Click on NOTE CATEGORIES to browse by topic, read through the entire archives, or type a topic in the search box.To Hiking pole, or not to hiking pole, is the question that biomechanist Katy Bowman and biologist Jeannette Loram address in this episode.
The use of poles has become a hotly debated topic among hikers and Katy and Jeannette dive in to help explore the issue. They discuss how poles are used in fitness and hiking scenarios, as well as their potential advantages and disadvantages. They specifically get into how the arms and upper body can be used during hiking and explain the mechanics of walking uphill and downhill with poles. They discuss how poles can be useful tools to support balance, decrease fatigue and prevent joint discomfort, but also explain how relying on poles all of the time can leave us missing important movement nutrients and leave some parts of us undertrained.
OVERVIEW
(time codes are approximate)
00:05:00 - Different Types of Walking with Poles (Jump to section)
00:11:50 - Good. But not always. (Jump to section)
00:19:00 - Up and Downhill (Jump to section)
00:25:45 - Apply the Brakes! (Jump to section)
00:28:00 - Hands, Carrying, Reciprocal Arm swing, and fluency in movement (Jump to section)
00:38:15 - Hazards and Specific Benefits (Jump to section)
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW
Outside Magazine: The Case for Using Trekking Poles While Going Uphill
Outside Magazine: Scientists Weigh in on the Great Trekking Pole Debate
Read more about Reciprocal Arm Swing in Rethink Your Position
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
(Theme Music)
This is the Move Your DNA Podcast, a show where movement science meets your everyday life. I'm Katy Bowman, biomechanist, author, and I've got a big arm swing. And I'm Jeannette Loram, biologist, movement teacher, and minimalist hiker. Every body is welcome here. Let's get started.
(Music fade)
To hiking pole or not to hiking pole, that is today's topic.
KATY: Jeannette, I want to know what your hikes are looking like. It's summertime when we're recording this.
JEANNETTE: It is. So my hikes have been small so far. We're still in school here. So it's more shorter walks at the weekends. But I am about to travel north at the end of term, and we're going to be doing some bigger, steeper, more adventurous hiking. So I'm excited.
KATY: Now you said you're a minimalist hiker. What does that mean?
JEANNETTE: I meant that I like to, and it's from the perspective of hiking poles - this is my minimalist hiking definition. I like to hike with as little stuff as I can get away with. Which is why my husband says no one will follow me into battle, because apparently I never pack enough food.
KATY: Yeah the snacks.
JEANNETTE: No. I have been demoted from food provider. And the three men in my life have said that's it. I'm sacked. And they now prepare the food. But yeah, so I generally don't have a lot of stuff and I think that's why hiking poles have not entered my exploration yet. To me, it's something else that I would have to deal with.
KATY: Ok. So would you not bring poles? Is that what you're trying to ...
JEANNETTE: Yeah it would be something else, it seems like another thing that I would have to navigate. And another thing I would have to deal with. And I have dogs. So I have dog leads, and I have food, and I have clothing. You've been to Scotland. You know that we can have four seasons in one day.
KATY: Yes.
JEANNETTE: So you need different clothing and then hiking poles would be another thing that I would have to manage. So I think that's why it's never crossed my mind, potentially, to have them.
KATY: Well, and what's the terrain like? A lot of people have questions about - it's not so much to hiking pole or not to hiking pole. And I think that's the way folks approach the question. It's more like: When to. Who Should.
JEANNETTE: Who should. Yes. In what situations should you and should not? And I think that's part of the nuance that people aren't thinking about. That there's never a you should or you shouldn't. It's an always it depends.
KATY: It's always it depends. And that's why this show. We can break it down. Well, tell me about the terrain in Scotland. I mean I've done a couple of hikes with you by your home. And I would say in terms, for me, for my body, and that terrain, I wouldn't find the need to use poles. But do you see others using poles?
JEANNETTE: You know, I see more people using poles on trails and pavements.
KATY: Yeah.
JEANNETTE: Where I live in the woods I don't think... it's wetter. And in the hills, I don't typically see people with poles. And I think that's because a) it's very boggy. Although that could be somewhere that actually would be helpful to have a pole to sort of test how deep a bog is. And I could see the advantage to that. Am I going to go in up to my hips or is it safe to put my foot here?
KATY: Ok. So that's a whole other use for hiking poles than I had thought.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: That is kind of a canary in a coal mine test.
JEANNETTE: And we actually do that. I will pick, there are walks that you have no idea if you're gonna be on solid ground or not. So I actually picking up a stick and trying it ... But I think there's also a lot of the bigger hikes we do, you do need your hands for maybe scrambling. So having poles could be not - I mean you can fold them up and tie them to your...
KATY: Yeah they can fold.
JEANNETTE: But I definitely see more pole use on trails and flatter ground around here.
JEANNETTE: I did. So when I started to read a little bit around poles, I realized that people are often just talking about poles in general but there are two specific types. There are poles that are designed for something called Nordic walking which is much more of a sport or a fitness activity. I think it comes from off-season skiers who are trying to keep their skiing fitness. So the poles, they're supposed to be held much more loosely. So you have a grip and you kind of let go of the pole as it goes behind you.
KATY: The pole's on a strap.
JEANNETTE: They have a strap. And you kind of grip and then let loose as they go behind you. And it's much more that you put the poles behind you. So it's much more like a skiing action. Whereas hiking poles they're the ones that come in three pieces and they're much more used in front of you to broaden your base of support, for balance. But it's interesting because sometimes in the kind of more academic literature, I saw data presented where they put them all together.
KATY: Yeah.
JEANNETTE: But actually they're quite different biomechanically.
KATY: Yeah. Well and that, I think, that's why so much of it depends. Because when the question is, should I or shouldn't I, it's like: In which scenario? What is the outcome that you are hoping for or trying to offset? And I know that people who are into Nordic walking, that their reasons for using poles are different than someone who is, let's say, doing a backpacking trip and is trying to figure out whether or not they should use poles.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: And I have a very good friend who I walk with quite a bit who is a Nordic walker who uses poles. I mean even just walking to the grocery store. But the poles, so the poles are not there for balance. The poles are not there for helping the legs make this long trek, sort of distributing the work over more parts of the body. The poles are there because it increases the fitness activity. And specifically to get stuff shoulders. She has stiff shoulders. And she's like, "When I use the poles, I basically increase my arm movement during that total period of time." So her reason for using them is just that. Ok great. If you were looking for a way to get your arms moving. And it's different than reciprocal arm swing, which I'll define. Reciprocal arm swing is your body's natural coordination between your arms and your legs when you're walking. So when your left leg goes back behind you when you're walking, your right arm on the opposite side of your body swings back also. And then it repeats on the other side. So when you've got this heavy weight, your leg moving behind you, the tendency is to sort of throw your whole body in the same direction as that leg is going behind you. So your arm swinging back just helps keep you centered. You've got your heavy right leg, and it's not as heavy but you've got your left arm sort of lightly pushing backwards. It just stabilizes your spine for you. So a lot of that work is behind you. Reciprocal arm swing work, especially on flat ground, is behind you. And when you're going uphill, the work is behind you. When you're using the fitness poles, you've actually reversed the direction that the work is in. Now you lift the pole in front of you. So when your arms are swinging, the work is behind you, but then the arm relaxes and swings forward. So you do get this forward swing, but the lift, the work, is not on the front of your body. The work was to lift your arm behind you and then the relaxation swung it forward. Kind of like if you were on a swing. When you're on a swing, I'm trying to think, what is the direction of work when you're on the swing? It might be a little bit of both when you're going hard. When you lean back and you put your legs out in front of you, you're sort of creating work to go forward. But you can also lean forward and push it back.
JEANNETTE: Right. Yeah.
KATY: So it might not be the best example because...
JEANNETTE: You use your legs a lot going forward and back.
KATY: That's right. Well in reciprocal arm swing on those flat and uphill, the work is behind you and then you just sort of phew enjoy the swing forward. With Nordic walking, you're picking up the weight in front of you and you're also swinging it back. It's probably more like a swing.
JEANNETTE: A little bit of both.
KATY: Yes a little bit of both on both sides. So in that way, it's a little bit different than... Natural walking is such a tricky word. But I'm just talking about the gait parameters that would show up with you walking without anything loaded to your particular frame.
JEANNETTE: So I have a question then. If you're doing the fitness walking, the Nordic walking, where you are still getting some behind you, would you still get that kind of balance in the spine that you would get from a natural arm swing, do you think? Would you still get that counter-rotation?
KATY: I don't know. I think I would have to watch. Because I've seen people do it with different form. I've seen people use different form. And I see that the forward walking - I wonder if there's a third category. We've said that there's two, right? There's Nordic walking and then there's hiking poles.
JEANNETTE: Hiking Poles, mm-hmm.
KATY: I'm thinking about walking with my friend and I think she'll actually use her Nordic poles similarly to hiking poles where most of the work is kind of crawling out in front of her.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: She's not focusing as much on the pushing back.
JEANNETTE: I wonder if Nordic walking is almost something that you - is a specific skill set. Because I've seen classes. You go and you learn the specific technique. Where if you just pick up fitness poles and use them without...
KATY: Without instruction. There's no form. You're just using them. And your arms are moving. You're getting that exercise.
JEANNETTE: I certainly ... I have no hiking poles but on my walk this morning I tried with sticks to see how my arm would work. And I could never get my arm to go as far behind me as I would with a natural arm swing.
KATY: Mm-hmm.
KATY: I think it would be different. I guess I'm still thinking of your first question. I think they'd be different. Anytime you add in the poles and when you've added weight and you've added something that connects to the ground it's going to be different than if you didn't have that thing there. So taking this bit of conversation that we just had, I think that not always doing the poles is helpful. So if your walking is always with poles you're going to be missing certain loads to walking if you always use poles. So maybe it's not should I or shouldn't I in this case but it's maybe not always. How much of your walking is without poles? Or even hiking in this case. Because, again, if you're always grabbing those poles when you walk out the door because you are thinking that you need to have them ... and we could go into reasons where you might want to have them more often than not. But in general, we want to make sure that you preserve your reciprocal arm swing. Right? I want to make sure that you've got that coordination between your upper and lower body. So that means that you have to practice your walking without poles. Now that's not going to help you, necessarily, decide about trips or when should you use them or when should you not use them. But just to introduce the idea of maybe not always.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: Because there's value and movement nutrition to be found in upright locomotion. And upright locomotion without poles is different than upright locomotion with poles.
JEANNETTE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: Of whatever type.
JEANNETTE: And I think that's a nice segue. Before we get into situations where you might want to use them, but also things like - so now I'm talking more about hiking poles than Nordic walking - but an advantage might be balance.
KATY: Right.
JEANNETTE: And if I can sort of separate acute vs chronic. In a situation that's very unstable, I see it might be great to have that balance assist. But there's also a chronic using. If you always use poles, then you're not training your innate other balance systems and muscles. So there's a benefit to potentially using them in certain scenarios. And then there's a cost to always using them because you're not training those other systems. Your proprioception.
KATY: Yes and this is a good time to maybe call in the reason that you would use them all the time.
JEANNETTE: Mm-hmm.
KATY: So I've seen different literature on folks with chronic balance. Chronic balance and I'll say not just like "I feel a little unstable". If you have people who are dealing with Parkinson’s, advanced Parkinson’s who still want to get out and feel that the poles increase the safety of the walk. If you have any other disability where the poles deal with helping you manage the symptom or the reason why you otherwise would not be able to go out and walk and hike. Then it's like, of course.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. They've seen that with Parkinson’s it actually generates a more regular gait and a more normal gait pattern.
KATY: That's right because that coordination. It's the same reason adding resistance to a movement can somehow help you find the muscles that are supposed to respond. If you do everything without weights, it's hard to find a muscle that would kick in if you did have more weight or more resistance. Poles can do that with Parkinson’s.
JEANNETTE: Close the chain, I guess.
KATY: That's right. You have something to push off of. Ok, there's that muscle if you're having difficulty communicating with that, the extra resistance can help you find it and you can go ahead and connect it in that way. So that being said, to your point earlier, when you notice you're having balance issues, do you want to go right to hiking poles to address the balance issue? I would say no, not in the long term. I mean certainly if it helps you get out, yes. But in the situations where you are seeing yourself become less stable, that hiking poles is maybe one piece of the pie, but working on balance training is also part of the bigger puzzle that you're trying to put together. So part of improving your balance can be not using poles sometimes. So in addition, you should have a thorough balance training program.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: Your balance program can't only be walking without poles. Because, again, your volume of movement is so small at that point, I don't want to necessarily send you out into your one big adventure that you do once a week or even if it's just once a day and make that have to be the time when you're rehabbing something.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: I can understand, "If I just take my poles, I can relax my mind and not have to think about movement so much and I can just enjoy." I want that for you. But I would caution that - it's just like the idea of minimal footwear and wearing supportive footwear all the time, allowing the foot to become weaker. When you deal with a loss of balance only by adding stabilizing pieces of equipment, it does not rectify the issue. So you want to deal with balance training through specific exercises and setting up your home for more movement. And then consider walking more often without poles -even some hiking, when you don't have to go as far and when you don't have to carry maybe a bigger load so that you are maintaining or even challenging the parts of you that are only moved by having to stabilize you in an unstable environment.
JEANNETTE: Or perhaps you do your walk, take your poles and strap them on your pack, and only use them when you really feel vulnerable.
KATY: Yes. Right.
JEANNETTE: That's part of your training plan.
KATY: Mm-hmm. It's the same with minimal shoes. Don't do your whole hike in them. Wear the shoes that you feel more comfortable in and then have a second pair and then you can put them on the rest of the time or vice versa- swap to something more stable when you're feeling fatigued.
JEANNETTE: Right. So we've got balance. What other situations, Parkinson’s, some gait disorders, balance. What about when you're wearing a big pack and you're doing something kind of perhaps out with your comfort zone? That could be another scenario.
KATY: Yeah.
KATY: Right. I mean, again, backpacking. What I hear now is we're talking about - we're taking to the mountains now. And there's a lot of debate around hiking poles in the mountains. Outside Magazine online has had a couple great articles through the years that sort of sum up this debate, again, to hiking pole or not to hiking pole while in the mountains. A lot of it has to do with uphill, actually. Basically, when you're going uphill and we can add a pack to it or you can not have a pack - a day pack or a backpacking pack. Obviously, as you go uphill things get more challenging. And if you imagine a four-legged animal. What a four-legged animal is doing is sharing that push-off. Forward motion is coming from pushing back behind you. Well if you've got four limbs on the ground, you are sharing work over the four limbs. For many years the belief was you're making it easier. Easier in the sense of you're expending less overall energy when you use hiking poles. But more research, more mechanical breakdown is, you're not really. It's easier because you're distributing the work. You are giving some of your leg work to your arms. And also I'd imagine some of your core work, especially if you have a bigger pack. Because if you are a four-limbed animal - if you add poles you are now a four-limbed animal - and you're able to carry. When you're going uphill you're maybe leaning forward, ideally not as much but if you have a heavy pack you you have to lean forward a little bit. And there's more load for your spine there. So when you put the poles in the ground, what you're doing is you're becoming a little bit more quadruped.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: When you put a pack on you are becoming - your spine is looking more like a quadruped in that it's forward. Normally your back extensors have to take that work. Right? If you put a pack on and you're leaning forward you're essentially arching your back just a little bit and dealing with the weight of the pack by arching your back. So it's kind of like, you know, if you stood up and then leaned forward 15 degrees, you would feel that in your back right away. And then imagine that you've got that going on for four hours or six hours or eight hours however long you're hiking. When you put your poles into the ground, though, it's like getting an extra set of limbs on the ground and your back can relax a little bit. Because you are using your spine more like a quadruped animal would and letting those front limbs support the spine instead of having to use your back extensors to do it. So, it's not easier in the sense of you're not expending the same amount of energy to move the weight of you up the hill, but you're distributing it so that you're not fatiguing just your legs and your spine. Your arms and your shoulders are able to participate in carrying that load. And so the perception is that it's easier.
JEANNETTE: I think that's the general finding with whether it's backpacking up a hill or just using the poles is that the perceived effort is less.
KATY: Yeah.
JEANNETTE: Even though the actual exertion, the total energy expenditure is not. You just perceive it's less because, like you say, it's distributed more evenly.
KATY: Yeah. Well, maybe our perception comes from our most fatigued muscles. It's like if you have a group of kids that are hiking it's the whiniest, loudest kid that is "Oh you're fatiguing me here." So it might just be that "sit down and take a break" is coming from the one that's struggling the most with that. You get a fresh set of legs and you add poles in that way. And that has been the findings of researchers. The article, there's one researcher, it's kind of a European sport with poles, they make a big point of it. You see more poles in Europe than you will see in North America, say. And then when it comes to going downhill, you already mentioned this. You were referring to braking muscles. Just to clarify for everyone, braking muscles are usually the quadriceps and the soleus. The lower, deeper calf muscle. These are the muscles, that as you're going down ... you can give yourself a pack in your imagination or not, but you've got this steep or maybe not as steep but sort of slippery descent that you're heading down. Usually, you slightly bend your knees. As soon as you bend your knees your quadriceps contract and they're holding you here. And they're sort of on, like brakes, as you then take steps to come down. So you're using, ideally, you would be using your lateral hips, your quadriceps, and these deeper calf muscles, your soleus to hold you back. The tendency when you go downhill is that it's easier to take a mass downhill than uphill. So when you're going downhill you have to slow yourself. There's a coordinated effort to sort of like I imagine holding - say you've got someone holding on a rope dangling below and you're going to eee... let them out... sort of eee eee ee a little bit at a time. But you're always keeping work happening here. So there's a lot of work in the opposite direction to going downhill. That's why we call them braking muscles. Like applying brakes, not that they're breaking.
JEANNETTE: Right. Thank you for that clarification.
KATY: Just for the person listening. What did you say? Breaking? So they are like applying the brakes. And when you add the poles into the ground, again, you're becoming a quadruped going downhill. And if you hike with your dogs enough you can see, they're lower to the ground, but when you've got those front limbs to share some of that downhill work, it doesn't become so aggravating for your knees especially. And for the lower legs. And so by adding the poles, you get those poles down there, and you use your arms as braking muscles now. So you're distributing the work over more parts of the body.
KATY: It's the same idea. The distribution is there. So if your knees, on the downhill phase of a hike, are what's keeping you from going outside, by all means, explore this idea of distributing your hike over more parts of your body. That being said, the reason I'm not like, "Hiking poles rah-rah", I'm not a big cheerleader for that is because I think we tend to jump to the gear surrounding the problem and we haven't really maximized our own structure yet. And for many people, they'll hear this and say, "Oh my knees hurt when I hike so I went to poles and that's why I use them." And then five years later they're like, "My knees are even worse now. I was able to get out and hike but my knees are worse" because we didn't address the actual issue.
JEANNETTE: It can be a temporary mask.
KATY: Yes. It's support. It's temporary support. But it doesn't deal with the progression of the issue. So finding your uphill and your downhill musculature, finding your balance musculature, learning about the so-called (air quote) "hiking pole-esque" parts that you have in your body that you are not using in the first place - that's where I'm doing my work. That's what I'm writing about. That's what I'm teaching in courses. Because we go to the gear, we go to the supportive shoe because the ankle is wobbly. And then you just see an unsustainable approach to movement. And then someone has a big injury or they just have a narrative about how old their body is. And they've never really invited many parts of their body to their hike.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: So it's a mix. It's a blend. Use it but don't only use it I guess is my overall recommendation.
KATY: Yes.
JEANNETTE: And I can see that because you're...
KATY: You're doing something with your hands.
JEANNETTE: You're doing something with your hands. So do you have thoughts on that? Obviously, when our hands are by our sides the blood is heading towards our extremities. Arm swing. Can arm swing help deal with that swelling or is it just a question of "Oh we just need to have a break every so often to do something different with our hands?"
KATY: I wrote about this on my blog back when it was Katy Says, probably in 2009. Reciprocal arm swing is actually part of the problem. You know, as you're swinging your arm back and forth it's sort of pushing blood. Like if you just stood and swing your arms back and forth you will feel the pressure.
JEANNETTE: I'm trying to do it here.
KATY: As you're sitting down. Yeah, yeah, pillows knocking over. And I love this because it comes back to that movement diet pyramid. We are carriers. A lot of what we're doing is carrying. And so when you're carrying there's often more actual hand contraction to be found. In this article I was writing, when you're a container, when you are a container-rich culture your walks are - there's very little carrying going on. What I tend to do is grab a rock or if I was on something shorter it could be a rubber ball that you can hold or I tend to do forage when I do a long hike. I'm always picking grass and twirling it in my hands. So I keep my hands active. When I backpack I have found that I also like to take a smaller bag - still like a hip pack or a fanny pack - that's got maybe immediate snacks or a camera. And then I will hold that just in my hands sometimes as something to do.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: So it's not all in just one giant pack where I can't - I can move the smaller one around. I can do different things with it. So that's been my solution for not having it in my big pack. But really because it helps me distribute the weight. I can't really move my big backpack to the front of my body or play around with it too much.
JEANNETTE: You've got essentially a play bag.
KATY: It is! But again, I'm just always, I'm a plant fusser when I'm out.
JEANNETTE: My youngest kid still likes to hold hands. But he's my more reluctant walker. But he can't bear a limp hand. You can't hold his hand gently. He needs to feel - I feel like I'm crushing his hand but that's what he likes. So I end up actually doing quite a lot of handwork.
KATY: I was going to say, are you sure you're not dragging him? Here's what I need, I need you to not only carry all the snacks. I would like you to make a claw so I can hold on. You're like a tow rope.
JEANNETTE: I think he's very clever and he's figured this out. If he's really tired we give a dog on a lead.
KATY: Oh perfect.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. So that's interesting. So yeah it comes back to that thing of actually going on a long hike with arm swing is not necessarily naturally how our arms would be used for a long period of time.
KATY: That's right. Yes. I mean we could talk more about arm swing. I mean I'm such a gait nerd. I love gait. And that's why I hesitate to use the word natural. But if you're an uncumbered overground walking the reflex in your body is to coordinate your right and left arm to go back behind you. But of course, now, let's say you're carrying something - say you're carrying a baby on the left side. Or a spear. Whatever. You do you. You carry which one? So now I only have one arm to swing. Or you have a dog on a lead with your left hand. So now you've got one still arm and one swinging arm. How does your body deal with that? Well, what it does is the arm swing back and forth is not the only way your spine can be stable during walking. It's just one of the ways. It's one of the ways that also nourishes your shoulders and the muscles that extend your shoulder and keep your upper back and your upper spine sort of balanced to keep it from drooping forward over time. So there's payoffs for having arm swing. But when you can't swing an arm, your body can use the spine on the left side. It can sort of lockdown or stiffen the spine to keep that rotation from happening when the leg goes back. So for those people who have been finding that your back is stiff over time, it often correlates to shoulders that are stiffening. Maybe a lot of work in front of you. Your arm swing goes down. And then now your back has to stay stiff to deal with all these steps and then you're saying walking is really - my back is aching after walking. Yes. Because the shoulders, if you only use your spine to stabilize your spine, it's not well-distributed walking. It's not distributed over different parts. So that's why we like to say vary your carry. If you tend to carry things on the left side, and you're always pumping the right arm, you get more able to do that and then you do more of that and then you get to the point where you can only do that. So switching hands...
JEANNETTE: Yeah. That's hard to do. I carried my kids. I'm stronger carrying them on the left.
KATY: Sure. Same. Because you're right-handed probably.
JEANNETTE: Yeah and you just get stronger and stronger. So it was a real - I had to be really mindful in actually swapping the way I carried kids and the way I carry a bag.
KATY: And that kind of stuff, it's not like doing reps at a gym. It's not "I'm gonna do 30 on the other side." You're just carrying them through life and so life goes on and you need to able to stir with your right hand so you put them on the left. So you do the best you can. But that's all to say that to the original question that got us on this thread is, it's quite natural to walk with things in your hands. And because we're talking about reciprocal arm swing, just so you know what a geek I actually am... you've got your arm swinging back and forth. If you ever carry a sack that swings, so you're basically creating a pendulum. I will, let's say, I have a cloth bag so it's easily grasped, and then it sort of swings. And I will hold it on my left side but I can't hold it with my left arm long, because then my left arm is effectively longer than my right. The load on my left side is longer. And it's got a dangly bit at the end. It's like an ear-wearing a dangly earring. So your coordination gets off. So then what I'll do and what I would wager anyone would end up doing too is, you bend the elbow to the degree to make the angle that allows the swinging pendulum load in your holding bag to match the cadence of your leg on the other side. So that the swinging bag is now the balancing force to the opposite side.
JEANNETTE: Right. So you're basically balancing out your sides by elbow bend.
KATY: Yes. By elbow bend. And the elbow bend is to the degree that the whatever weight is in my bag, its swing, its pendulous swing is gonna match the non-pendulous action of the opposite arm. And I'm watching and it's like this is amazing!
JEANNETTE: That is fascinating.
KATY: It's fascinating. And I really would love to teach, I mean I teach gait lab to our teachers but to do a gait lab for everyday folks to come in and play around with all that walking is.
JEANNETTE: Come to Scotland. Come do it in Scotland.
KATY: Let's do it in Scotland.
JEANNETTE: Let's do it!
KATY: Let's do it.
JEANNETTE: All sorts of different terrain.
KATY: Yes and when you start to see all of the ways that your body coordinates and you're in tune with this language that your body is... language isn't the right word. Your body is fluent in movement. Our bodies are fluent in movement but the containers that we are in haven't allowed us to practice our enunciation for certain things. We don't know what's going on. We're not sure how to add other pieces in. So yeah. I love arm swing. And for that reason, I think the question about poles is really interesting because I think that people have probably been using walking sticks for a very long time.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: I don't even think that they're necessarily unnatural.
JEANNETTE: No.
KATY: I mean the materials are less so.
JEANNETTE: Perhaps using the two is the one that's more modern, I would think. People have used one walking stick forever.
KATY: Why? Why would anyone who figured out one walking stick not figure out two?
JEANNETTE: I think it's, again, having a free hand. It's the walking stick is...
KATY: Carrying.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, you've got the stick for balance should you need it.
KATY: Protection?
JEANNETTE: Measuring the depth of a puddle. But you've also got your hand free.
KATY: For whacking a bear.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: Whatever.
JEANNETTE: Yes. I think that's probably why. And I think they've done some research. It might have been linked in that Outside Online where actually balance is just as... you can have one pole is just as good as two.
KATY: Sure. Because your base of support...
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: So your base of support. I won't go into base of support because it's very visual, but if folks could learn about base of support. I taught base of support at the foot retreat that I did. So this is why a pole or a walker, how it's increasing your stability, and why. There's an image that goes with it. But yeah, the difference between one or two, not as much.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. So I think that's perhaps - people were using it more as a stability thing. They only need one.
JEANNETTE: So have we got any more situations? I did wonder, I mean, certainly in the - you know you've got these sticks, kind of, you know, being flailed around. Could they actually cause you to trip? Could they be a hazard as well as an assist? Especially in the kind of terrain that I walk in, where there's lots of different crevices. Could they actually be? So that would be another disadvantage section.
KATY: And that was a big difference between ... a lot of walking pole, (we'll call them walking pole no matter the type), research is done on treadmills. And what they have found is the way that you're able to use a walking pole on a treadmill, just like all treadmill research, is different than over ground use. Because you can always place it where you want to place it ...
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: ... on a treadmill. And so then you get this really fluid, smooth gait. Which I imagine people doing fitness walking on paths, or trails are experiencing.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: It's more cumbersome. The process is more cumbersome when you are having to, you know, look ahead and see, "ok, I'm gonna be able to stick my pole in this area." And so if you're maybe not paying attention it could go into an area and you sail by and it doesn't easily come out of that area and then it jolts you back in a particular way. I imagine with experienced users it's probably less of an issue. Although if you're using it more often, maybe the frequency, or the amount of times you've experienced a thing like that comes up for them more than someone who is a complete novice at using them. In general, I've had them in a couple of really technical hikes where I'm backpacking and I have found that I was, you know when I got to an area where I was nervous about... "Ok, I would definitely want to have some stability here. This is slippery."
JEANNETTE: A narrow ledge or...
KATY: Slippery and steep with high consequences for falling. But I found, so I got them out, was pleased to have them, and then I had that base of support and felt like I had four limbs on the ground and not two. But once I got over that feeling - it's sort of like the tendency when you get up really high to just get down low. You know it's like, "I just need to get down low" in my response to heights or technicality. But once I was trying to walk with them, I did feel, and I'm an inexperienced user, right? Because I don't use them all the time. I don't train with them. I felt they were more like a liability for me. And I was like, "I actually feel really comfortable using my own..." It's the way that I feel when I'm in a hat. I feel like I can't see.
JEANNETTE: It's limiting you?
KATY: It limits my vision ... And I feel more confident. I'm confident in my capabilities and I feel sort of hindered when I add certain pieces of gear. That's just me. But I did have them. And I experienced a relief. But when I got into it I was like, "Oh, I am not using my full strength here." And maybe if I practiced with them more often I could find happy medium between the two.
JEANNETTE: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
KATY: So there's that.
JEANNETTE: Interesting.
KATY: Ok. Well, I feel like we've covered hiking, trekking, Nordic walking as well as we can from a Nutritious Movement perspective.
JEANNETTE: Excellent.
KATY: And I just wish everyone out there who is gonna be out in the mountains or on the trails or along the beach, coastal heights, whatever you're doing - I wish you a very nourishing time out there. And come up and say hi! I definitely see some people out in the real world. The place where I actually find the most people coming up to me, "Are you Katy Bowman?" is actually hiking. And I want to say that that's amazing!
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: That's really great to see you all out there livin' the dream.
JEANNETTE: That's brilliant.
KATY: Yeah. Including I think Iceland once.
JEANNETTE: Wow!
KATY: Not just here. I live in a very mountain... but around in different places because I'm usually outside, moving around, if I'm traveling. And it's always some lovely ...
JEANNETTE: I guess the people who are listening to you are...
KATY: That's right.
JEANNETTE: ... living what you put out. That's amazing.
KATY: I always feel like when I meet someone in this situation... and I don't know, do you do this? Do you ever, when you're out walking or hiking look at people's shoes first?
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: Can everyone listening relate to that? You're like, it's such a sorting tool. So if I'm hiking or trekking and I see, I'm looking down where I'm walking, and I see minimal shoes, my eyes will sort of pan up.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, go up.
KATY: And I know, oh, this person, I might have something in common. I mean I have something in common with every person but you know. This person is about to say, "I see your shoes!" you know. Or there's going to be a moment there.
JEANNETTE: I've actually had someone come up to me on a boat before and ask me about shoes. And we'd just been on a hike and it was a boat in the wilderness.
KATY: See!
JEANNETTE: It's a good starting conversation. And I'm sure actually this person had heard of you.
KATY: If I see you in minimal shoes...
JEANNETTE: A Katy Bowman conversation.
KATY: Yes. That's a very surreal experience. But it seems the same. When it's out in the wild and you've got that connection. I remember having a big talk about Soft Star's new hiking boots. Someone was like, "Oh! You've got Soft Star's new hiking boots." And they pan and are like, "Oh! You're Katy Bowman!" And I'm dragging two children up the hill and they're rolling their eyes like "Oh no not again." But please come up and say hi if you see me outside. But maybe not if I'm in an intense parenting moment.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Wide berth if they're having a moment.
KATY: All right. Happy trekking everyone! We look forward to seeing you next time.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Take care! Bye!
KATY: Bye.
(Theme music)
Hi, my name is Dina Crosta from New Jersey. This has been Move Your DNA with Katy Bowman, a podcast about movement. We hope you find the general information in this podcast informative and helpful but it is not intended to replace medical advice and should not be used as such. Our theme music was performed by Dan MacCormack. This podcast is produced by Brock Armstrong and is transcribed by Annette Yen. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to audio. And find out more about Katy, her books, and her movement programs at NutritiousMovement.com.
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