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New Ways To Walk
Posted on Jan 1st 2010 4:00PM by Nicole Dorsey-StraffClick on the gallery below for 10 new ways to spice up your walking routine.
New Ways To Walk
Running coach and walking expert Danny Dreyer wrote his latest book "ChiWalking" to help exercisers overcome bad exercise habits and burn more body fat as they walk. Dreyer teaches his natural walking technique in workshops around the country in order to transform walking from a mundane means of locomotion into an intensely rewarding practice. ChiWalking -- which refers to using a more mindful energy as you walk -- helps reduce or eliminate knee pain, hip pain, and pain from arthritis, too.
No kidding, you can walk anywhere from two to five miles and firm up your midsection with fitness expert Leslie Sansone's "Walk Your Belly Flat" DVD. "The small area in front of your television or computer, and a pair of comfortable walking shoes, is all you will need to start walking two or more miles at home. There is no fancy equipment or complicated steps, just pop in a workout video and follow me for a slim, trim tummy," says Sansone, who leads you on total-body conditioning walks, but also uses specific cueing that zeroes in on your middle muscles during and after each walking routine. Safe for all ages and fitness levels, her at-home workouts don't stress your joints and ligaments. So, lace up your walking shoes and pop this DVD in -- no fancy footwork required!
Reebok debuts these snazzy EasyTone Walking Shoes to super-sculpt and firm your legs and buttocks muscles. Engineered by a NASA scientist, EasyTone shoes use balance pods under the shoe, which creates slight instability as you walk and forces your muscles to harder than usual. Their Smoothfit technology is pretty comfortable too, and provides up to 28 percent more muscle recruitment of the lower body. Like you really need another excuse to buy new shoes?
While water exercise has long been promoted as therapeutic, a unique combination of water exercise and traditional treadmill exercise takes water therapy to a whole new level. Because an underwater treadmill sits on a pool floor, your body is submerged anywhere from waist-to shoulder-level, depending on the pool depth and your height, making you 50 to 90 percent weightless. Like all water exercises, water walking is easy on the joints but it's also a major league flab-fighter. Water provides 12 times the resistance of air, so you're really strengthening and building muscle as you walk. If you have access to an underwater treadmill, hop on already! Pssst: The deeper the water, the more strenuous your workout.
Nearly every state in the union sponsors an annual walk for Mother's Against Drunk Driving. According to MADD, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people ages two to 34 and, on average, a drunk driver kills someone in the United States every 40 seconds. There are a million charitable reasons to walk for a good cause though, so if you'd rather stride right to prevent diabetes or malnutrition, simply log onto www.walkforacause.org and pick your passion! There's no better reason to burn a few hundred calories with like-minded citizens, and walking for charity makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over.
Jim Rogash/Getty Image for Reebok
Nordic Walking burns up to 40 percent more calories than a traditional walk in the park, according to Malin Svensson, President of Nordic Walking USA. "If you add walking poles to any power walk you can reach the same intensity you use during a slow jog but without the high-impact jarring on your joints," says Svensson, a certified personal trainer. "Walking with poles strengthens your arms, chest and back far more than traditional walking because of the upper-body force needed to propel forward," she says. In addition, research in Finland -- where a huge percentage of the population uses poles to walk to work -- shows Nordic Walking improves neck and chest mobility, and provides more balance and stability across rougher terrain.
Going for a cold-weather stroll through snow forces your body to work harder to maintain your core temperature, and also targets more leg and buttocks muscles so you end up boosting your metabolism and getting more results from each walk. Also, striding in sunlight in colder climates can do wonders for lifting your mood and providing adequate vitamin D production. A study at the University of Washington in Seattle tracked 112 women aged 19 to 78 and showed that those who took a brisk outdoor walk for 20 minutes daily had better moods, higher self-esteem and an improved sense of well being at the end of the eight-week study. Winter walking provides an effective, easy-to-stick-with therapy for mild-to-moderate depression, say the researchers.
The big difference between taking a traditional walk or going for an outdoor hike is that hiking tends to veer off the beaten track or street (think streams, canyons, park lands and greenery), and you blast more overall calories because you're likely to hit hills and off-road terrain, which places additional muscular demands on your body. If you hike outside you'll need sturdier hiking shoes or boots, which provide more forefoot stability and ankle support. So, grab a buddy and a map, and then hit the trails for one of the safest and most enjoyable fat-blitzing workouts around.
The idea behind walking and wearing a weighted vest is that the more you weigh, the more calories you burn during a walk. And if the weighted vest is built ergonomically, it apportions stress and weight properly across your body and won't tax your lower back. Fitness pro and founder of WALKVEST®, Debbie Rocker says, "The vest helps you burn excess calories, tone muscle, condition your abs and build bone density. Adding two to 16 pounds to your regular body weight safely causes your body to work harder, so you lose weight faster. Furthermore, by carrying the extra weight, your bones are forced to grow denser and stronger, which improves posture, prevents against osteoporosis, and jump starts weight loss." Hey, Valerie Bertinelli likes her weighted vest so much, she gave one to Rachel Ray on prime time TV!
Fitness expert Tamilee Webb leads a brand-new "Weight Loss Walk" DVD in an easy-to-follow format that progressively builds in intensity. The first 15-minute "mile" introduces three new steps you'll use throughout the workout (a base walk, a V-step and a three-count march). The second mile maintains the same foot patterns but adds dynamic arm movements to bump up intensity. The last mile maximizes walking effectiveness with dumbbell exercises and sculpts the upper body to help sidestep walking boredom and firm you up faster. Choose to do one or both DVD workouts depending on your schedule (21 and 35 minutes, respectively), or perform them back-to-back for a true challenge.
