Walking the line is healthy

A by-product of walking - take-home fertiliser. PICTURE / GREG BELL

Walking is a venture that is one of the built-in features of the average human container.
It is often practical, pleasurable and metaphorical (walking the talk, cake walk, walking the line).

In the context of a healthy lifestyle, it is often overlooked as a superb component and bucks the trend of the "As seen on TV" range of useless gadgets, which should be prefaced by "If seen on TV, run, nay, walk away, flee like a gazelle, nay walk away briskly like a bipedal organism".

By the speedometer, walking at a sedate 4km/hour will burn you 210 calories, which will totally and happily negate the 1.425kg of celery you had guiltily scarfed down earlier on. Of course that is assuming all calories are equal once consumed, and Robert Lustig convincingly argues against the energy in/out concept, whereas the world's leading soft drink manufacturer argues for the in/out concept, as that then places their produce as one of the treat variables in a "healthy balanced diet". Yes, I agree, that is another story.

Pick up the pace to Bill Charnock velocity (local walking legend), which might be 10km per hour or more, and you expend 740 calories, which mitigates the deleterious effects of eating which is apparently a Carl's Junior Chocolate shake according to acaloriecounter.com.

Loading during walking is of importance to the pedantic, the biomechanics boffin, the injured and the arthritic. In a study in the journal of biomechanics, it was observed that the loading on the hip joint was 2.8 times body weight at 1km/hr, rising up to 4.8 times body weight at 5km/hr. Interesting trivia, but a strong muscled body is well equipped to deal with these loads. If it isn't, strengthening the muscles will bring you back towards optimal. Interestingly they were also able to document the load of stumbling, which may have been either opportunistic or else they studied a population of inebriated university students. Stumbling caused a load of 7.2 times body weight. This then allows the reader to draw the conclusion that the Saturday/Sunday morning walk of shame carries a greater risk to the delicate hip joint structures.

Barefoot walking is not just for children as Naijia Shakoor and Joel Block discovered. They found that significant decreases in lower limb joint loads were recorded in their lab study. I must add, the full range and ability of the myriad of foot muscles is so much more in the bare. Get your shoes off and be tactile out on the beaches we are so lucky to have at close proximity. Choosing your surface could be a confounding variable here as risk of glass, unseen rocks or perhaps connection with animal leavings would be negative. There are, as far as we can ascertain, no dog poos on a lab treadmill, making for a highly artificial result surely.

This provides the ideal segue into my real life experience of walking last week. Making the most of the balmy May weather, I embarked on another journey to work. As I cross on to the bridge the song comes on through my headphones Blue Sky Action by Above and Beyond. Ahead of me, maybe 100m, perch three seagulls in series, tails pointing downwind. My uncle who walked this journey every day of his working career always warned me of the threat of the touch of the heavens. He was never blessed in this way. As I drew close my route of escape, the wide berth on to the dual carriageway was cut off by approaching traffic. I was right there. I paused to gaze heavenwards, only to see the seagull equivalent of "bombs away," enhanced by a wiggle of the avian ass at 10Hz. Blue Sky Action. The poos painted my leg with Picasso artistry, abstract, gooey, disappointing.

Not the pottle of yoghurt as described by Bill Bryson thankfully, but enough to engage catastrophic thinking for every walk since. The fellow behind me whose life I saved assured me it was good luck. I have yet to identify the particular episode of luck.
I honestly froze under another seagull yesterday. I need a walking group. Less chance of hitting me when there's a posse.

Walking groups apparently increase the benefits of walking as opposed to solitary walking. Not another lab test mind you, but the king of studies, the Meta Analysis. Forty two studies, 1843 people, showed reductions in blood pressure, resting heart rate, body fat, BMI (body mass index) and total cholesterol to name a few. Probably decreased muggings too, but an increase in a cappella sing-offs, which will increase heart rate.

If you don't walk, why don't you? It's a must in this pedestrian town. Get alone with your thoughts, your music or in a bunch and sort the world out, step by step.

Greg Bell is a physiotherapist practising at Bell Physiotherapy. www.bellphysio.co.nz