Hack your walk with Nordic Walking Guy’s 3 rules:
- Walk with purpose!
- Be consistent!
- Remember everything counts but not everything matters!
Did you know walking can build your bones the same way resistance training, yoga, and Tai Chi can? I found an article that describes how to tweak your walking to make sure you get bone-building benefits. It’s not just a matter of walking faster and/or farther.
Main point: “The cells that build bones, the osteoblasts, require a certain amount of continuous pressure for 12 seconds before they start the bone-building process…Without that pressure, there will not be any bone building.”
More about it:
- Ways to walk to improve bone density:
- “…slowing down your walking, so that instead of alternating feet two or three times in 12 seconds, actually staying on one foot for that length of time or longer is likely to [hone in on] the femur (thigh bone), where the worst fractures take place.”
- Leroy’s notes:
- One way to do this would be walk in a series of 1-leg reverse leg raises, using your Nordic walking poles for balance instead of chairs and other forms of support.
- The raised leg will exercise your lower back, and your weight on your base leg will achieve that staying over one foot.
- I like to use a Tabata timer on my phone to make sure I hit those time intervals.
- “…switch up the direction of your steps to challenge your balance (still at that 12-second-per-step pace)…Side walking would have the advantage of strengthening the femoral neck, and also the hip and spine, since a lot of rotational and left-right motion is bound to occur.”
- “The best way to maintain bone mass is a well-rounded exercise program that includes both aerobic and resistance training.”
Why it matters:
- “Osteoporosis is a skeletal disorder in which bones weaken and risk of fracture is increased.”
- “…18.8 percent of adult women over the age of 50 have osteoporosis of the femur neck or lumbar spine.”
- “…women who walk more than 7.5 miles per week had higher bone density than those who walk less than one mile per week.”
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Nordic Walking Guy’s first rule is “Walk with purpose!” Walking with purpose includes living a life with meaning. Buy Your Unfinished Business: Find God in Your Circumstances, Serve Others in Theirs to learn more about faith, calling, and resilience.
