Walk
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By Judy Heller

Judy Heller, founder of
Wonders of Walking LLC,
advocates walking for well being and pleasure. Wonders of Walking promotes Walking Events for Walkers by Walkers. Judy Heller is founder and owner of EroFit & Associates, LLC, celebrating Fitness for a Lifetime. Heller offers personalized fitness training and coaching for individuals and groups.
Contact: Judy Heller
at 503-282-1677:
email judy@erofit.com
jheller@wondersofwalking.com

Also visit: www.erofit.com
www.wondersofwalking.com

I only went out
for a walk and
concluded to stay out until sundown,
For going out,
I found
Was really going in.

— John Muir

The Many Aspects of Walking

With this edition of Walk About magazine we are on the cusp of spring. The anticipation for what is yet to unfold is all round us. The temperatures are warmer, minutes of daylight are increasing, and flowers are beginning to poke through the earth’s crust.

This past fall I attended the American Council on Exercise (ACE) Fitness Symposium for continuing education credits. You can imagine my surprise and delight when discussing movement mechanics referenced “the most functional thing we do — the walking gait.” The emphasis for these sessions was on understanding the walking gait cycle and training of movement patterns. Hooray, walking has arrived!

Yes, without a doubt, walking can provide benefits equivalent to running, with less risk of injury. The key to obtaining the desired benefits is by walking in a manner that elevates your heart rate into the aerobic — with oxygen — training zone. The fitter you become, the harder you must work to obtain that training level. Once you have reached a point where you can walk a few miles with relative ease, you can start varying the intensity by walking hills, walking faster, or if you really want to step it up, try racewalking.

What impacts your ability to increase intensity or heart rate?
Your overall health, plus genetics, muscular balance, endurance, and strength; skeletal alignment; and certain medications that limit heart rate all impact your ability to increase intensity, whether you are a walker or a runner. Walking technique and movement patterns make a difference.

What do you think about during your walks?
Training hard to improve your physical fitness is only one aspect of reaching your potential. Enjoying your training and achieving your best performances are not simply due to your physical conditioning: your mental state and, particularly, the thoughts that run through your mind can affect the way you feel during exercise. The nature and quality of your thoughts can make the difference between enjoying or hating your training, winning or losing, and may even impact your decision whether to stay with your exercise program.

Neuroscientists have shown that we have tens of thousands of thoughts running through our minds each and every day. The first step is to become aware of are those thoughts. Are they helping or defeating you? Once you recognize your internal chatter, you can begin to reprogram your thoughts.

Association or Disassociation
In the athletic world there are two training strategies used by endurance athletes: association and disassociation.

Association involves listening to your body; monitoring sensations and any changes — usually internal — that occur. Breathing rate and muscular sensations provide physiological cues that allow you to pace yourself with a view of avoiding or minimizing pain. Cognitive awareness of what you physically feel is important in reducing the risk of injury.

Dissociation is about directing your attention away from your bodily sensations. Distraction is designed to reduce your awareness of fatigue or effort. This can be achieved by many means, including music.

I conducted a mini interview asking walkers how they use music. It can provide momentum when the body or mind is lagging, allowing further walks or for a longer time; it interferes with the chattering of the mind’s gremlin voices; walking to the beat can facilitate a faster pace. I have seen negative self-talk negatively impact performance by elevating heart rates as well as making the effort physically more difficult. I have clients who choose to use music for muscular relaxation. Power is derived from relaxation. Training programs are sometimes written using the beat of the music matched to the desired number of steps for the desired pace. For those who enjoy music, it is nice having a playlist that allows one to tap into, or not, the desired beat as needed to maximize their walk whether for performance, fitness, or relaxation.

If you would like more information on pacing beats per minute to miles per hour see the chart below.