walking | Ascension Lifestyle

22 Jan 2025
Comments: 0

Walking This Many Minutes Per Day Could Add Years To Your Life, Recent Study Says

Walking has seen a surge in popularity over the past few years, thanks to a slew of research that’s found that it’s great for your overall health and longevity. Now, another study has found that you don’t need to log several miles to reap the benefits of walking. Instead, just a few minutes a day could provide a serious boost for your overall health.

So, what’s the deal with this study and why is walking so good for you? Here’s what we know.

What did the study find?

The meta-analysis, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, analyzed data from 196 peer-reviewed articles that involved more than 30 million people. The researchers specifically looked at the link between the participants’ physical activity and health.

After crunching the data, the researchers discovered that people who logged 75 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (which includes brisk walking) per week had a 23 percent lower risk of early death.

When the study authors broke that down even more, they found that 75 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise lowered the risk of cardiovascular disease by 17 percent and cancer by seven percent.

Why is walking so good for you?

There are a few reasons why walking is beneficial. For one, it’s approachable.

“There’s no skill hurdle and people aren’t usually intimidated by it,” says Albert Matheny, R.D., C.S.C.S., co-founder of SoHo Strength Lab. You also don’t need extra equipment, meaning you can usually just walk out the door and go.

“Walking is great because it’s a cardiovascular exercise, but it’s also weight-bearing,” Matheny says. “That’s ultimately better for bone density and overall mobility.”

In addition to all of that, research has linked a walking habit with better moods, improvements in heart health, and a lowered risk of developing diabetes.

How much walking do you need to do per day to reap the benefits?

It really depends on your goals. This particularly study found that walking at a solid pace for just 11 minutes a day (a.k.a. 75 minutes spread out over the course of seven days) can give you all of those health perks mentioned above.

But that doesn’t mean you need to stop walking once you hit 11 minutes. “There’s no magic number,” Matheny says. “It’s not like if you walk less than 5,000 steps, you get no benefit.”

If you’re looking to take up a walking habit for fitness, he suggests aiming for 5,000+ steps a day. Ultimately, though, Matheny recommends just doing what you can.

How can I add more walking to my day?

There are so many ways to take up a walking habit, including making it a regular workout or finding ways to sneak it in, like walking to a friend’s house versus driving there. (You may need to upgrade your footwear to get a good walking shoe if you plan to ramp things up, though.)

“You can also just try to go outside and walk whenever you can,” Matheny says. “It’s good for your mind and body.”

Original article here

06 Oct 2024
Comments: 0

I’m not just faster, but taller’: how I learned to walk properly – and changed my pace, posture and perspective

In all the time I spent with Joanna Hall, she barely stopped walking. I would see her coming towards me in Kensington Gardens, London, gliding past the other strollers as if she alone were on a moving walkway. When she reached me, I would fall into step and off we would walk, for an hour. At the end, Hall would stride into the distance and keep walking, for all I knew, until we met the following week.

Hall’s WalkActive system, a comprehensive fitness programme based around walking, aims to improve posture, increase speed, reduce stress on joints and deliver fitness, turning a stroll into a workout and changing the way you walk for ever. She says she can teach it to me, and we have set aside four weeks for my education.

It is easy to be sceptical when someone claims you can reap huge health benefits simply by learning to walk better. You think: I’m already good at walking. And sometimes, I walk a long way.

But according to Hall, a fitness expert who enjoyed a three-year stint on ITV’s This Morning, almost nobody is good at walking: not you, not me and not all the other people in the park, who provide endless lessons in poor technique. I notice they are still managing to get where they are going. Are we not in danger of overthinking something people do without thinking?

Hall tells me: “If you ask someone, ‘When you go for a walk, do you enjoy it?’, they will say, ‘Yes’, but if you ask, ‘Do you ever experience discomfort in your lower back?’, quite a few people will say, ‘Yeah, I do get discomfort in my back, or I feel it when I get out of bed, or I’m tight in my achilles or stiff in my shoulder.’ And those are all indicators that an individual is walking sub-optimally.”

What are we doing wrong? Most of us, she says, tend to walk by stepping into the space in front of us. “I want you to think about walking out of the space behind you.”

If that sounds a bit abstract to you – as it did to me, at first – think about it this way: good walking is an act of propulsion, of pushing yourself forward off your back foot. Bad walking – my kind of walking – is overly dependent on traction: pulling yourself along with your front foot. This shortens your stride, relies too much on your hip flexors and puts unnecessary stress on your knees.

The struggle to get me to absorb this basic concept takes up most of our first hour together. My opening question about optimal walking was: “Will I look mad?” I imagined great loping strides and pumping arms.

“I promise you, you won’t look mad,” Hall said. But when you stroll haltingly through a public park while someone instructs you on heel placement, you do attract a certain amount of attention. People think: poor man, he’s having to learn to walk all over again.

They are not wrong. It takes a tremendous amount of concentration to do something so basic, and so ingrained, in a different way. It begins with the feet: I am trying to maintain a flexible, open ankle, to leave my back foot on the ground for longer, and to peel it away, heel first, as if it were stuck in place with Velcro.

“Feel the peel,” says Hall. “Feel. The. Peel.”

Second come the hips: I need to increase the distance between my pelvis and my ribs, standing tall and creating more flexibility through my torso. Then my neck: there needs to be more distance between my collarbone and my earlobes. I need to think about maintaining all of these things at the same time.

Hall acknowledges that, for beginners, there will be what she calls “Buckaroo! moments” – named after the children’s game featuring a put-upon, spring-loaded mule – when too much information causes a system overload. This happens to me when, while I’m busy monitoring my feet, my stride, my hips and my neck, Hall suggests that the pendular arc of my arms could do with a bit more backswing.

“What?” I ask. My rhythm collapses. My shoulders slump. My ribs sink. My right heel scuffs the pavement. I can feel, for the first time, just how not good my normal walking is. How did I get like this?

Hominids have been walking on two legs for more than 4m years. It is more energy efficient than walking on all fours, and it keeps your hands free for other tasks, but this advance came with its own problems. Studies suggest that some common human back problems may stem from spinal characteristics inherited from our knuckle-walking ancestors.

Your walk can also be affected by the way you sit, especially when you sit a lot: favouring one hip over another at your desk, or in your car. “Small things we’re doing consistently create that default neuromuscular pattern, which is just a little bit out of sync,” says Hall. “And it may not translate into anything, but over a period of time it can manifest itself as discomfort.”

Also, she tells me, my shoes are wrong.

Between our meetings, I work my way through Hall’s WalkActive app, a mix of instructional videos, audio coaching sessions and timed walks set to music of varying speeds. At this stage, I’m still perfecting my technique. “Imagine that maybe you have a Post-it note on the sole of your foot,” Hall says in my headphones as I turn the corner at the end of my road. “And you want to show the message on the Post-it note to the person behind you.” Feel the peel, I think. Read my heel.

Hall conceived the WalkActive system more than a decade ago, during the double whammy of pregnancy and appendicitis. “As soon as I was pregnant, even prior to having the appendicitis challenge, I never felt I wanted to do high-impact activity,” she says. “So walking was a natural thing for me to focus on.”

She later applied the techniques to her clients, but the regime she developed was originally for herself. She says: “It came from a personal space of wanting to rehab myself, to try to walk myself through rehab and walk myself through a fit pregnancy.”

Hall’s programme may be low-impact, but it is not low energy. By the end of our second session together, I am exhausted, because of the concentration required and the distance we have covered. A study that Hall commissioned showed that participants who completed a month of WalkActive training increased their walking speed by 24%. This alone amounts to a pretty big lifestyle adjustment – and you suddenly find that everyone is in your way. I’m not just faster, but taller, and my arms swing with a natural, easy rhythm, exuding a confidence wholly at odds with the rest of my personality. It feels, frankly, amazing.

One Friday morning, just before 7am, I join Hall’s twice-weekly WhatsApp group, along with several dozen other people also dialing in from around the country. I can hear birdsong in my earbuds as I walk out through my front door, while Hall guides us all through 30 minutes of brisk, optimal walking in real time.

“Leave that back foot on the floor,” she says, “so it’s a really sticky foot. Feel the peel.” I can feel it, I think, although I’m actually stuck at a level crossing.

By our fourth and final meeting I have the right shoes, as recommended by Hall. They are ugly, but they have a flexible sole and enough width to allow the toes to spread when the foot is on the ground. Today, we are concentrating not on speed but on varying our pace, slowing it down and shortening the stride, without compromising technique. This is because, during our third meeting, I mentioned that on ordinary walks I found myself outpacing the people I was with.

“I like to say the technique has a dimmer switch,” Hall tells me as we glide past the Albert Memorial. “You can turn it up or down, but it’s always on.” She has mistaken my boast for a complaint. I didn’t mean that I feel bad for leaving my friends behind. I meant that I am done with those people.

Perhaps the most significant claim Hall makes is that, in terms of fitness, walking can be enough. It can complement other forms of exercise, such as yoga and Pilates, but if you don’t do anything else, improving your walk can still confer major health benefits.

“I’m not anti-running, I’m not anti-gyms, I think they all have a role to play,” she says. “But I also think, sometimes, if we just think about the simplest thing that we could all do, and just get people to do it better, even if someone doesn’t necessarily feel as if they want to walk for longer, even if they just looked at changing their walking technique and applied it to their commute, that can be powerful.”

This is the real question: whether, after four weeks of training and new £70 shoes, I will continue to walk like this forever. But after I leave Hall in the park, I cross the street with my head high, feeling the peel with every step, all the way to my train, in case she is behind me, watching.

Original article here

10 Feb 2024
Comments: 0

12 Ways to Improve Your Circulation for Healthy Blood Flow

You might not think about it as much as you do eating healthy, exercising, and getting enough sleep, but maintaining good circulation is one of the most important building blocks to keeping your health on the rails.

“The circulatory system of the body delivers vital oxygen and nutrients to all of our muscles and organs,” says Vincent Varghese, D.O., a cardiac interventionist at Deborah Heart and Lung Center in New Jersey. “When plaque or arterial blockages develop, normal blood flow is hindered and can lead to devastating effects, such as heart attack, stroke, or even leg amputation [in severe cases].”

The process of plaque build-up is a slow one and usually takes decades, he adds, yet studies have shown the precursors of plaque developing as early as our twenties. A sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy eating, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, and a family history of early heart or vascular disease can all contribute to poor circulation.

“The most common symptom of impaired circulation to the legs is claudication,” says Caitlin W. Hicks, M.D., a board-certified vascular surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “It’s a condition where you may experience pain in the buttocks or calves when walking that goes away with rest.”

Cold extremities, leg swelling, and foot wounds that take a while to heal, especially if you have a family history, are all signs you should check in with a vascular specialist.

How to improve your circulation

Go on regular walks.

Walking can benefit both the arteries and veins. “Contraction of the calf muscles causes venous blood to be pushed back up to the heart,” says Misty Humphries, M.D., a board-certified vascular surgeon and associate professor of vascular surgery in Sacramento, CA. “The arteries dilate when patients walk and improve blood flow all throughout the body.” Aim for a minimum of 30 minutes of walking three times per week.

But if walking’s not your thing, any type of sweat session can improve circulation. “When you exercise, your muscles need greater blood flow, which supplies oxygen and other nutrients,” says Nachiket Patel, M.D., a board-certified interventional cardiologist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix.

Shoot for 20 minutes of heart-pumping cardio (think: cycling, elliptical, HIIT) four to five times per week. (Note: If it’s been a while since your last workout, you may want to consider checking in with your doc before starting a new routine).

Take more work breaks.

The perks of taking more work breaks is two-fold: It helps you get into the habit of alternating between sitting, standing, and walking, so there’s less demand on the circulatory system (blood flow slows down while you’re sitting and can cause blood to pool in your legs, resulting in muscle pain and fatigue); and it can keep your stress levels from getting out of whack.

“By keeping stress levels down, you’re less likely to binge eat or smoke,” says Dr. Humphries. “Both of these habits can lead to atherosclerosis (plaque buildup) in the arteries that results in a narrowing of the vessels.” Do your best to take stretch breaks every 15 to 20 minutes, and get-up-and-go breaks from sitting every hour—even if it’s just a power walk around your home.

Eat more fruits and veggies.

Besides reducing your sugar and fatty food intake to steer clear of high blood pressure, plaque formation, and diabetes, adding more fruits and veggies to your repertoire leads to more nitrates and other compounds in your diet, says Dr. Patel, which your body then uses to create nitric oxide—a chemical compound we exhale that boosts blood flow by relaxing blood vessels.

Foods that are high in nitric oxide converters include leafy green vegetables (spinach, kale, swiss chard, bok choy, arugula), beets, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, citrus fruits, watermelon, and pomegranates. The more colorful your plate looks, the better off you will be.

Stay hydrated.

“Your blood is about half water, so staying well-hydrated will help keep it moving,” says Dr. Patel. When you’re dehydrated, not only does the amount of blood circulating through your body decrease, but your blood retains more sodium, causing it to thicken and making it that much harder for your circulatory system to do its thing.

The easiest way to make sure you’re getting enough fluids is to check your pee: Straw-colored or clear means you’re hydrated—anything darker than that means you need to up your H20 intake.

Quit smoking.

Smoking causes a build-up of plaque in your arteries that can ultimately lead to peripheral artery disease (PAD). “Symptoms of PAD can range from leg pain with walking (claudication) to pain at rest to gangrene (tissue death caused by a lack of blood flow),” says Dr. Hicks.

Quitting smoking slows the process of plaque formation and vessel damage. The process of quitting is different for everyone, but there is medication available through your doctor if you find yourself struggling.

Manage your blood pressure.

High blood pressure messes with your circulation by making your heart and blood vessels worker harder and less efficiently. This creates itty bitty tears in the artery walls, which is what gives plaque (from bad cholesterol) the chance to make itself at home. “A cholesterol blockage can occur in any type of artery, including heart and peripheral arteries,” says Dr. Patel.

Exercising, cutting back on sodium, and reducing stress are some of the lifestyle factors that can help lower your blood pressure and improve your circulation in the process. Aim for a blood pressure less than 120/80mmHg.

Control your blood sugar.

Elevated glucose levels can cause damage to the lining of your small blood vessels and this can mess with your circulation. Diabetes also promotes the formation of plaque in the body, increasing your risk of PAD. The fatty deposits narrow the blood vessels (especially in your legs and feet).

“Aim for a hemoglobin A1C less than 6.5% if you have diabetes,” says Dr. Varghese. Your diet plays a big role here, and loading up on foods that can help lower your blood sugar naturally, such as leafy greens, whole grains, lean proteins, and legumes, can make a big difference.

Wear compression socks.

“Wearing compression socks adds a layer of support to your veins,” says Dr. Humphries. “It helps to prevent the superficial veins that aren’t wrapped in muscle from dilating.” As veins dilate from standing or sitting over long periods of time, they can become varicose veins (twisted, enlarged veins) that cause pain and swelling.

Wear compression socks from morning to evening to steadily squeeze your legs so your veins can move blood more efficiently. They’re available through pharmacies and medical supply stores and even online—prescription-strength are also available if your varicose veins are causing symptoms.

Elevate your legs.

Elevating your legs (at or above heart level) improves blood flow to the rest of your body by keeping the blood from pooling in your lower legs. “When you elevate your legs it helps take the pressure off your veins, since they don’t have to work against gravity to get blood back to the heart,” says Dr. Patel.

The most convenient time to elevate your legs would be when you’re watching TV or having a nap—lie down and prop your legs above heart level (a leg elevation pillow can help you comfortably hold the position) for 15 minutes or more at a time.

Drink green tea.

Green tea contains catechins, which are compounds that help to improve blood vessel function. “Catechins have been shown to inhibit oxidation (an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in the body), decrease blood vessel inflammation, as well as arterial plaque buildup,” says Dr. Patel. It’s thought green tea relaxes blood vessels so the body can pump blood more easily, but more research is needed to understand its full impact.

Take it easy on the booze.

“Alcohol consumption at levels above one to two drinks per day is associated with high blood pressure,” says Dr. Patel. When you sip those cocktails, your body has to work harder to pump blood and puts additional stress on your veins.

Spread out your alcohol intake as much as possible—and when you do indulge, stay within the recommended daily intake for alcohol, which is two drinks or less for men and one drink or less for women.

Finally, have a family meeting.

“If there’s a family history of early heart or vascular disease, before the age of 55 in men and 65 in women, you should see a specialist at least 10 years before you reach that age,” says Dr. Varghese. “Even without classic risk factors, your genetics and family history play a key role in plaque development.”

Original article here

22 Dec 2023
Comments: 1

Walking Backwards Has a Surprising Number of Health Benefits

Walking doesn’t require any special equipment or gym memberships, and best of all, it’s completely free. For most of us, walking is something we do automatically. It doesn’t require conscious effort, so many of us fail to remember the benefits of walking for health. But what happens if we stop walking on autopilot and start challenging our brains and bodies by walking backwards? Not only does this change of direction demand more of our attention, but it may also bring additional health benefits.

Physical activity doesn’t need to be complicated. Whether you’re regularly active or not, even a brisk ten-minute daily walk can deliver a host of health benefits and can count towards the World Health Organization’s recommended minimum of 150 minutes of aerobic activity a week.

Yet walking is more complicated than many of us realise. Remaining upright requires coordination between our visual, vestibular (sensations linked to movements such as twisting, spinning or moving fast) and proprioceptive (awareness of where our bodies are in space) systems. When we walk backwards, it takes longer for our brains to process the extra demands of coordinating these systems. However, this increased level of challenge brings with it increased health benefits.

One of the most well studied benefits of walking backwards is improving stability and balance. Walking backwards can improve forward gait (how a person walks) and balance for healthy adults and those with knee osteoarthritis. Walking backwards causes us to take shorter, more frequent steps, leading to improved muscular endurance for the muscles of the lower legs while reducing the burden on our joints.

Adding changes in incline or decline can also alter the range of motion for joints and muscles, offering pain relief for conditions such as plantar fasciitis – one of the most common causes of heel pain.

The postural changes brought about by walking backwards also use more of the muscles supporting our lumbar spine – suggesting backwards walking could be a particularly beneficial exercise for people with chronic lower back pain.

Walking backwards has even been used to identify and treat balance and walking speed in patients with neurological conditions or following chronic stroke.

But the benefits of changing direction aren’t just therapeutic – an interest in backwards movement has led researchers to discover various other benefits.

While normal walking can help us maintain a healthy weight, walking backwards may be even more effective. Energy expenditure when walking backwards is almost 40% higher than walking at the same speed forwards (6.0 Mets versus 4.3 Mets – one metabolic equivalent (Met) is the amount of oxygen consumed while sitting at rest), with one study showing reductions in body fat for women who completed a six-week backwards walk or run training programme.

When we become confident with travelling backwards, progressing to running can enhance the demands further. While often studied as a rehabilitation tool, backward running increases the strength of crucial muscles involved with straightening the knee, which not only carries over to injury prevention but also our ability to generate power and athletic performance.

Sustained backward running decreases the energy we expend when we run forwards. These improvements in running economy are even beneficial for experienced runners with an already economical running technique.

If walking backwards seems too easy, but space limitations affect your ability to run backwards, another way to increase the challenge further is to start dragging weights. Increasing the overall load increases the recruitment of the knee extensor muscles while placing heavy demands on your heart and lungs in a short space of time.

Loading a sledge and dragging it backwards carries a low risk of injury, as the most likely outcome if we’re too tired is that the sledge won’t move. But with lighter weights, this kind of exercise can produce an appropriate level of resistance to stimulate significant improvements in lower limb power, with dragging weights as little as 10% of total body weight leading to improved sprint times among young athletes.

How to get started

Walking backwards is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. So, how can you add walking backwards into your exercise regimen?

When walking backwards, we’re more likely to miss obstacles and hazards that we could crash into or fall over, so in the interest of safety, it’s best to start indoors where you won’t crash into someone or outside in a flat, open area.

Resist the urge to contort your body and look over your shoulder. Keep your head and chest upright while reaching back with your big toe for each step, rolling through the foot from toe to heel.

Once you become more confident walking backwards, you can begin to speed things up and even transition to a treadmill, being sure to use the guide rails when necessary. If using weights, start light. Focus on multiple sets rather than prolonged distances, and remember to maintain the integrity of your technique over no more than a 20-metre distance to begin with.

Original article here

21 Jun 2023
Comments: 0

Walking Correctly Takes Work—Here’s How to Improve Every Step

Chances are, you learned to walk when you were just a toddler and you haven’t really thought about it much since. It’s easy to nerd out on other fitness activities, like running or weight lifting. But, walking is something we often take for granted.

During the current pandemic, however, walking is having a moment (this article was written in May 2020). A simple stroll can go a long way to clear the mental cobwebs and stop your fitness tracker from screaming at you due to your newfound Jabba the Hutt lifestyle.

Before you start putting in the miles, it’s worth taking a look at how you walk. After all, it’s a repetitive motion and thousands of steps per day can put a lot of stress on your entire body—not just your legs and feet. Here are some tips from orthopedic experts on how to go for a walk without abusing your body.

Understand the Mechanics

Having a clear idea of what a step actually involves can help you visualize how to walk correctly. Every step happens in two phases: stance and swing. Jessica Rose, a professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Stanford University and director of the Motion & Gait Analysis Laboratory at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital provides the following description: “Typically, the stance phase starts with the leading foot making heel contact with the ground, followed by a heel-toe progression of the weight-bearing foot. The Swing phase starts with rapid hip, knee, and ankle flexion to clear the foot from the ground, the knee then rapidly extends to prepare for the next step. To assist with balance and forward momentum the arms swing in a reciprocal manner, the opposite arm swings forward with the leading foot. A single gait cycle of stance and swing typically lasts about 1-second.”

Your brain does all of that instinctively, but understanding the parts can be valuable in assessing where you might have weaknesses and can help doctors assess any pain you’re having.

Pick the Right Shoes

Choosing the wrong pair of shoes can wreak havoc on your feet, obviously, but those ill-effects can travel all the way up your body. “There’s no perfect shoe for everyone,” says Lew Schon, Director of Orthopedic Innovation Institute of Foot and Ankle Reconstruction at Mercy Medical Center, “but stability is crucial. You don’t want to wear flip-flops or anything that isn’t tight to your foot. They can cause weird stresses and injure your skin.” Blisters from a shoe rubbing against your foot will end your walking initiative in a hurry.

When it comes to padding, though, more isn’t always better. If the sole is too soft, your foot can sink deeply into it and create awkward stresses on your bones and joints and make it difficult to balance. Dr. Schon recommends starting with a standard amount of padding and increasing its thickness if you have a higher body weight. Too much padding, however, can reduce the positive effect the repetitive impacts will have on bone density, which is especially important for older people.

Many shoemakers offer options with corrective structures to try and provide support in needed areas or even correct problems. “You can look at the sole of your shoes and see how your shoes are wearing,” says Wendi Weimar, Director, Sports Biomechanics Laboratory Lab at Auburn. “If they’re wearing too much on the inside, then you might need something that gives you a little more arch support. If they’re wearing more quickly at the heel and causing pain, then you might need a little more cushioning.” She’s careful, however, to explain that it’s not an exact science, especially when you’re doing it on your own. Adding arch support when you have a low arch isn’t necessarily going to fix the issue. A trained orthopedist will use testing and specialized tools.

If you’re unsure about the shape of your step, sticking with a neutral shoe is a good place to start unless you’re having specific pain or are getting a personal assessment.

Tie Your Shoes Correctly

No matter what shoe you buy, tying it correctly will make a big difference in the way it performs. “For a typical eight-eyelet shoe, there are more than 200 ways to tie them based on your feet, walking pattern, and body composition,” says Weimar. “We have tied shoes of people with peripheral neuropathy and it has actually improved the condition. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it.”

Weimar suggests starting with a tying pattern known as the runner’s loop, which helps to pull your foot back into the heel of the shoe to reduce its ability to move around. That will drastically cut down on blisters and reduce the chances of an awkward impact on the wrong part of the sole.

Pay attention to whether you’re favoring one side of your body.

It’s possible for your body to have an injury that you won’t even notice and that can negatively affect your body with every step. “If you find that you lean to one side, this may indicate weakness, pain or injury on that side,” says Rose. “We lean over to the weak or painful side, shifting our center of mass to alleviate forces on that limb.” That imbalance can cause problems throughout the body.

If you start to recognize an imbalance, professionals don’t recommend trying to fix it by forcing yourself into the right position because that could make it worse. Rather, finding the underlying cause with a doctor can help eliminate the source of the problem rather than simply addressing the symptom.

Stand Up Straight

Slouching is almost universally bad, but that’s especially true during a walk. “You want to pull your shoulders back, keep your bum tucked underneath you, and your head parallel to the ground,” says Weimar. “When you lift your chin up and stop slouching, it will automatically help bring your head in line with your pelvis.” If you’re used to slouching at a desk all day (like I am) you may actually find that your back, neck, and shoulder muscles feel sore after a long walk since they’re not used to that kind of engagement.

In order to keep your body upright, muscles throughout your body have to activate. “It involves your abdominal muscles as well as your glutei,” says Rose.” They tend to get neglected, but they keep your trunk and pelvis in a good position.” That’s not to say that you have to squeeze your abs and butt as hard as possible as you walk, but they should be engaged, not relaxed.

Keeping your eyes up and parallel to the horizon will also help you keep your balance, which may suffer if you’re staring at a downward angle.

Don’t Try to Force Your Feet Straight

Your feet likely have a natural angle that prevents them from facing perfectly straight ahead. “Your feet point where your legs tell them to,” says Rose. “It’s not something someone should try to correct on their own, but it is something they should try to understand where it’s coming from.” Forcing your feet forward against their natural rotation can put undue torque on the ankles, hips, and feet.

It can become an issue if you’re pushing off with the wrong part of your foot. ”We want the foot to become the best lever it can be. ” says Weimar. “When you roll off the front of your foot, you want the center of pressure to come off between your big toe and your second toe.” Pushing off too far to one side can cause common issues such as bunions.

Choose the Right Surface and Location for Walking

A walk around the neighborhood is great if you have the opportunity because it’s quick and doesn’t require driving. But streets aren’t perfectly flat—they’re sloped to improve drainage—and that uneven surface can be an issue in the long term. “Your outside leg strikes the ground lower than your inside leg. That leg close to the curb strikes lower which is going to cause a mismatched pelvic girdle position and get everything out of whack,” says Weimar. “If you walk out on the right side of the road, walk back on the other to try and even those things out.” She also recommends walking on the flatter part of the street instead of directly in the gutter if you can safely avoid it with traffic.

Walking on slightly irregular surfaces like trails can help build strength in the muscles and joints as your legs adapt to the irregular orientations of each strike. Dirt also provides a softer surface that won’t tax your feet and joints as much.

Hit the Hills

Going up and down hills during your walk can crank up the cardiovascular benefits of a walk, but the technique changes slightly. “When you walk up a hill, you want to lean into the hill,” says Weimar. “You want your center of gravity to get a little bit in front of your feet so when you step, the propulsion part of your step is pushing your body up the hill.”

Coming down the hill requires a different kind of effort from your muscles. “That uses eccentric muscle action, which tends to be a lot tougher on the muscle than concentric,” says Weimar. “A lot of people will get sore from walking downhill because of that new loading pattern.” She recommends going slow and trying not to stomp your feet too hard into the ground.

Don’t Over-Stride

Once you’re a more experienced walker, it’s tempting to try and up your pace and distance. But doing too much can cause problems with your stride and limit your workout capabilities. Taking too big of a stride will require your pelvis to rotate too far to step out in front of you. Plus, as Weimar explains, “it puts stress on your lower back and puts a lot of stress on your heel as it impacts the ground. It also takes more energy to get your body up over that lead foot.” Increasing the overall speed of your steps can help you increase your pace without compromising your technique.

Original article here

17 Mar 2023
Comments: 0

Walking for Fitness: What Muscles Does Walking Work?

Walking does great things for your mental health and cardiovascular fitness, but did you know that a good walk can also help you build the muscles in your legs and abs?

When you want to give your muscles a good workout, chances are you’ll reach for a dumbbell or work up a sweat with your favorite bodyweight session. But, as it turns out, one of our favorite day-to-day activities is often overlooked as a muscle building exercise: walking.

That explains why you get stiff legs after a long hike or busy day on your feet. While walking is rightly lauded as a form of cardio exercise and its benefits for your heart health and mindset are widely understood, a good, long walk is also a great way to work your leg muscles.

“Walking is actually a great work out for your legs,” says Sally Davies, senior physiotherapist from the musculoskeletal therapies team at Bupa Clinics, explaining that as we step, we engage the quads, hamstrings, calves, glutes and abdominal muscles. “All the muscles in the leg work together to provide stability, support and control to the body whilst walking, these movements help to strengthen and condition the leg muscles.”

When we drive the leg forwards, we are engaging our quads and hamstrings to help bend the knee, as well as press off from the ground.

“Your calf muscles also work by extending the ankles, giving your stride momentum. Together with your thighs, they move as a reaction to the foot molding to the floor beneath and the shin bone rotating internally to allow greater movement in the feet,” Sally says.

She adds that glutes are one of the most powerful muscles in the body, so we use them to contract and stabilize our body during walks. “Over time, the glutes can gradually become stronger with frequent walking,” Sally says.

As well as our lower half, our abdominals are engaged while walking to keep your balance as you shift your weight from one foot to the other.

How to Engage Muscles During Walking

Strolling along the pavement is one thing, but if you’re looking to really use walking as a key form of exercise, there are some important things to think about.

Firstly, where are you walking? While the treadmill might be convenient in rainy weather, the flat and smooth grounding won’t be the best way to work your muscles. “When walking outside, you can work your abdominals at a higher level as they will be helping you to keep your balance as you cover unbalanced terrain,” says Sally.

You can probably guess that uphill walking is more challenging on your thighs. This is due to how much power and stability we require to push ourselves at different inclines. A study by the University of Colorado found that when walking uphill the hamstrings and glutes power the legs more so than walking on flat ground, whereas on the decline walk, the quads elicited more control over the legs.

“Alternating your route between mixed terrain, flat terrain and hill walking – as well as your speed – is the optimum way to help you work all muscles during your walks,” says Sally.

Then there’s the type of walking you do. Nordic walking has been famed for it’s ability to level up your usual hike. Essentially, Nordic walking involves using specially designed poles to propel you forward, and studies suggest that it increases upper body muscle activation by up to 15 times. It’s also been shown to reduce muscle activity in the erector spinae muscles that run along either side of your spine and hip retractor muscles, protecting you from overuse and future back problems.

Ultimately, if building stronger leg muscles is your goal, compound lifts and weight-bearing exercise are excellent things to focus on. But it’s important to know how activities such as walking impacts your body and how you can change it up to reap even more benefits for your muscles. Now, who’s off to climb some hills?

Originally appeared on Stylist.co.uk

15 Dec 2022
Comments: 0

In These Cities, Car-Free Streets Are Here To Stay

What happens when you close down a city street to cars? More people do non-driving things, like walking, biking, strolling, skating and frolicking in the space normally reserved for motor vehicles. Car-free advocates would say that as greenhouse gas emissions and traffic violence go down, happiness and connection go up — it’s hard to connect with your neighbors while ensconced in two tons of steel.

Despite the benefits, closing streets to cars can make some people, er — a bit upset. Opponents argue that businesses will suffer (despite evidence to the contrary), congestion will increase (not so, says CityLab) and disabled and elderly people will have less access to public space (there’s a column for that). Like any change that pushes back against car culture, car-free streets face significant challenges.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, cities around the world closed down streets to cars and opened them up for people. Over two years later, some of these experiments were so popular that they are here to stay. Here are four car-free streets that are still going strong or just getting started.

John F. Kennedy Drive in San Francisco

The people of San Francisco have spoken: Keep JFK Drive car-free. Historically, JFK Drive (now known as JFK Promenade) has been closed to cars on Sundays since 1967. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of the city and put a premium on outdoor space for socially-distanced play, it made sense to keep the street car-free seven days a week.

As anyone who has biked, skated or rolled during an open streets event can attest — once you go car-free it’s extremely hard to go back. Making JFK Drive car-free not only increased walking and biking, it turned the street into a space for art, music, celebration and connection.

In April, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a motion keeping JFK Drive closed to cars, along with 40 improvements that would make the park more accessible to disabled people, seniors and others.

The 1.5 mile street in San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate State Park was then the subject of dueling ballot measures this month — Prop J would keep cars out and Prop I would reopen the street to motorized vehicles. Supporters of Prop I argued that permanently closing the drive to cars would exclude people with disabilities from accessing the park. In the end, voters passed Prop J with almost 60% voting “yes” and rejected Prop I with over 60% voting “no.”

Jodie Medeiros, who leads the pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco, says car-free movement at JFK is critical to protecting pedestrians from vehicle traffic. “For two years, we have seen how much people not only love but really need this car-free space,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Car-free JFK is all about our safety.”

According to San Francisco Recreation and Parks, visits to the park increased 36% since the closure, totaling nearly 7 million visits, while over 90% of the streets in the park are still open to cars.

Griffith Park Drive in Los Angeles

It started with tragedy: On April 16, 77-year-old Andrew Jelmart was riding his bike through Griffith Park when he was struck and killed by a speeding driver. While the park is a popular spot for hiking, biking and horseriding with over 50-miles of trails, cars often use it as a shortcut to avoid adjacent freeways. Los Angeles has long been known for its car-centric culture, but Jelmart’s death sparked a movement to make at least part of Griffith Park Drive car-free.

It might seem like a no-brainer that parks should be for recreation, rather than for drivers trying to get from point A to point B faster, but the tragic death of a cyclist drove the point home. By the end of June, the park announced it was temporarily shutting a stretch of Griffith Park Drive to cars. By Aug. 18, the change was made permanent.

As mobility advocates and writers have pointed out, most of the park is still open to cars — the section of Griffith Park Drive that is newly car-free is less than a mile long. However, city officials estimate that the closure keeps about 2,000 cars per day from cutting through the park, making it safer for people walking and rolling.

The city of L.A. has rarely moved this quickly to implement safety improvements for people outside of cars, even in the face of tragedy. In this case, it helped that the Department of Recreation and Parks has sole jurisdiction over Griffith Park Avenue, avoiding some of the public pushback that projects like this often face. In addition to the closure, the park has also announced new plans to curb speeding, calm traffic and improve cycling infrastructure.

34th Ave in New York City

Although not shut down to cars 24/7, one of the most successful car-free street projects is 34th Avenue (now known as “Paseo Park”) in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City. Currently, the street is car-free every day between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m, turning 26 city blocks into a de facto public park. With the newfound space, the neighborhood hosts a myriad of cultural activities, including yoga, dance, gardening, ESL classes and arts and crafts for kids.

Started in the early days of the pandemic, the 34th Avenue open street project was organized as part of New York City’s Open Streets initiative. Volunteers from the neighborhood put out traffic barriers every morning and started organizing events, activities and games. This year, only 20 miles of open streets remain in the city, down from a high of 83 miles.

The city’s department of transportation says that the project has reduced traffic violence involving pedestrians by a whopping 41.7%. A study conducted by Streetsblog showed a dramatic reduction in all car crashes.

Although the project has sparked controversy in recent months, 34th Avenue is a testament to community organizing and the possibilities of a street centered on people, not cars.

Capel Street in Dublin

Capel Street is a popular retail and restaurant district in Dublin that went car-less in May, making it the longest car-free street in the country — but not without some pushback.

On the face of it, the street – since named one of Time Out’s coolest streets in the world – seems perfect for pedestrianization. Capel is home to such TikTok-famous eateries as Krewe, Bovinity and a secret Asian street food restaurant hidden in the back of a supermarket. A new report out of New York City has found that far from hurting restaurants, car-free streets actually increased business for restaurants enrolled in the Open Streets program. They saw a 19% increase in revenue over previous years, or almost $6 million total during summer 2021.

Capel Street’s car-free journey started gradually, with more space on the street dedicated to outdoor dining during the pandemic. Then, last year, Dublin piloted a program shutting down the street to cars during weekend evening hours for 17 weeks. A public outreach survey found that almost 90% of respondents supported making Capel Street traffic-free, saying that it “improved their experience” of the street.

While some businesses were opposed to the idea, Dublin city councilors voted this month to keep the street closed to motor vehicles.

Before the Pandemic

Even before the threat of a highly-infectious airborne virus pushed cities to begin getting serious about outdoor dining and pedestrianized streets, some cities were already working toward implementing car-free zones in their city centers. In Paris, air and noise pollution pushed Mayor Anne Hidalgo to institute several car-free days beginning in 2015. Reports by the Airparif association, which measures urban pollution levels, suggest that nitrogen dioxide levels fell by nearly a third on the Champs-Élysées, by as much as 40% along the Seine, and about 20% at the Place de l’Opéra, during a car-free day in September 2015. Now, the city plans to ban private vehicles from the city’s historic center by 2024, ahead of the Paris Olympics.

The success of the occasional car-free days in Paris also inspired a movement in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2016, Mayor Fernando Haddad announced a ban on cars every Sunday along the city’s iconic Paulista Avenue. The move has been welcomed, including by the local business owners who were initially skeptical: A 2019 study conducted by a group of local NGOs found that 86% of store owners supported the program. Indeed, many are encouraging the city to expand the ban to Saturday afternoons as well, to encourage more foot traffic and sales.

“With the closing for cars, people started to walk a lot more, to stroll around, and the sales on Sundays grew seven-fold,” one local bookstore manager told Next City. “It was the best thing that could have happened for us. Sundays are now, by far, our busiest days.”

Original article here

15 Aug 2022
Comments: 0

Keeping Fit: How to Do the Right Exercise for Your Age

The effect of exercise on health is profound. It can protect you from a range of conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. But the type and amount of exercise you should do changes as you age. To ensure that you are doing the right type of exercise for your age, follow this simple guide.

Childhood and Adolescence

In childhood, exercise helps control body weight, builds healthy bones and promotes self-confidence and healthy sleep patterns. The government recommends that children should get at least one hour of exercise a day. As a tip:

Children should try a variety of sports and develop skills, such as swimming and the ability to hit and kick a ball.
Lots of non–scheduled physical activity is great, too, such as playing in playgrounds.

Exercise habits tend to steadily decline during teen years, particularly in girls. Getting enough exercise promotes a healthy body image and helps manage stress and anxiety. You can also:

Encourage teenagers to keep one team sport, if possible.
For teenagers who are not into team sports, swimming or athletics can be a good way to keep fitness levels up.

In Your 20s

You are at your absolute physical peak in your mid-20s, with the fastest reaction times and highest VO2 max – the maximum rate at which the body can pump oxygen to muscles. After this peak, your VO2 max decreases by up to 1 percent each year and your reaction time slows each year. The good news is that regular physical activity can slow this decline. Building lean muscle mass and bone density at this age helps you retain them in later years.

Vary your training and keep it fun. Try tag rugby, rowing or boot camp.
If you are a regular exerciser, get advice from an exercise professional to build “periodisation” into your training regime. This involves dividing your training regime into progressive cycles that manipulate different aspects of training – such as intensity, volume and type of exercise – to optimise your performance and ensure you peak for a planned exercise event, such as a triathlon.

In Your 30s

As careers and family life for many intensify in their 30s, it is important that you maintain cardiovascular fitness and strength to slow normal physical decline. If you have a sedentary job, make sure you maintain good posture and break up long periods of sitting by forcing activity into your day, such as routing your printer to another room, climbing a flight of stairs to use the bathroom on another floor, or standing when taking a phone call so you are moving every half an hour where possible.

Work smart. Try high-intensity interval training. This is where bursts of high-intensity activity, up to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, such as sprinting and cycling, are broken up with periods of lower-intensity exercise. This kind of workout is good for the time poor as it can be done in 20 minutes.
For all women, and especially after childbirth, do pelvic floor exercises, sometimes known as Kegel exercises daily to help prevent incontinence.
Diversify your exercise programme to keep it interesting. Try boot camp, spin class or yoga.

In Your 40s

Most people start to put on weight in their 40s. Resistance exercise is the best way to optimise calorie burning to counteract fat accumulation and reverse the loss of three to eight percent of muscle mass per decade. Ten weeks of resistance training could increase lean weight by 1.4kg, increase resting metabolic rate by 7 percent and decrease fat weight by 1.8kg.

Try kettlebells or start a weight-training programme in your gym.
Take up running, if you don’t run already, and don’t be afraid to start a more intensive exercise programme. You get more bang for your buck with running versus walking.
Pilates can be useful to build core strength to protect against back pain, which often starts in this decade.

In Your 50s

In this decade, aches and pains may crop up and chronic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, can manifest. As estrogen declines in postmenopausal women, the risk of heart disease increases.

Do strength training twice a week to maintain your muscle mass.
Weight-bearing exercises, such as walking, is recommended. Walk fast enough so that your breathing rate increases and you break a sweat.
Try something different. Tai chi can be excellent for balance and relaxation.

In Your 60s

Typically, people accumulate more chronic conditions as they get older, and ageing is a major risk factor for cancer. Maintaining a high level of physical activity can help prevent cancers, such as post-menopausal breast cancer, colon cancer and cancer of the womb, and it reduces the risk of developing chronic conditions, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Physical activity tends to decline with age, so keep active and try to buck this trend.

Try ballroom dancing or other forms of dancing; it’s a fun and sociable way to exercise.
Incorporate strength and flexibility exercises twice a week. Aqua-aerobics can be a great way to develop strength using water as resistance.
Maintain cardiovascular exercise, such as brisk walking.

70s and Beyond

Exercise in your 70s and beyond helps prevent frailty and falls, and it’s important for your cognitive function. If you have a period of ill health, try to keep mobile, if possible. Strength and fitness can decline rapidly if you are bed bound or very inactive, which can make it hard to get back to previous levels.

Walk and talk. Instead of inactive visits from family and friends, go for a walk together. It will keep you motivated and boost your health more than solitary exercise.
Incorporate some strength, balance and cardiovascular exercise in your regime. But get advice from a physiotherapist or other exercise professional, especially if you have several chronic conditions.

The main message is to keep moving throughout your life. Sustained exercise is what benefits health most.

Original article here