August 2010

Almost every morning Todd, a born again health/fitness fanatic wakes me up at 5:45 AM so that we can power walk to Excelsior -- five miles round trip, 1 hour 7 minutes our best time according to Motion X GPS. Lately we’ve noticed a few other early bird walkers swinging hand weights and we wondered if that might be a good way to ramp up our walking workout. Well in a word -- no. Fitness walking experts believe that adding weights may actually increase the potential for injury. That’s because your arm motion while holding weights may affect your stride, adding unnecessary strain to your muscles, tendons and ligaments. Even the act of gripping weights can cause your blood pressure to rise. You only burn slightly more calories walking with weights and the increased calorie burn does not justify the potential risk of injury. The best way to ramp up your walking workout is to pick up your pace. According to Therese Ikonian, exercise physiologist and author of three books on fitness walking including Mind-Body Fitness for Dummies, “Walking at the highest intensity you can comfortably stick with for the distance without hurting yourself will use more total calories and, in the long run, more total body fat.” Going from a 20-minute mile to a 15-minute mile, you'll use 30 percent more calories per minute. There are lots of reasons that a daily walk is a good health idea: exercise helps to improve your mood, boosts energy, promotes better sleep, maintains a healthy weight, combats chronic illness, increases your flexibility and is a great way to spend quality time with your spouse or friends. Of course, Todd has lost 5 pounds on his new fitness walking routine – I believe I have found them.

Make the time to be good to you. Lace up your sneakers, tighten your tummy muscles, hold you head high, focus 15 to 20 feet in front of you and take a brisk walk four days a week. If power walking doesn’t appeal to you -- How about biking? Health benefits associated with biking are similar to walking and it’s lots of fun. Just make sure you always wear a helmet when you ride.

Good Health!

Terry

“Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.”
Charles Schulz