Supercharge Your Walking Workout with Poles

Aug. 24, 2008 -- When I first heard about Nordic pole walking a year or so ago, I couldn't help but think of Tony Little, the ponytailed personal trainer and peddler of the Gazelle.

The Gazelle, if you're not an insomniac and addicted to late night TV, is an exercise gizmo that marries cross-country skiing with a strider. It may well be the greatest aerobic exercise since unchained pit bulls, but it's hard to watch a full-throttle Tony put the Gazelle through its paces and not laugh.

From the description, Nordic pole walking sounded like Tony minus the Gazelle.

When I finally got around to trying Nordic walking last week, I wasn't laughing. Didn't have enough spare wind to so much as chuckle.

"You're engaging your upper body," Jill Mills, Nordic pole walking's local pied piper, told me as we powered along the greenway at the N.C. Museum of Art. "You're using about 90 percent of your muscles instead of just your bottom half."

Nordic walking -- basically walking with poles -- began in the early 20th century as a way for Finnish cross-country skiers to stay fit in the offseason. It soon spread throughout Europe, a continent of walkers who were attracted by the poles' impact on their walk.

"Thirty to 45 minutes [of pole walking] can be equivalent to walking an hour or longer," said Mills, who has been using Nordic walking poles for about two years.

Eventually, within the past few years, the exercise began to catch on in the U.S., a nation always on the lookout for a quick, compressed workout.

Nordic walking poles resemble ski or trekking poles in appearance, but are used in a different way. Where the former are typically thrust in front of you and used to pull you along, Nordic walking poles are planted even with your body and require a subtle push.

Within five minutes you appreciate what the poles are doing. Among other things, they:

• Make you walk faster. That slight push propels you forward just enough to elevate your pace and pulse. According to a 2004 study by the Dallas-based Cooper Institute, which studies aerobic exercise, walking with poles boosts your oxygen consumption by 20 percent.
• Improve your stride and posture while walking. (The syncopated motion makes you keenly aware of your stride. "It took me a couple times before I could walk and talk at the same time," said Mills.)
• Work you upper body, from your torso to your arms to your shoulders.
• Help you burn about 20 percent more calories than walking alone does, according to the Cooper Institute.

Proponents -- the folks who sell the poles -- claim walking with poles can help with everything from osteoporosis and arthritis to diabetes and fibromyalgia. They also claim the poles reduce stress on joints during a walk, though research so far has been mixed.

Mills, it should be noted, has a vested interest in the poles. While her main vocation is teaching recreational leisure studies at Mount Olive College, she and husband Greg own two local Foot Solutions stores, which sell the poles (they're $49.95, fyi).

But she also relies heavily on them as she trains for the two-day, 39-mile Avon Walk for Breast Cancer on Oct. 25-26 in Charlotte. In large part that's because they help compress her training (that "30-45 minutes with the poles equals an hour of regular walking thing").

"If I go more than eight miles, I'll alternate with just walking," Mills says during a workout.

With that, she accelerates up the trail.

Like a gazelle.

joe.miller@newsobserver.com or (919) 812-8450.

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