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Show Wfll o TjCM? Walking is one of the all- SLlLOlilg If OiiJl time areat exercises, and Jq beneficial to your health. .-f WgMllWIHL ' ' : "ePickhardt 5 0 the challenges in your life lMimake you tired? Do yu iASjwish you had an "upper" gjlthat wouldn't give you Spy caffeine shakes? K Or are you wound up and """Do you wish you had a 7 !cV5atwouldn,tPutyouin king. The natural rhythm ;"'n8 flaxes and at the same d t?l Il'sanatl upper ffects ' W'th " drUg ' cnvinced? Do you think that s what yu do if you can't asHn ai088er 0r if Vur car ee'down? If that's what you iV6 1 " re not alne. Walking W of favor in many " s considered a second-rate eercise. Mion is wrong Walkino is one of the all-time great exercises. The American Heart Association claims that "Walking briskly is the simplest and one of the best forms of exercise." Think for a minute about what you want from exercise. You probably want to tone your body muscles without making them bulge or bunch in unsightly clumps. You'd like to improve your cardiovascular functioning expanding your lung capacity, increasing the efficiency of your blood flow and thereby decreasing your chances of cardiovascular diseases, like heart attacks. You want to shed excess pounds. You'd like to feel good while you're exercising and refreshed after you've stopped. Walking does all this and more. Let's begin with some of the benefits it shares with other forms of regular exercise. According to the President's Council on Physical Fitness, it reduces chronic fatigue slows down the physical deterioration that accompanies aging, and correlates with better job performance. It aids in weight control, too. The Harvard School of Public Health claims that one-half hour a day of proper exercise can take off as much as 26 pounds of excess weight a year. In addition to these pluses which it shares with other types of regular workouts, walking has a list of merits all its own. First, walkers rarely suffer from the 20 million athletic-related injuries reported in the U.S. each year. Both competitive sports and jogging often result in ailments such as strained Achilles tendons, shin splints or overexertion. Walkers rarely experience any of these. Second, walking fits into small slivers of time. hTanse unlike running, swimming and competitive athletics, it does not necessitate changing into special clothing, arranging schedules with other people, traveling to sports fields or even showering afterwards. So if walkers only have 20 minutes a day to spare for exercise, they can expend all of it in productive activity. Third, walking helps prevent heart disease. Although heart disease is rarer in women than in men, some researchers believe that as women's professional lives more closely parallel men's, their mortality rates from heart problems will increase. According to Harry J. Johnson, M.D. in his book "Creative Walking for Physical Fitness," walking is an ideal way to develop a collateral blood supply to the heart which, in turn, helps prevent heart disease. Dr. Johnson explains that as people get older their arteries narrow and blood has difficulty - - ' " TP T traveling through them. This is a particular problem when the arteries feeding the heart muscle itself begin to clog and the heart doesn't get enough blood. One way to avoid difficulties from clogged arteries is to encourage the body to use alternate routes for supplying blood to the heart. These alternate routes are called the collateral blood supply. And the best system for creating a collateral blood supply is to put mild stress on the heart over a long period of time. During periods of mild stress, the heart is slightly undersupplied wi.th blood and the body begins to use tiny, available arteries to provide the heart with the extra blood it needs. Soon these once under-used passageways are able to give the heart additional avenues for receiving crucial blood supplies. See WALKING page 4 Walking It fif. . . Continued Other forms of exercise help develop the collateral blood supply as well but may put too much stress on the heart while doing it. For instance, one study shows that joggers have a reduced chance of heart attack except when they are actually jogging. This is because running can create severe stress on the heart. Walking, claims Dr. Johnson, because it furnishes low levels of heart stress over an extended period of time, gives the body an ideal opportunity to build up a collateral blood supply. And busy women take heed, f emales who have suffered a heart attack are more likely to die from a second attack than similarly afflicted males. Some medical reporters attribute this to the fact that women don't "take care of themselves" after their first bout with heart illness. Many of them neglect their doctor's recommendation to walk every day. "Two miles a day of brisk walking" is the standard prescription to prevent a second heart attack. And the walk must be swift. A stroll will not do. How fast is a brisk walk? The President's Council on Physical Fitness gives this definition: a slow walk equals one mile in 20 minutes. A moderate walker can traverse the same distance in 15 minutes, while a fast pacer can do a 13-minute mile. So a woman in reasonably good physical shape should strive for a 15-minute mile or better. The simplest way for a walker to gauge speed is by timing a mile. To do this, mark off a one-mile "track" by first driving the course and using the mileage given by the car's odometer or by counting off 20 city blocks which should equal roughly one mile. Walkers who like to explore new terrain each day or enjoy traversing unmarked country trails might want to invest in a pedometer. This device can be adjusted to a person's stride and computes the distance traveled. (However, some women have complained that pedometers are more trouble than they are worth. Often difficult to set so they read out an accurate measurement, they also must be worn clipped to a trouser leg while walking). Once the track is set, a walker needs to decide how to work a hike into her daily schedule. Here's how three women do it. Mary Beth Bigger, who supervises the cataloging of the rare book collection at the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, walks the IVi miles to work each day. She walks her child to a day-care center one block from her home and then swings off toward the university. "I wear my work clothes," she explains, "and carry my good shoes in a string bag. In the summer I walk in a pair of sandals and for winter I use closed-toe sport shoes. Sometimes I take the bus home after work, but I prefer to walk if the weather is good. My job is a high-pressure high-pressure one (she supervises 56 employees) and I'm committed to not bringing those pressures back to my family. Walking home gives me a chance to unwind and become a human being again." Luan Borgeson, a high school teacher, likes to take her "daily constitutional" after dinner. This gives her the energy she needs for evening activities and dispels that lazy feeling which can descend after supper. Divorced mother Martha Willis uses half of her lunch hour each day to step out along city sidewalks. She leaves a pair of walking shoes at her office where she works as a secretary and shortly after noon strides quickly for 15 minutes in one direction and then back again. "I like sight-seeing and getting off by myself," she says. "The kids are always after me for something in the morning and I play office politics all day. By lunchtime I'm people-weary and can't wait to spend a few minutes by myself." Other women, like Barbara Ayers, enjoy a very specialized form of walking called "race walking" which is growing in popularity across the country. Ayers, a former physical education instructor who now teaches in a gifted program, jogged regularly before she discovered race walking. Race walkers use an unusual gait which allows them to achieve high speeds. Eight-minute miles are not uncommon. This gait requires flexible hips, an exaggerated heel-toe movement and "a lack of inhibition," says Ayers. (To understand the hip movement required for race walking, stand up with both knees locked. Then bend one knee, allowing that hip to swing freely. If you can incorporate this movement gracefully into your normal walk, you may be cut out to be a race walker.) Disenchanted joggers may be interested to learn that race walkers often can walk as fast as they can jog, but without some of the minuses which accompany running. Ayers explains. "Many people have foot and knee problems which can make running and stop-and-go sports like tennis and handball very difficult for them. In race walking the feet and knees don't receive the pounding they get in many other sports. And although you can jog in a slouched position (and scores of women do) race walking develops and requires good posture." Whether you choose race walking or a run-of-the-mill hike, rainy days can sometimes put a damper on plans for a walk. On days when Mary Beth Bigger rides the bus to and from work because of wet weather, she'll take advantage of the first patch of clear sky to swing off for her exercise. "I just put my baby in her stroller and off we'll go," she says. "I hate to miss a day because walking makes me feel great." Like other women, Bigger has discovered that it's hard not to feel good after a vigorous walk. So if you want to eliminate tiredness and fill your life with zest and a sense of well-being, take the advice of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and "Walk - every chance you get!" TIPS FOR MAKING WALKING ENJOYABLE AND EFFECTIVE Keep hands and arms free while walking. If it is necessary to carry something, try to wear a knapsack. To avoid foot hygiene problems, remove walking shoes and socks soon after returning from an outing. Take care of the feet by elevating them a few times a day and by making sure that work shoes fit comfortably and do not squeeze toe; or cause blisters. Walk with head and chest high.i FOR MORE INFORMATION The Walking Association 4113 Lee Highway Arlington, VA 22207 The Ohio Racewalker 3184 Summit Street Columbus, OH 43202 |