Outside walking alone

Have you thought about getting way out into nature? There's self-discovery to be had on a long challenging walk, especially in nature. For some, "One of the most transformational parts of the journey was solo hiking--the piece that held so much that was unknown for me. Turns out the things we are most uncertain about or fearful of often hold the most opportunity for challenge and growth."

Elements of self-knowledge:

• Grit. "I have what it takes to push myself."
• Risk."…we can't take risk away--solo hiking or not…However, there are things you can do to mitigate the risk on your hike."
• Quiet. "The solitude of the trail helped bring me to a place where I had the space to think, process, ask questions, listen for answers, make decisions, and find clarity."
• Meaning. "There is something about the wilderness that seems sacred - a natural cathedral of intense beauty and wonder that inspires us to stop, take some deep breaths, and live in the present moment."
• Community. "In addition to the community you find with fellow thru hikers, you'll also meet magical creatures called "Trail Angels" and people in town stops who go out of their way to care for you, feed you, give you rides, and offer you ice cream and watermelon under the I-10 overpass after hiking the last 5 miles in 100-degree heat."
• Will. "…he trail was a lesson in learning to choose life, to pursue the things that make me a little nervous, excited, joyful, and freaked out all at the same time."

Get out those Nordic walking poles and hit the trail. They'll not only serve you by distributing the weight of your load from your knees, the Nordic walking technique will help you maintain a consistent pace. Also, the gloves on Nordic walking poles help you take the weight off your hands and forearms.

Walking with your friends

Nordic walking is a great social activity. The poles make it possible to increase the intensity of physical exertion without increasing the perception of physical effort. That means you still feel like you're exerting yourself as you always have in traditional walking but you won't feel too tired to enjoy each other's company.

You may have gone out on your own and walked briskly, feeling like you've accomplished something when you get back home sweaty and breathing heavily. What about when you Nordic walk with others? Here are some thoughts:

• You may think you're reducing the effectiveness of your walk because you're in a group. Maybe you normally walk faster than the others, meaning you feel like you need to slow down. Maybe you walk more slowly than the others and feel some pressure to go beyond your capabilities to keep up. Don't worry. The fact you're with others has positive effects on your health.
• When you're with others, your focus changes a bit. The walking group will want to be more sensitive to the abilities of others. In a group, the purpose isn't to max out but to encourage each other.

You don't have to walk with a group all the time. It may be a weekly get together so members can work at their own pace the other times. 

Let the poles take care of themselves

Now there's an act of faith. I tell Nordic walkers the poles are better trained than their pets. They'll keep up with you, being available to grip on the front swing and planting into the ground for push off on the backswing. You don't have to do anything except walk and swing your arms naturally.

Isn't that a key element of faith: Expecting something and having confidence to the degree you think of it as if it's already come to pass. Have that kind of confidence in the poles.

Why would I say something strange like that? Beginning Nordic walkers forget how to walk. In trying to remember the different points in the technique they were taught, beginners overthink things and get discombobulated in their walking. The most common way is to mess up your arm swing.

• In regular walking, the opposite arm swings forward as a foot steps forward, left foot forward/right arm swings forward.
• Then as you move forward, your front foot becomes your back foot, and that opposite arm swings to the rear on the backswing. For example, when the steps continue, the left foot has become the rear foot because the right foot stepped forward. At the same time, the right arm will have swung back.
• That opposite foot/opposite arm movement (how we normally walk) is called diagonal walking by some Nordic walking instructors.

In my experience, beginning Nordic walkers are trying process the new information they gained and put it into action. The problem is, they overthink it as if running down a checklist to make sure everything has been covered. That distracts from walking because the poles haven't become part of the routine yet.

How do I know this? I ran into the same problems when I was starting out. The key is to have faith the poles will be there when you need them. If that happens, revert to the dragging technique where you don't even grip the poles nor let them go. Just drag them on the ground, swinging your arms naturally. Before long, you'll be back in synch.

Walking is at the heart of Western culture

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is supposed to have said, "I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs" (Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audio). Did he really mean walking helped him ruminate? I've read that meditation is emptying one's mind of distractions, but, if walking was a favorite activity of philosophers, did they engage in that kind of discipline or did they walk to jump start their thinking of particular topics?

Some saw walking as a cultural act that began with Rousseau and traced it back to Greeks to legitimize it. They pointed out the school in Athens had a covered colonnade called peripatos that facilitated walking. Today we see peripatos in words like peripatetic.

Here's a summary of the relationship between walking and philosophy:

Location	Setting	Activities	People
Athens	Grove that predated Aristotle's school	Taught rhetoric; delivered information and ideas to public	Sophist (sophia = wisdom) philosophers
Athens	Area with shrines to Apollo and Muses	Teachers and students wandered among the classes	Called Peripatetic philosophers
Athens	Vicinity of stoa (colonnade) Greek architecture accommodated walking groups	Exchanges between teachers and students while walking	Stoic philosophers
Europe Philosophers copied the Greeks and walked	Philosophenweg (Heidelberg)	Walked to think and relax	Hegel
	Philosophendamm (Konigsberg)	To take a break from writing	Kant
	Philosopher's Way (Copenhagen)		Kierkegaard
		Favorite activities: reading, music, walking	Nietzsche

I read some time ago that people involved in highly cognitive verbal activities like writing, teaching, and even politics, tended to take up less verbally-intense activities like painting or low level physical exertion activities like walking. In my personal experience, I've had ideas come to me while driving, which is very low intensity and the most physical exertion involves managing the steering wheel.

Given Rousseau's statement, walking promotes an active mind. In fact, to call walking a cultural act is to see in it a vigorous quality that relaxes the body while invigorating the mind.

Nordic walking and regular walking

Researchers continue to publish findings about Nordic walking versus regular walking.

• "In total cholesterol levels, the Nordic walking group showed a significant decrease…The normal walking group showed a significant decrease…However, the control group did not show significant changes."
• "In triglyceride levels, the Nordic walking group showed a significant decrease…The normal walking group did not show any significant changes…The control group did not show any significant changes."
• "In HDL cholesterol levels [good cholesterol], the Nordic walking group showed a significant increase…The normal walking group did not show any significant changes…The control group did not show any significant changes."
• "In LDL cholesterol levels [bad cholesterol], the Nordic walking group did not show any significant changes…The normal walking group did not show any significant changes…The control group did not show any significant changes."

Systematic review of literature (European Journal of Human Movement in 2014)

• Physiological.
• "The vast majority of studies found statistically significant increases for oxygen consumption, heart rate and caloric expenditure during NW compared to normal walking and differences in lactic acid levels, especially in untrained participants."
• "…intense arm movement with poles increases the main physiological parameters compared to walking…[other research pointed out] the increase in oxygen consumption ranged between 5% and 63% depending on the intensity of arm movement and the technical performance of participants."
• "the effects on the body of intervention programs based on the regular practice of NW (between 3 and 4 times a week for several months) point to improvements in muscle strength of the upper limbs up to 40% and reductions in neck and shoulder pain."
• "…despite the increase in calorie consumption during NW, effort perception does not significantly increase. Furthermore, given the greater stability provided by the poles, the authors believe that NW can be a perfect activity for elderly people and for subjects with balance and/or stability problems while walking."
• Biomechanical.
• "…differences between NW and normal human gait for a given walking speed: longer step, longer contact time, and faster execution speed as well as a reduction in step cadence." In other words, you walk faster.
• "…lower loads on the knee joint during NW compared to walking. Furthermore, this reduction depended on the technical implementation: the higher the technical level, the lower the joint load." In other words, the better you get, less stress on your knees.
• "…during NW plantar pressures in the central metatarsals are reduced by up to 40%. The authors also show that the regular practice of NW has a residual effect during walking, local pressures on the central metatarsals
• being significantly reduced." In other words, the conditioning from Nordic walking makes regular walking easier on your feet.
• Fitness.
• "Programs targeted at the elderly have resulted in improvements in upper limb strength, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility compared to traditional fitness programs for the same population group."
• "NW has also been found to be 106% more effective in improving the speed in comparison with a traditional walking program."
• "In cardiac rehabilitation programs, NW is a better stimulus in terms of cardiac rehabilitation and in improving the patients’ functional ability."
• "…positive results were found in training programs for an obese population), in patients with vestibular disorders, in patients with chronic lower back ache in subjects suffering from claudication as a consequence of peripheral arterial disease, patients with Sjögren's syndrome, associated with rheumatism, in individuals with Parkinson's disease, in depressed patients, in breast cancer patients, in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease."
• Less than positive results:
• "…patients who had suffered hemiparesis [paralysis on one side as from a stroke] perceived NW to be less comfortable compared with a four-way support walking frame or a simple stick."
• "…all groups improved in terms of weight loss but no significant improvement was found in glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), evidences do not support the role of NW as beneficial stimulation from the physiological point of view in patients with type 2 diabetes, although no contraindications in this respect have been proved with such populations either."

A couple of thoughts: The positives outweigh the negatives.

• The hemiparesis finding makes sense. Nordic walking does require control of the poles by both arms, so that condition could make Nordic walking more difficult. The Nordic walking technique used wasn't clear from the article.
• There's an approach called Exerstriding that could work with this condition. In that technique, you don't let go of the poles on the backswing.
• Keenfit is another version of that technique. Notice in the linked videos the walkers don't let go of the poles in the backswing.
• In the full Nordic walking technique, you let go of the poles in the backswing to get full upper body extension. Notice how the walker's hands open in the backswing, allowing him to let go of the poles and achieve full upper body extension.
• It would be interesting to see if the Exerstrider/Keenfit techniques would work better for those affected by hemiparesis.
• The A1c finding also makes sense and goes to the Nordic Walking Guy's 3rd rule: Don't eat like a teenager.
• Nordic walking has great results in lowering blood sugar, but it affects your blood sugar level at the time of the walk.
• A1c is a measure over multiple months, so there will other times someone's blood sugar levels will higher, affecting the average reading.
• Diet is the key to managing A1c.

Taking research with a grain of salt

Periodically you'll read the newspaper article about some study that has been conducted and be told that, as a result of the study, you should act in a certain way. The most common articles about research that I've read our about food and exercise. This article make some points about research on those topics to help us think more clearly about what researchers tell us.

Main points:

• The correlation between inputs (food, exercise) and results (disease, longevity, weight) tends to be much lower than the correlation between things like smoking and lung cancer.
• Much of the research has not yet been reproduced to see if the same results show up.
• Sometimes the way things are measured is not the most accurate. For example, participants may be asked to keep a diary of what they eat. It would be easy to say that people may not keep the most accurate diaries.

One team of researchers reviewed studies on the links of particular foods and cancer, and found studies linked just about everything we eat to cancer. Depending on the study, foods were either linked to cancer or had no link.

So the next time see an article in the newspaper breathlessly stating that something will help you live forever or will kill you, take it with a grain of salt (no doubt, salt is just fine, or is it?)

Nordic walking and load on the knees

One research article noted that Nordic walking may not reduce loads on walkers' knees, a possible selling point by some Nordic walking proponents.

• One reason offered is that walkers push off with the poles when stepping off with the foot rather than planting the poles when the feet land. Planting the poles when the feet land is said to distribute weight to the poles.
• Another reason offered is Nordic walkers take longer strides than when walking traditionally, and longer strides make for greater impact when the feet land.

People interested in Nordic walking shouldn't be overly concerned about this. Notice that the comparison is with normal walking, and walking is already considered a low-impact activity. If we compare it with running, then Nordic walking certainly has a much lower load on the knees.

Here are some thoughts about taking care of your knees when you're Nordic walking:

• Include warm-up activities that limber up your knees.
• Adjust your stride to account for load on your knees if it is a concern.
• For example, a shorter stride and less arm swing can reduce the impact when your foot hits the ground.
• When you do that, you'll find that you'll want to adjust the length of your poles. In my experience, shorter strides and arm swings mean shorter poles, and longer strides and arm swings mean longer poles.
• I like using my adjustable poles because during a longer walk, I have a tendency to vary my stride and arm swing.

Nordic walking versus walking with hand weights

Here's an interesting comparison of the effectiveness of Nordic walking and walking with hand weights.

Comparison	Nordic walking	Hand weights	What the Nordic Walking Guy says (based on experience)
Exertion	"…the real muscle exertion in the upper body comes from the backward/downward push"	"… the muscles lifting the weight forward get most of the exercise"	This has been my experience as well.
Range of motion	"…limitations in the range of motion because the sticks are fitted to one’s height and their benefit is derived from gripping the ground and pushing off, not being raised over head"	"Raising the arms and weights above the shoulder to overhead  (“Level III”) significantly enhances the workload during exercise."	The author of the linked article used fixed length Nordic walking poles. Adjustable models are also available (I use adjustable Nordic walking poles) and make it possible to give yourself different lengths during the same walk. For lower intensity parts of the walk, you can shorten the poles a bit. For higher intensity parts of the walk, you can lengthen the poles. Because modern poles have quick release gloves, you can let go and use the poles in an overhead pressing and other kinds of motion. As light as the poles might be, after some repetitions of the overhead pressing motion, I guarantee your shoulders will feel a burn. Try it where you are right now without anything in your hands. Just raise your arms overhead and start doing a pressing motion and see how quickly your shoulders start to burn.
Exercise variety	"…Nordic Walking definitely DOES NOT offer this variety of exercise. The same predominant exercise pathway is used throughout the effort without variation for the most part. Boredom may be avoided by the scenic nature of the walking path, but not by exercise variation for the most part!"	"numerous variations in exercise movement to not only work as much muscle as possible, but to avoid boredom!" "…can be used in some completely different way like swings across the chest to work “fresh” muscle groups while continuing to walk"	I am an avid Nordic walker and have found it easy to add variety to a walk by incorporating bodyweight exercises. For example, I can stop, do push-ups, and then resume my walk. Later, I can do squats. Farther along in the walk, I can do crunches for leg raises. This is possible because most Nordic walking poles have quick release gloves that make it convenient to quickly shift to a different form of exercise. If having heavier weights to your poles is the goal, that is possible as well. The conclusion of the matter is that adding variety to the walk is very possible.
Safety	"at times the Nordic Sticks seemed a bit more like “Trekking Poles” but they did their job of not only providing upper body exercise, but also making the hike safer.  In the event of a poisonous snake nearby, I’d rather have a Nordic stick handy if needed than a hand weight!"	We took the “rugged” trail first using Nordic Walking sticks. Later we took the “level” trail using HeavyHands. (We found out they were both equally rugged and probably would have done best with the Nordic sticks on both of them, but “oh well”! )	One way that Nordic walking poles made trail walking safer is because they have metal tips that can dig into the ground and baskets (like those on skis) that would keep the polls from seeking too far into softer ground. Personally, if I saw a poisonous snake on the trail, I wouldn't stick around to use the Nordic walking poles. I I would turn around and run!

Physical therapists like Nordic walking

A physical therapist's view that has some interesting bits of information worth looking at.

Here are some observations:

• Beneficial for any age group. Finnish army recruits use it as alternative physical training as they recover from injury.
• Potential rehabilitation approach a number of health conditions.
• A common sight in Europe. Coming to Canada as well.

How physical therapists are using Nordic walking into practice:

• Help patients improve general health and fitness.
• Help patients with chronic conditions.
• Help patients who are post-surgery or dealing with chronic pain.
• Help patients transition to active post-rehabilitation lives.

A couple of other observations about Nordic walking benefits:

• Helps maintain erect posture.
• Low rate of perceived exertion things people can work hard without feeling like they're working overly hard.

The article also summarized several research studies:

• More effective than regular walking in improving walking speed.
• Significant improvement in walking speed of people with Parkinson's disease.
• Better improvement in cardiac rehabilitation patients over regular care.
• Improvement for patients with fibromyalgia.
• Increase in caloric expenditure and oxygen consumption over regular walking but with no change in perceived exertion.

Most of the material I looked at focus on the benefits of Nordic walking for people in poor health work with injuries. I would suggest that people like strength athletes in their prime would benefit as well. For example, one writer suggests a form of interval training so strength athletes can get cardio benefits.

• Nordic walking is phenomenal for interval training like that because simply walking fast uphill or even jogging that involves the upper body raises the exertion level significantly.
• The writer also suggests that extended running actually hampered strength gains because of the damage from impact with the ground, but that biking helped with gains. Nordic walking certainly fills the bill with low impact, customizable intensity.

Overall, I can't say enough good things about Nordic walking and its benefits as regular activity for people.

Nordic walking and Parkinson's

A study compared the benefits of flexibility and relaxation training, regular walking, and Nordic walking for people with Parkinson's disease. Overall, all three approaches helped reduce pain and improve balance and quality of life. Walking and Nordic walking led to improvements in overall walking ability and fitness. However, Nordic walking provided the most benefits of the three approaches for improving posture and walking ability.

The researchers' recommendations included this: "Physiotherapists should be encouraged to teach PD [Parkinson's disease] patients NW [Nordic walking] and to provide practise sessions with high intensity."

Read on for details.

How they conducted the study:

• The study involved 90 patients with Parkinson's, 45 men and 45 women.
• The patients were randomly assigned to one of the three groups: flexibility and relaxation training, regular walking, or Nordic walking.

How it turned out:

• Nordic walking required a little more training so that patients could master the skill.
• The patients experienced a decrease in pain during the training.

Some detailed results:

	Flexibility and relaxation	Regular walking	Nordic walking
Pain	Decreased	Decreased	Decreased
Unified Parkinson's disease rating scale (UPDRS)	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Most improvement
Quality of life	Improvement	Improvement	Improvement
Balance	Improvement	Improvement	Improvement
Walking speed	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Significant improvement
Stride length	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Most improvement
Stride variability (consistent stride length to reduce risk of falling) NOTE: As patients walked faster, only Nordic walkers maintained consistent stride lengths; the others got worse at higher walking speeds)	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Most improvement
Stride time (duration between a foot leaving the ground and hitting the ground again that is related to walking speed)	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Most improvement
Double stance (time between each foot hitting the ground)	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Significant improvement
Exercise test (top walking speed patients could achieve)	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Most improvement
Blood pressure	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Significant improvement
Heart rate	Some improvement	Significant improvement	Most improvement
Sustainment of training	50% continued	60% continued walking, 10% stopped, 30% switched to Nordic walking	All had continued training after the study and had formed training groups

What did the researchers in this particular study conclude about Nordic walking?

• "The Nordic walking training resulted in a mean improvement of  points of the UPDRS motor scale, while the walking group failed to reach a 5-point improvement."
• "Neurological signs such as rigidity and tremor were not improved by exercise treatment, but it is to note that walking and Nordic walking had positive effects on some key symptoms of PD such as posture, alternating movements, freezing, and postural stability."
• "Posture and postural instability were most improved by NW [Nordic walking]."
• "The cross country training has possibly improved balance so far that subjects of the NW group are also more stable without poles."
• "…Walking and Nordic walking improved walking speed and gait parameters most."

Some of their conclusions help us keep from thinking of Nordic walking as the panacea that will fix everything:

• "It was expected that Nordic walking is most effective in increasing cardiorespiratory capacity. However, there was no superiority of the NW group."
• "…the physiological effects of NW depend largely on the technical skills of the individuals. Without being competent in using the correct NW technique patients cannot exercise with high intensity."

However, Nordic walking was positively received, as shown by all the patients continuing training and most being joined by their spouses.

NW was most attractive for the patients, and all patients continued the training, which might be a prerequisite to maintain an active life style.

Supportive was that 70% of the spouses took up NW and accompanied the patients after completion of the study. Since social aspects were very important for the PD patients, the participation of the spouses in NW might support further physical activity.

Nordic walking as a full body exercise

Research comparing upper body involvement in Nordic walking versus regular walking showed "…when Nordic poles are used, many muscles in the arms, shoulders, chest, and back are used and energy consumption is increased."

Here are some details:

• Purpose of the study: "…assess the effect of Nordic pole walking on the electromyographic [monitoring electrical signals generated when muscles are used] activities of upper extremity and lower extremity muscles."
• Nordic walkers and regular walkers performed their walking activity on a treadmill for 30 minutes at a time.

Here's what they found out:

• "…the activities of the biceps brachii, triceps, deltoid medius, and latissimus dorsi [upper arm, shoulder, and upper back] increased remarkably when Nordic poles were used compared with when Nordic poles were not used."
• "…muscle activities of the rectus femoris, lateral hamstring, tibialis anterior, and gastrocnemius [front of thigh, back of thigh, front of lower leg, back of lower leg] did not show big differences between when Nordic poles were used and when Nordic poles were not used."

Thoughts about the results:

• This study supported the idea that Nordic walking is a full body exercise because it involves the upper body as well as the lower body.
• However, the researchers did not find a difference in the use of the leg muscles between Nordic walkers and regular walkers even though previous studies by other researchers suggested that was the case.

What can Nordic walkers take away from this?

• The involvement of the upper body will improve upper body conditioning and will also improve cardiovascular conditioning.
• However, it still remains to be seen whether use of the poles actually helps people walk faster. The authors of this study said the previous research showed that use of the polls helped engage lower body muscles but that this particular study didn't reveal that. In other words, Nordic walkers' legs got the same exercise benefit as the legs of regular walkers.

At this point, the overall assessment of Nordic walking is that it provides a greater exercise benefits over regular walking.