stretch the back of your knee: cross one foot in front of the other, with your hands on your hips or holding onto something, and lean forward slightly with a flat back, holding for a count of three. Sit up slowly, and switch sides.

Then do some ankle rolls: step one foot in front of the other, roll your ankle inward to draw a big circle with your foot, then go the other direction, and switch sides. Finally, some side bends: stand shoulder-width apart and lean to one side, adding your arm for an arm stretch if you'd like, hold for a count of three, and sit all the way up, then switch sides.

Hopefully your body is starting to feel a little warmer. We're going to start walking in place, beginning really slowly to increase our heart rate and blood pressure gradually, which helps prevent injury. This can be whatever pace you normally walk at — it doesn't have to be an exercise pace just yet. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Throughout this workout, don't forget that you can stop the video at any time. When you're starting to feel very severe cramping, that's when you'll want to rest and take a break as needed, and you can always replay the video to continue on your second or third round.

Now we'll move through a series of walking intervals. First, tap your foot forward: with your hands on your hips or by your sides, touch your toe out in front, slightly bending the back leg, and alternate legs, going at your own pace. If you start to notice any cramping, try to note what time it started — write it down, keep a mental note, or use a stopwatch.

Next, march in place, bringing your knees up a little higher and bringing your arms into the action — walk with purpose, standing up tall with good posture. Then tap your foot backward: hands on your hips, tap one foot behind you as far as you can reach, and alternate feet. Then step side to side: hands on your hips, step out to the side and back together. We'll cycle through walking in place, tapping the foot forward, marching, tapping the foot back, and stepping side to side for the rest of the workout.

Throughout, keep breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth, and breathe through the tension. Go at your own pace — it doesn't have to match the music or my pace. If you need to hold onto something for support, that's okay. Remember to check in with yourself and your heart rate, and to note what time your cramping started and how long you walked in each round.

To help get through the cramping, try to focus on something else — the music, a friend, the scenery around you, or imagining a place you really enjoy, like a trail or the beach. Think about your motivation for exercising and feeling better to help push you a little further. Any amount of stepping you do is great exercise — every time you exercise, you're improving your blood flow, and your symptoms will get better over time. Remember, if you reach severe cramping (a level four), that's when you'll want to stop the video, rest, stretch, and take a deep breath before pressing play to continue with another round.

That's the end of the workout. Don't forget to do some final stretches to cool down your heart rate and relieve your muscles of any tension. You can go ahead and stop your watch if you had an exercise session running. Whether you followed through from beginning to end, or needed to stop halfway through, you did a great job. Remember, regular exercise will help improve your blood flow and symptoms such as muscle cramping. Thank you so much for watching the "Walking Workout for PAD."

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