Topic - Off-snow training:
Nordic walking - not just a stroll in the park
Date first posted on eCommunity - 17
April 2006
This article first appeared in SKI NORDIC
magazine in September 2005.
Nordic
walking is enjoying a surge of popularity in
Europe and
Scandinavia. An estimated 3.5 million people practise it
regularly, and the number is growing quickly: sales of walking poles are
outstripping sales of ski poles. This success is partly due to some
clever marketing by fitness organisations and pole manufacturers - who
have taken a broad approach and emphasised that the activity can bring
health and fitness benefits to a very wide range of people, almost
irrespective of age or physical ability.
A downside of this promotional
strategy is that nordic walking can become perceived as rather a soft
exercise, with little obvious appeal to fit people wanting a serious
workout. The aim of this article is to counter that view. Let's
remember, after all, that nordic walking started out (in
Finland in the 1930s) as a highly focused form of training
for elite XC racers who sought to maintain peak fitness during the
off-season.
Basically, nordic walking is
walking with poles. And it is important to have good poles, specially
designed for the activity. (You can make do with trekking poles, just as
you can ski round a loipe with them in winter, but it is far from
ideal.) Several manufacturers make well-specified models. My own Exel
Trainers have light, unbreakable carbon fibre shafts, replaceable
ergonomic grips with broad fabric straps, and replaceable spike tips
with rubber "paws" for use on tarmac. They are good, and at £70 a pair
they should be.
The usual formula for
determining pole length is to take your height and multiply it by 0.68.
When standing at ease and holding the pole upright, your elbow should be
at 90 degrees. This means that your correct walking poles will be a lot
shorter than your skiing poles, perhaps 25 cm shorter than for classic
skiing.
Once suitably equipped, you can
simply head off to your local park and start walking. INWA, the
International Nordic Walking Association, has set out three broad levels
of participation.
Level 1 ("health"
level) involves walking at an easy pace with a normal gait. Poling is
light, with shoulders relaxed. You keep your hands low as they go
forward, and push back only until your hand is level with your hip. It
feels like very gentle cross-country skiing - a sort of shortened
diagonal stride with a restricted arm action. This level is intended for
people who are unused to exercise, and the recommendation is for daily
sessions of about 15-30 minutes duration. Although even such
low-intensity poling will exercise and tone the upper body, the main
benefit is the cardio-vascular workout. (With a calorie burn about 19%
higher than in normal walking, weight loss is promoted.)
Few readers of SKI NORDIC
will be interested in training at this level. But do bear in mind that
if you are accompanying a slow walker you can still achieve a very good
workout by employing an exaggeratedly strong poling action, or by other
changes of technique. Such flexibility makes nordic walking a good
activity for families and groups.
Walking at this level is also
useful technical preparation for XC skiing. Novice skiers have many
skills to master on their first winter holiday, and their learning curve
will be much less daunting if they are already confident with poles
before venturing on to snow.
Level 2 is the "fitness"
level - and here things become more interesting for the seasoned XC
skier. Poling should be firmer, with a pronounced push-back - just like
in classic-style skiing - in which the hand releases only after it
passes the hip. The walking action should emphasise an initial
heel-plant, then an unrolling of the foot from heel to toe before a
definite push off from the ball of the foot. Stride should lengthen and
walking speed should increase - aim for 3.5 mph or more. You should
swagger a little, to increase the body's rotation (as your pelvis
rotates in one direction your shoulders rotate in the other). But the
shoulders remain relaxed.
If you walk like this for an
hour you will burn 400-500 kilocalories while exercising 90% of your
main muscles. At the time you may not be aware how hard you are working
- studies have found that nordic walking has a low rate of perceived
exertion (RPE). But afterwards you will definitely feel the effects,
especially in muscles like triceps which are otherwise difficult to
train. If you can manage three sessions a week at this level you will
soon notice a marked improvement in fitness (and in appearance, if my
own experience is typical: in 6 months I lost over a stone).
To increase the intensity of
your nordic walking you can introduce hill work or - if you live by the
sea - walk on soft sand. Or you can try fartlek, which is an irregular
mix of "work" and "active recovery". A typical fartlek session would
combine bursts of slow and fast walking, with the fast bursts making up
the work phases, But you can, if you prefer, concentrate the work into
the slow phases, simply by poling very strongly during them.
Level 3 is the
"sport" level. Here the idea is to combine brisk nordic walking and
high-intensity exercises involving running, leaping and bounding. Some
of the routines are very strenuous and put heavy strain on joints and
muscles, so do proceed with caution. Be careful with the poles: falling
over an unbreakable pole is unpleasant.
Start with a few minutes of
brisk nordic walking, then introduce short bursts of running. To begin
with you should carry your poles while running, and only start to pole
when you have found an easy running rhythm.
Next, introduce short bursts of
skipping, as a child would skip. Then try some bounding, which is slow
running with a long, springy gait. Again, do these exercises first
without poles, and only introduce poling action when you have found a
rhythm.
Next you can try some two-footed
bunny hops, and when you have found a rhythm you can introduce a little
double-poling to help yourself along.
From bunny hops you can make the
transition to skate-bounding, which involves springing obliquely forward
from one foot to the other.
Now and again you can come to a
stop, hold your poles a little wider than hip width for support, and
jump up and down on the spot, as if you were skipping with a rope.
Once you are used to it, push down on your poles to make yourself jump
higher.
You can treat such routines as
unstructured fartlek, making up the "programme" as you go, and - if you
feel like it - increasing the intensity by running faster or leaping
higher. Alternatively you can put together fixed sessions of circuit
training. For example, on a short triangular course, with sides about 20
metres long, try the following:
- walk round the triangle five
times, alternating fast and slow sides
- do one side slow, one side
skipping, one side slow, followed by 20 static jumps. Repeat five times.
- do one side slow, one side
bunny-hops assisted by double-poling, one side slow, followed by 20
static jumps. Repeat five times.
- finish by running round 3
times, then walk a few times to warm down.
This is just an example, not a
prescription. You can have a lot of fun developing your own circuits and
tailoring them to meet your personal fitness goals.
It is important to precede
every nordic walking session, hard or easy, with a few mobility
exercises. And you should always end with a proper warm-down, followed
by 10-15 minutes of static stretching. Readers of SKI NORDIC
will have their own personal repertoire of pre- and post-skiing
routines. Most exercises suitable for XC skiing should also be good for
nordic walking.
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