Power Walking & Crosstraining

Walkers have a dilemma.

Every other sport has a methodology for training. Some employ the "periodization" whereby the training regime is altered in intensity depending on how close the trainer is to the season. For example, a football player may train with heavy weights during the "off-season" and then go on an entirely different program during the months he actually plays.

But there is no "season" for walking. Most people don't do it competitively. Rather, it's the easiest, most accessible of fitness activities, requiring no equipment (other than a good pair of shoes) and no special instruction. And that's both the good news and the potential problem.

See, there's a big difference between fitness walking and mere strolling. I've taken clients on walks only to have them fall into the "window shopping" mode before long, simply because the activity is so familiar that it's easy to forget to concentrate on why you are doing it in the first place.

So if you're going to use walking or power walking as a way of maintaining fitness levels, there's a few things you should keep in mind to make sure you get the maximum benefit from your sport.

First, find a way to introduce some variety and spice into your walking program. Once adaptation to a certain level of exercise occurs, the body is no longer working very hard to accomplish what once may have taken a lot of effort. Any seasoned exerciser has had some version of this experience: In the beginning, you couldn't do a block without being winded, now a brisk three miler feels like nothing. Or, if you lift weights, at one point five pound dumbbells may have felt immovable- now you're doing them for warm-ups.

If the body is coasting along with no discernible effort, a lot of the benefits you're getting from your exercise may be compromised. A recent piece in Sports Medicine noted that "the intensity of the exercise may well determine some of the possible benefits". So while we all know that any walking is better than none, longer and more intense walks may lead to a lot more benefits than doing the "same ole same old".

So what can you do to avoid staleness in your walking program, to keep it interesting and challenging and to avoid the exercise blahs that inevitable plague any fitness routine that stays the same for too long?

Fortunately, there's an easy answer to this question: Crosstraining. When the term "crosstraining" first became popular, it referred to the practice of an athlete training for his or her sport by spending some time doing an altogether different activity: rowers for example, might incorporate some jogging into their program, and runners would often be seen doing a bit of weight training.

But crosstraining has come to take on a somewhat different meaning for non-professional athletes, and it is in this domain that the concept really shines. For serious -- but non-professional -- people engaged in fitness activities and sports there are other concerns besides shaving a tenth of a second off your time in a competitive event. Fitness people seek a well-rounded program that will benefit them in all five aspects of fitness: strength, endurance, aerobic capacity, body composition (percentage of body fat), and flexibility. They also need programs that will not be boring, that will offer new challenges, that will remain interesting and that they are therefore likely to stick with for the rest of their lives.

For the walker, then, some form of crosstraining is the gold card standard for training. One way to crosstrain is to simply alternate your walking workouts with other activities, such as stairclimbing machines, swimming, blading, or weight training. But there's another way to get variety in your walking program.

Remember, power walking usually connotes fast, intense walking with rapid arm-pumping movement at a pace that is almost like jogging, but there is no reason that a "power walk" has to be limited to that. We often take clients on "power walks" that consist of a kind of interval training: 30-90 seconds of fast power walking alternated with intervals of slower walking; the "power walk" part can also alternate with short sprints, step-ups on a park bench, walking lunges, or tricep dips (also off a park bench). The possibilities are endless. End the workout with some core work for abs and some stretching and the result is a power walk that forms the basis of a complete fitness program.

Remember to include stretching in your program. Walkers are subject to the same kinds of pulls, strains and other problems that runners get. Warming up is usually not a problem as you can get a perfectly fine warm-up by just beginning your walk at a slower pace. It's important to remember that muscles respond best to stretching when they are warm: think how pliable salt water taffy is when it's warm and how brittle and breakable it is when it's cold. Your muscles are like that too. So don't go out on a cold day and begin to stretch. Your stretches are best done either after the workout, or after a thorough warm-up (or both).

Make sure to include hamstring and quadriceps stretches in your flexibility routine. An easy stretch for the quads (the front of the thigh muscles) is to stand on the right leg, bend the left leg so that the knee is facing the ground, and reach behind you grabbing your left ankle with your left hand. Now slowly use your left hand to bring the left leg further behind the body, lifting slightly up at the same time; be sure to keep both your hips facing forward. Use your right hand to steady yourself against a tree or a pole. Hold the position till you feel a pleasant stretch through the front of the left thigh and then repeat on the right side.

And don't forget to invest in a good pair of shoes that will support you properly through the kind of terrain on which you're likely to be working out. Many companies now make shoes specifically for walking, or make "crosstraining" shoes that will do the job just fine.

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