Urban Walking: Tips for Fitness and Fun

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Posted in: Everything Else
May 26, 2009 by Amanda | Comments (0)

Holly St. Lifer recently wrote a really motivating article for Natural Health magazine featuring tips to help you get started, maximize and enjoy your urban walking fitness experience. Check out excerpts below via Find Articles.

Walk to get fit.
To turn your walk into a workout, you should be walking fast enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat but still be able to converse, according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines.

Tweak your technique.
Proper posture will make your walk more comfortable and robust. Lift up through the crown of your head. Drop your shoulders back and down and lean forward from the waist. Keep your eyes on the horizon and your chin parallel to the ground. Keep your arms close to your ribs. Your hands should trace a compact are from your waistband on the back swing, to chest height on the front swing. Strike the ground with your heel first. Roll through the foot from heel to toe while keeping your knees slightly bent. Press off from the ball of your foot and push off your toes. Imagine revealing the bottom of your shoe on every stride.

Walk with poles.
To increase the challenge, add poles to your walk. They demand more effort from your arms, chest, abdominals, back, and shoulders, so you’re toning areas not typically relied upon during walking. “Poles force you to walk faster,” says Mark Fenton, former member and coach of the U.S. Racewalking team, and author of The Complete Guide to Walking for Health, Weight Loss, and Fitness (Lyons Press, 2008). “Combine that with the upper body workout and you can increase your calorie burn by up to 40 percent.” (Find poles like those made by Exerstrider at walkingpoles.com)

Add steps, staircases, and hills.
Studies show that as long as you can keep up a pace close to what you maintain on fiat ground, inclines can increase your calorie burn by up to 50 percent. You’ll also be strengthening your legs and butt.

Walk to reduce stress.
You don’t need to pound the pavement at warp speed to reap the tension-taming benefits of walking. Researchers at the Rippe Lifestyle Institute in Shrewsbury, Mass., found even taking a comfortable saunter can significantly reduce stress.

Engage your mind.
“People who incorporated a simple meditation technique had the greatest levels of stress reduction, says James Rippe, M.D., professor of biomedical science at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, author of High Performance Health (Thomas Nelson, 2007), and lead researcher in a study that looked at the effect meditation has on reducing stress while walking.

Choose a mantra.
“You can choose a meaningful phrase or just listen to your footsteps,” says Rippe. “I love life”–those are the words Katherine Dreyer, co-founder of ChiWalking, a mind-body walking program in Asheville, N.C., repeats on her daily walks. “If I focus my mind on a positive phrase, it keeps me from dwelling on stressful thoughts,” she says.

Be curious.
“I love discovering a beautiful historic home or garden I never would have noticed if I were in a car,” says Gay Page, president and founder of Colorado Walks, an organization in Denver that promotes and encourages walking. “These little finds dispel my daily stresses and refresh my spirit.”

Walk to explore a neighborhood.
With advance planning and research, you can turn your stroll into a tour of the local culture and hot spots.

What’s your fav ‘hood to hike around?

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