Walk Hard

Note: Please make sure you tend to your belongings if we ever move away from the bleachers for the workouts. The track is pretty accessible by the general public although we're working on changing that. If you can avoid bringing lots of things, that would be best; otherwise you'll have to be very mindful of your things.

Walking Hard

There you go, folks. A picture of a scantly-clad male to drive a point home. Happy? Didn't think so.

Of all of the things I've heard that "it's bad for your knees", or "you shouldn't do it", or "not too many/in moderation"; I've never heard any of that regarding walking. Even the most inept doctor or therapist knows that walking is a good thing. Walking can lower life-insurance policies (counts as exercise) and can spark romance ("likes to take long walk on the beach"). It can be done at any age since the able body is functionally designed for it. Frankly, I don't think there is anything better for ones health than a good hearty stroll.

Some folks may argue that walking is reserved for those who can no longer sustain high intensity activities. Bubkis! First of all, unless you're conditioning for football season or you play hockey in the NHL, high intensity activities need only be a marginal fraction of your "training". (I consider sleep, food, mobility, etc. part of the training regiment.) Realistically, few, if any people on this planet wouldn't benefit from walking as a supplement to their training or lack of. For many, like my grandparents, walking has been a major staple of their exercise. In fact, I've never known them to do anything besides that.

Walking has many therapeutic qualities that are inherent almost exclusively to the movement. The world's leading authority on back and spinal health, Stuart McGill can't praise walking enough. Essentially he says that the rhythmic, multi-planar and multi-directional movements through the hips and shoulders help alleviate a lot of the tension that resides in the spine from sitting around in poor posture or from various injuries. He suggests adding BRISK walking into every one's daily regiment. Furthermore, brisk walking requires a better posture than simply schlepping around for a while, so you're going to have to pick up the pace a bit. If that's not enough, you can periodically challenge yourself by adding in a back-pack or a ruck or a vest which will create a bit of a postural overload and create a little extra traction which will strengthen a lot of those little muscles that protect your posture and subsequently your spine.

Here is a little more info as to the benefits of walking: http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/psychosocial/walking.html

Personally, I am very lucky. I get to walk at least a couple miles a day as part of my job and my activity levels. I've always walked a lot. To and from school. Walked a good 5+ miles a day every day during college. I still enjoy walking and choose to walk every chance I get. It tends to piss others off when I park a mile or 2 away from where I'm supposed to be but oh well, at least I feel good, and that's what matters to me. I do notice though, after a few days of reduced or eliminated walking, like during long trips or rides, I become much more stiff and rigid, especially in my hips and knees. My shoulders start to slouch and my neck and lower back hurt. I have a sticky IT band on my right leg and it will just glue itself to my vastus lateralis causing me to have a nice limp that I grow less and less aware of. So I love the fact that I "have" to walk a lot. It's a blessing in disguise.

Here's what I suggest:

Separately from exercising, add in a good, brisk, walk like 4 days a week for 30-60 minutes a day. Preferably in the evening when it is nice and cool or if you have time after work, walk over by Sunset as the tree cover will keep the air a little cleaner. You're only duty is to walk briskly, walk tall, but not too hard. Save that for these guys:

* Powerwalking is an Olympic sport. I'll leave it at that and let you all make your judgements on your own.