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Step By Step

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 November 2004, 15:00 CST

Forget a stroll around the streets with your girlfriends twice a week--serious walking is one of the best ways to boost your fitness. SARAH STUART spoke to the experts about how pedestrians can really power up.

She was the kind of "power walker" who gave public exercise a bad name--white trainers below her dark pantyhose and work suit; bright red lipstick under a dyed blonde bob and arms swinging wildly above her head as she tripped the West Auckland streets on her way to work each day.

Crawling past in the 8.30am traffic jam, we'd scoff and roll our eyes at her extroverted exercise habits. Other cars would toot and yell things from the windows. "Get to a gym ya loser," someone yelled one morning. I'd look for her pounding the pavements each day, and time my trip into work by how far she'd made it along the light-industrial street. But slowly I realised I wasn't arriving any later for work--the walker had simply made it further than the previous week.

Twelve months on, she's still at it. But there are big differences from the past year. Though I've never spoken to her and her arms still wave above her head in an unseemly fashion, she looks as though she's dropped at least two dress sizes. That red grin is now wider than her hips. She speeds past most of the cars waiting for the lights. While my own gym has enjoyed my stiff monthly fee with barely a visit to mitigate it, this walker's expenses have been only a pair of shiny new shoes--and probably a smaller size wardrobe. She looks like she's ready to swap her business suit for a tiny pair of Lycra competition shorts.

"I was one of those people who scoffed at people who walked past me and thought "why don't you run," says former triathlete and rower Deb Hurdle, who pounds Wellington's tracks each day. "Now I'm the walker and when people run past me I think "why don't you walk?" They're doing more damage to themselves through the jarring and body pressure. I guess I'm just a walking convert."

The General Manager of Participation at Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc), Hurdle is a serious walker who recently ran her first 5km race in years with no training other than her morning and evening dog walks. While some of her colleagues were stiff following the event, Hurdle woke up the next morning feeling great, ready for the almost 40km she walks each week. "I was amazed," she says. "I hadn't run at all for three years."

Hurdle "fell into" walking six years ago, when injury forced her out of triathlons. Her beloved Huntaway dog Hunter became her "personal trainer". She's out with him for an hour each morning and evening, with longer walks on weekends, and says it has kept her fit, sane and physically healthier than most other forms of exercise.

"We're out in all kinds of weather and do lots of hills." Having a 30kg dog on the end of the lead is great for your biceps as well," says Hurdle. The result? Excellent legs, no injury issues and cardiovascular fitness she's proud of. "The other thing serious walking does very quickly is improve your blood pressure and drop your heart rate. Three weeks after I took it up I noticed a real difference in that, and in my weight."

Though long recommended by doctors as the cheapest, safest form of exercise which everyone can tackle, the key to really making walking work is commitment, challenge and variety say the experts. Serious walkers use hills and steps to increase their heart rate, others don heavy backpacks as their fitness permits and a commitment to 45 minutes to an hour several times a week is the difference between walking for fitness and a stroll around the streets.

Les Mills Auckland's Personal Trainer Manager Norm Phillips says the challenge for walkers is that it is not the "microwave fitness" which so many busy people are looking for. "The duration factor is an issue--results from walking will take longer than running and resistance training," says Phillips. "You'll still get fitter running. But if you can combine three or four decent walks a week with perhaps a tramp in the bush at the weekends or a longer walk on a Sunday, you're well on your way to good fitness."

Les Mills personal trainers often include walking in their programmes and the gym runs power-walking groups each day using a leader to add in extra challenges such as hills and steps. But for those exercising alone, Phillips recommends starting slowly with a 2km-3km walk two or three times a week, increasing the pace to brisk as your body allows. A good pair of X-training shoes and a water bottle are the only accessories needed, then a willingness to push yourself and set new challenges.

Forget swinging your arms high above your head or carrying hand weights ("it's an urban myth you'll get more muscle from these-- they only weigh 1-2kg," says Phillips). Instead, find a hill to walk up two or three times or do sets of exercises on stairs. Phillips recommends taking one step at a time, building up to taking two or three steps at a time. Then do sets of these, perhaps increasing to walking up and down the stairs 10 times. "The middle of your walk is the best time to do this," he says.

Donning a backpack and increasing its weight will add to the intensity of any walk (as the many army cadets spotted walking in the Waitakere Ranges each month can attest) and once fitness is good, a half day tramp in the bush is an enjoyable way to combine recreation with your new skills.

"The main thing is to set new challenges for yourself all the time," says Phillips. "Make sure you vary where you walk so you don't get bored," says Hurdle. An upcoming 5km or 10km event may be the perfect three month goal. Or for the seriously dedicated, a half marathon walk is a real challenge.

For motivation, both Hurdle and Phillips recommend a dog, or a walking group. The magazine (itals) Walking New Zealand's website (www.walkingnewzealand.co.nz) lists dozens of walking groups all over Auckland from tramping clubs to gym groups and community walkers who gather at twilight for an hour of social fitness.

"I would never go back to running now," says Hurdle who reckons a wild, windy walk can be the most uplifting way to start the day, especially when she sees how much her beloved dog enjoys the exercise. "It's a fantastic form of serious exercise and almost everyone can get up and do it."

SHAKE A LEG:

Walking New Zealand magazine (www.walkingnewzealand.co.nz)

Les Mills walking groups (www.lesmills.co.nz)

Sport and Recreation New Zealand (www.sparc.org.nz)

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Source: Sunday Star - Times; Wellington, New Zealand

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