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This article appeared in The Home News Tribune’s Online.
June 19 2007
TREADMILLS USED AS PUNISHMENT - AND OTHER THINGS ABOUT WALKING
YOU DIDN'T KNOW
Take a load on
Because walking is a weight- bearing exercise, the heavier your weight, the more
calories you'll burn per mile of walking
By GARY PAUL, M.S., CDE
CORRESPONDENT
Walking is a great form of exercise. Most people can do it any time, any place. There is a lot of information out there about starting a walking program, improving your pace, and the right footwear, but here are 10 things you may not have known about walking.
1. Treadmills as punishment: In the 1800s treadmills were used to punish prisoners in the British penal system. Every prisoner was expected to walk the treadmill six hours a day in 29-minute increments with 5-minute breaks. These treadmills were not moving belts like those sold today, but looked more like the paddle-wheels of a riverboat. In essence, prisoners climbed stairs for six hours per day to atone for their misdeeds. Playwright and author Oscar Wilde was one of the more famous prisoners forced to man the treadmill.
2. No energy crisis here: Humans and diesel engines have something in common; they both can burn soybean oil as fuel. Oil is loaded with energy, or what food scientists call calories. Diesel fuel and cooking oil have roughly the same amount of calories per gallon. While a Mercedes Benz diesel engine strains to get 35 miles per gallon from soybean oil, a 150-pound human should be able to walk about 350 miles, or 10 times as far, on a gallon of soybean oil.
3. Take a load on: Because walking is a weight-bearing exercise, the heavier your weight, the more calories you'll burn per mile of walking. Burn more calories during your walks by wearing a weighted belt or a loaded backpack with a waist strap (carry the weight on your hips). Limiting the extra weight to 10 pounds or less should spare your joints from overuse.
4. There's a reward for walking faster: By walking faster than 3.5 mph you burn more calories per mile than at intermediate speeds because you employ more muscles, larger overall movements, and greater arm swing. As walking speeds increase there is a sharp increase in the oxygen-use curve. By doubling your walking speed from 2.5 mph to 5 mph, you nearly triple your calories burned per minute.
5. Slow walking burns calories too: Conversely, by walking very slowly, you burn more calories per mile than intermediate speeds (2.5 - 3.5 mph). At speeds less than 2 mph you are almost stopping and starting with each step, which requires more energy per step than brisker walking which uses momentum efficiently. The drawback is it takes longer to travel the mile.
Overall, the goal is to accumulate the most miles, be it at tortoise or hare speeds.
6. Stairway to weight loss: A 150-pound person has to walk 60 feet (about 25 steps) to burn one calorie. The same person burns one calorie for every seven stair-steps climbed (walking down the stairs takes 20 steps). Stairs are an excellent, efficient, inexpensive and weather-proof form of exercise for fat loss and cardiovascular benefits.
7. Railings are good: It's OK to use the stairway rails. Using your hands on the rails to help you get up or down stairs will not reduce the calories burned per stair-step. Some of the work will be done by your arms, but the exact same work is accomplished when you reach the top or the bottom. Who cares if your arms do some of the work?
8. But I'm up and down the stairs all day long: Being generous and assuming this means up and down 12 steps 50 times per day (which is a lot), still only results in about 10 minutes of total exercise. While 10 minutes of stairs is quality exercise, the U.S. Surgeon General targets 30 minutes of moderate exercise daily as the minimum for health and 60 to 90 minutes daily for weight-loss. You need to add more stairs, other exercises, or go for a walk to meet these goals.
9. Up or down, it helps the numbers: A 2004 study by Heinz Drexel, M.D., conducted on 45 subjects in the Austrian Alps., found walking down a 2,000-foot mountain, three to five times per week improved the hikers' glucose tolerance by 8.2 percent, compared with a 4.5 percent improvement if the same group hiked up the same mountain. On the other hand, hiking up the mountain improved plasma triglyceride tolerance by 11 percent while downhill hiking only improved it by 6.8 percent. Either method lowered undesirable LDL cholesterol roughly 9 percent in two months. This improved ability to use glucose via downhill walking is beneficial to diabetic and pre-diabetic individuals, particularly if uphill walking is difficult. People with elevated triglycerides may consider adding uphill walking or stair climbing to help improve their cholesterol profile.
10. Think you're a fast walker? Most people need to leave the ground and break into a jog at speeds greater than 6 mph. By employing a race walker's gait, Olimpiada Ivanova can remain in contact with the ground at all times and walk 8.6 mph for 12.4 miles (6:59 per mile), the 20K world record for women. The men's 20K Race Walk record is held by Bernardo Segura, averaging 9.6 mph for 12.4 miles (6:14 per mile). You're welcome to try that at home.
Gary Paul is a clinical exercise physiologist and certified diabetes educator with the Diabetes Self-Management and the Lighter Lifestyle weight-loss programs at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital at Rahway.
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