CHAPTER TWO:
Walking to Physical and Mental Health
“By myself walking,
To myself talking.”
Hypochondriacus by Charles Lamb (1775 ‑ 1834)
Human evolution has made bipedal locomotion (walking) the supreme exercise for
overall fitness. Walking is an easy, continuous, low intensity
exercise. It makes the heart beat at a steady rate while turning body fat
into energy, as it reshapes and rebuilds muscles. Walking provides many
of the same aerobic benefits as more strenuous exercises, but with far less
chance of injury. Not only do walkers suffer fewer injuries than most
other exercisers, but when they do get hurt, their injuries are usually minor
and their recovery rate is rapid.
Note: Muscles are groups of fibers that produce movement. They work
in pairs, one group contracts, while the other group relaxes, using bones for
leverage. Flexible tendons and ligaments join bone to muscle to make
locomotion possible.
Moreover, enhancing bone and muscle strength requires both exercise and rest
afterwards to allow time for your bones and muscles to heal and reshape
themselves. One should exercise until you feel tired and slightly sore,
but no more. If you exercise excessively, you run the risk of
over-exercising, becoming overly sore, that leads to dropping out of your
exercise program. Too many well-meaning, obese people attempt to reverse
decades of inactivity by over-exercising to the point of being hurt.
Thus, consult your doctor, who will create an exercise program that is right
for you and your fitness goals.
In the past, some physical fitness “experts” thought walking was too easy an
exercise to improve fitness. The thinking was that walking lacked the
intensity of effort and strain, (no pain, no gain), that was usually associated
with many traditional exercise programs.
From 20th and 21st century medical research, exercise
scientists now know that several, ten to twenty-eight minute walking sessions
each day is just as beneficial as a single longer duration daily exercise
session. For office workers or home makers, these short periods could be
spent walking up and down stairs, or on a brisk walk around the block.
“It is health which is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869‑1948) Indian leader and reformer
Walking is one of the more practicable forms of physical activity for most
people most of the time. A regular walking program conditions most of
your 650 muscles, and most of your 206 bones. A walking exercise routine,
with a low fat balanced diet, can help achieve and maintain an ideal body
weight. The key to the problem of too much body fat is to metabolize body
fat into energy through physical exercise, while building up lean tissue that
burns more calories faster than fat tissue.
According to health education professionals worldwide, the benefits of an
aerobic walking exercise program include lowered risk of ailments such as heart
disease, osteoporosis, stroke, and diabetes. These common medical
conditions account for as many as 70% of all deaths in the United States.
Likewise, people who understand the value of exercise, and also that of good
nutrition, can make lifestyle changes in their activity level and also the type
and amount of food they consume over their lifetimes. Exercise walking
also acts as an appetite suppressant, sometimes delaying the return of hunger
for hours, helping to reduce the urge to overeat.
Walking builds up your calorie burning, lean muscle tissue. Muscle tissue
burns calories at a higher rate than fat. This makes it possible to eat
more without gaining weight or to lose weight more rapidly without reducing
caloric intake (dieting). As muscle tissue is denser than fat, physically
active people appear thinner than their sedentary counterparts who weigh about
the same. So, even if you do not lose any overall body weight, a regime
of exercise walking still makes you appear to be trimmer.
O Oysters, come and walk with us!
The Walrus did beseech.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach.
Lewis Carroll
As an exercise, walking helps reduce the risk of heart attacks because it
lowers the resting heart rate and promotes a faster return of the heart rate to
normal after exercise. Periodically measure your pulse, with your fingers
or with an electronic device, as you exercise and keep it within 50 to 75
percent of your maximum heart rate. This becomes your Target Heart Rate,
a good guidepost of your current physical fitness.
The following table from www.justmove.org explains estimated target heart rates
for 20 to 70 year-old people. Find the age group nearest to your age and
read across to find your target heart rate. Copyright 1999, American
Heart Association.
AGE
TARGET HR
ZONE
AVERAGE MAXIMUM
50-75% HEART RATE 100%
20
years 100-150 beats
per minute 200
25
years 98-146 beats
per minute 195
30
years 95-142 beats
per minute 190
35
years 93-138 beats
per minute 185
40
years 90-135 beats
per minute 180
45
years 88-131 beats
per minute 175
50
years 85-127 beats
per minute 170
55
years 83-123 beats
per minute 165
60
years 80-120 beats
per minute 160
65
years 78-116 beats
per minute 155
70
years 75-113 beats
per minute 150
“Your maximum heart rate is approximately 220 minus your age. The figures
above are averages and should be used as general guidelines.”
The site also notes: “A few high blood pressure medications lower the maximum
heart rate and thus the target zone rate. If you are taking high blood
pressure medicine, call your physician and find out if your program needs to be
adjusted.” Copyright 1999, American Heart Association.
“Will you
walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail.
“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.”
(The Lobster-Quadrille) Lewis Carroll
In addition, walking increases overall blood volume and its oxygen carrying
capacity, as well as making your blood vessels more flexible. All the
while, it is expanding the size of your arteries, including the vital coronary
arteries. Moreover, following a walking program strengthen the bodies’
immune functions for protection from cancer as well as the common cold.
For older adults, exercise walking can help control the aging process.
According to William Evans and Dr. Irwin H. Rosenberg of Tufts University
research center on aging, there are ten elements to retain youth and prolonging
the onset of aging. These elements are:
1. Muscle mass
Adults tend to lose
6.6 pounds of lean body mass each year with the rate accelerating after age
forty-five; however, light exercise, such as walking reduces lean body mass
loss dynamically. The Control factor: Exercise.
2. Overall body strength
The average person
loses 30 percent of his muscles and nerves between the ages of twenty and
seventy. Nevertheless, walking increases the strength and size of both
muscles and nerves at any age. Again, the control factor: More exercise.
3. Amount of calories the body needs to function
At age seventy a
person needs 500 fewer calories per day to maintain body weight. Control
factor: Reducing Caloric Intake.
4. Body fat
The average
65-year-old sedentary woman’s body is 43 percent fat compared to 25 percent at
age 25. Control factor: Conversion of body fat into muscle by
exercising.
5. Blood pressure
Most Americans show
an increase of blood pressure with age. Control factor: Exercise.
6. Blood sugar tolerance
Some types of
diabetes cases are caused by an increase in body fat and loss of muscle
mass. Control factors: Regular exercise and Diet.
7. Cholesterol levels
Bad cholesterol leads
to heart disease, while good cholesterol helps protect against it.
Control factors: Low fat diet and Regular exercise.
8. Body temperature
The body’s ability to
regulate temperature declines with age Control factors: Regular exercise
and a Balanced diet.
9. Bone density
Bones lose mineral
content and become weaker with age. Control factors: The intake of the
proper amounts of calcium and Regular exercises.
10. Aerobic capacity
The body’s efficient
use of oxygen declines by 30‑40 percent by age 65. Control factor:
Aerobic exercise.
The exercise of walking improves all these factors for a longer and healthier
life.
Note: In societies where walking is a regular daily activity, adult citizens
often remain vigorously active into old age and are highly resistant to
infections and disease.
Walking improves the capacity of the respiratory system and aids the digestive
process. It also amends blood circulation throughout the body and retains
bone mass in older adults. A diet low in saturated fats and high in
carbohydrates, combined with a steady, consistent low‑impact exercise programs
such as walking can help the elderly become stronger by shedding fat and
building muscle.
In the recent past, some physical education “experts” discouraged women from
active participation in exercise and sports programs, in the mistaken belief
that vigorous physical activity was harmful to females. However, we now
know that both women and men of all ages need weight bearing exercise to build
bone density and muscle mass, increase aerobic capacity and overall body
strength, reduce the percentage of body fat and better control blood pressure,
sugar tolerance, cholesterol, and body temperature.
Preventing or postponing bone loss can have a major impact on the nation’s pocketbook
as well as the quality of life for the elderly, especially older women.
According to Dr. James Ottolini, women can lose 2% to 3% of their total bone
mass a year after menopause because their bodies are no longer producing the
hormone estrogen. This adds up to losing about a quarter of a women’s
total bone mass in a single decade. The National Osteoporosis Foundation
estimates that half of all American women over age fifty and three quarters of
those who are more than seventy-five years of age have significant bone
loss. Fractures resulting from this bone thinning currently cost the
nation between $10 billion and $18 billion annually. Part of the cause of
bone thinning is due to the fact the United States is a coffee, tea and soda
drinking society. All three of these beverages contain phosphorus, which
act to take calcium away from bones making them thinner and more subject to
fracture. Therefore, if you drink a cup of coffee, tea, or soda you
should also drink a glass of calcium rich milk to replace the drained
calcium. Elderly walkers can avoid osteoporosis, a condition that affects
one in three women and one in eight men. This is because walking is a
weight bearing exercise, acting to stimulate new bone growth as well as
regenerate old bones.
Recent studies of measured bone densities, (which measured how closely calcium
and other minerals that make up most of the bone mass are packed together) were
done in 238 healthy, postmenopausal Caucasian women. The women who
habitually walked more than 7.5 miles per week or about a mile a day obtained
about 4 percent more bone density in the trunk and 7 percent more bone density
in the leg bones than those women who walked less than a mile per week.
It appears from this study that women who have walked about a mile per day have
about four to seven years more worth of bone in reserve than those women who
have walked less than a mile per week. So, from the results of this study
it would appear that walking even only a mile a day significantly helps delay
bone loss in post menopausal women. Besides adding to bone density,
walking also is very beneficial to help maintain women’s muscle strength and
balance to prevent falls which are the greatest risk factors for fractures in
the elderly.
According to the American Physiology Society’s Journal of Applied Physiology,
researchers have discovered the protecting enzyme Tissue Plasminogen Activator
(TPA) is a product of the inner lining of blood vessels that act to break up
clots in the bloodstream. TPA is found to increase with exercise which is
another reason why people who exercise on a regular basis have fewer heart
attacks. On the other hand, sedentary people create higher amounts of a
substance that makes TPA inactive and this increase as physical activity
decreases.
For sedentary people who are just starting exercise walking, seeing a sports
medicine physician is very important. These physicians practice
preventive medicine as well as treat injuries. They could probably help
you to develop a walking fitness program to meet your goals while avoiding
medical problems or injuries.
As the ancient Greeks taught us, do every activity, including walking, in
moderation. Start your exercise walking program slowly and carefully,
with twenty‑to‑forty minute long sessions, three to five times a week on
sidewalks or in skywalks around your home or work place. To avoid muscle
injuries, slowly increase the frequency, duration, and distance covered.
Remember that frequency is more important than time. Before too long, you
may be ready for the more challenging hikes on local forest or park
trails. Regarding weight loss, judge your progress by how much lean
tissue you gain and body fat you burn off, not by the total amount of lost body
weight.
According to insurance doctors, for every inch that your waist measurement
exceeds that of your chest, (not bust), your life expectancy decreases by two
years.
J. Tragler, “The Bellybook”
Medical center staff has several tests that determine the ratio of body fat to
overall body mass. One Body Composition test uses the fat fold test that
lifts and measures the soft tissue from the back of the upper arm with a
caliper that applies a fixed amount of pressure. Other tests use very low
electric current that determines how freely electrical current passes through
your soft tissue. (Fat, having more water than muscle, conducts
electricity with less resistance.)
Your waist-to-hip ratio, or WHR, measures your body fat distribution.
According to an article published in the www.justmove.org web site, your “Waist
in inches is divided by the hip measurement in inches. For men a
desirable WHR is less than 0.9, meaning that the number of inches around the
waist is 90 percent of the circumference of the hips. For middle-aged and
elderly women the WHR should be less than 0.8 (waist 80 percent of hips.).”
The same web site has the following for your Body Mass Index, or BMI.
“The body mass index is a method used to measure a person’s percentage of body
fat. Weight in kilograms is divided by height in meters squared (kg/m2).
In studies by the National Center for Health Statistics, overweight is defined
as a body mass index of 25.0 - 29.9 (based on U.S. Dietary Guidelines for
Americans). A BMI of approximately 25 kg/m2 corresponds to about 110
percent of ideal body weight. Obesity is defined as a BMI of 30.0 or
greater (based on criteria of the World Health Organization).”
The www.justmove.org site has tables for both Waist-to-hip Ratios and Body Mass
Index tables for the individual. Contact your local medical center to
schedule one, or more, of these body fat tests.
Remember that the primary key to success in exercise walking, as in any other
exercise program, is consistency. The only exercise of any real value to
you is the exercise you do on a regular basis. Keep a schedule of your
workouts. For example, consider walking all the way or part way to and/or
from your place of employment. If not, look for places to walk during
your lunch period or after work.
As an exercise activity, walking can be social or solitary, depending on time,
place or mood. Sometimes, you may enjoy walking and talking with family
and friends. At other times, you may choose to silently stroll alone
while communing with the environment, human constructed and/or natural.
Studies by the University of Florida - College of Public Health and Health
Professions at Gainesville have indicated that solo walkers, because they are
often more focused on getting maximum benefits from their walking sessions, are
apt to lose weight faster than those who walk in a group.
If you hate to work up a sweat and have the time, long, slow, distance walking
(LSD) is one way to work out and burn calories. As long as you cover the
same distance you consume about the same amount of calories as a person going
at a faster pace. Additionally, you are less likely to suffer from shock
injury. It’s the total calorie deficit at the end of the day that counts,
not how fast you walked.
“Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.” Steven Wright
humorist
To get started into LSD walking, begin by walking five to ten minutes a day and
gradually extend your total daily walking time up to 45 to 60 minutes.
For some beginning walkers, this might take up to three months. Once you
are walking more than an hour a day, select several routes for a variety of
walking experiences.
For some novice walkers, it is sometimes best to pick a loop route centered on
your starting point. If you become overly tired, you can drop out of the
loop and take a short cut back to your center starting point. However,
walking at a moderate pace is preferred as you can walk the entire loop without
pooping out. Another suggestion for LSD walking is to walk in two
sessions of fifteen minute or three sessions of ten minutes, seven days a
week. This gives your body a metabolic boost two or three times a
day. Recent studies indicate that several shorter 10 to 28 minute walking
sessions provide better results in weight reduction than walking for a longer
period once a day. According to these studies there are only diminished
returns in benefits from exercise walking sessions longer than 28
minutes. It is important to take five minutes to do some light impact
stretching exercises before starting on your exercise walk. The purpose
of this is to loosen up your body’s underused muscle groups.
When walking, walk tall: Look about six feet in front of you. Keep
your head high and level; your ears should be over your shoulders. Your
shoulders should be square and over your hips. Keep your abdomen as flat as
possible with a straight spine. Point your feet and knees in the
direction of travel. To take in more oxygen to your body, breathe deeply
from your diaphragm. To help increase your pace, swing your arms, bent at
the elbow, with fists held slightly clenched, in a natural motion to act as a
pendulum. Don’t let your hands cross your body. Simultaneously try
to keep your hands, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles relaxed as possible.
Tuck your pelvis slightly in by bringing your navel back toward your spine.
Keep your abdominal muscles firm. Lift up and out of your hips for more
swivels to your walk.
As you walk, step out and plant your heel first and then roll forward on the
ball of the foot, as though it were a rocking chair rocker. At the end of
each step, push off with the toes of your rear foot. While walking, try
to move more efficiently by lengthening your stride while eliminating
unnecessary motion. Moreover, you should find that orderly and harmonious
leg movement, combined with deep and rhythmic breathing, help eliminate body
waste, conserve energy, and increase your endurance. The result is a low
to medium intensity exercise that can be kept up for hours.
Try talking while walking. If you are too breathless to carry on a normal
conversation, then you may be walking too fast for your present
condition. Try longer, easier strides with a slower pace, until you find
the stride and pace that best fits your level of fitness. Don’t walk at
an unrealistic pace by trying to compete with other walkers. You will
only become exhausted and discouraged. Walk at a pace that your body can
maintain for an hour or more. Center your fitness goal on improving personal
performance and not on walking faster, farther, or longer than anyone
else. Remember, much of the pain that beginning walkers suffer is caused
by walking too far, too fast, too soon. Don’t worry about keeping up with
other walkers. You are the only person who knows the right pace for you.
Try to add some variety to your walks by taking different routes to your
destinations. If your usual route is through level terrain, try hill
walking for a different kind of workout. Ascending a 14-degree slope
requires about four times the effort as walking on a level surface.
Equally important, walking a descending slope, because of the necessary braking
action, also requires more effort than walking on level surfaces. When
indoors, walk up and down stairs instead of taking an elevator. According
to the American Lung Association, walking upstairs is twenty‑five times more
demanding than walking on a level, smooth surface. When going downstairs,
take the steps slowly, to lessen the shock to your knees.
Remember, your goal should be to train, not strain, your body. To build
muscle mass quickly, you should exercise until you feel somewhat tired and
sore. Afterwards, I suggest that you rest for several hours to give your
muscles some healing time. When you are an advanced walker, carrying
weights in a vest or pack is helpful. In some people’s opinion, you
should avoid attaching more than three pounds to wrists or ankles when walking,
as these extremities move much faster than your walking speed and this could
result in damage to these areas of soft connective tissue. However, there
is no medical evidence to support this theory.
Muscles actually develop on the day after your workout, when your body is at
rest. So, to get the most beneficial results from a workout with weights,
wear them every other day.
It does not take much effort to make a big difference in physical
fitness. According to “Walking Magazine,” one half hour a day of brisk
walking could separate the fit Americans from the sedentary masses.
Researchers in Finland who tracked 16,000 pairs of twins for almost 20 years
found that those men and women who walked or jogged for 30 minutes six times a
month were 44 percent less likely to die early than their sedentary
counterparts. The Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research echoes this
finding and states that men who walk at least half an hour six days a week can
cut their mortality rate in half, compared with their sedentary
counterparts. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association reported that walking and performing other “non-vigorous” exercise
on a regular basis can reduce a person’s risk of developing type II diabetes.
“The trouble is,” said Laura, “walking in Venice becomes compulsive once you
start. Just over the next bridge, you say, and then the next one
beckons.”
Daphne Du Maurier 1907 -
To make your walking more fun add variety to your walks. Instead of
always walking on level areas, try hill walking. If you normally walk on
city sidewalks on week days, for weekend walks switch to the local forest and
park trails. Always keep in mind that when walking there is no need to
rush to go anywhere. Going is more important than getting there.
Stroll along and smell the flowers. Following the teaching of the Zen
Masters, take time to look for the unusual among the usual. It is the
journey that truly matters, not how fast you get there. If you can work
up to faster walking in a year or so that is soon enough. During
inclement weather, walk indoors in skywalks and malls. Yet always take
the time to walk, because each and every hour you walk adds another hour or
more to your life expectancy. This is because, among other things, walking
lowers blood pressure, along with reducing blood cholesterol and sugar
levels. For example, diabetics should use regular walks to lower blood
sugar levels. In addition, walking raises the oxygen content of the
blood, fat becomes energy, it develops more muscle tissue, while it cleanses
the arteries and they become more elastic.
Finally, after completing your walk, it is important to finish up with some more light stretching exercises. Stopping cold after a walk may cause blood to pool in the extremities that could put a strain on the heart. Low-impact stretching also eases muscle fatigue and reduces body compression.
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