New-Found Fitness!

In the last three days I've taken up a wonderful new fitness activity; Urban Poling, or Nordic Walking. In Europe, people have been doing this training for years and if you've been there, you've likely seen it. You are about to see an awful lot more as it catches on here.

Urban Poling's debut has been very recent here. I was put onto it by reading the January Canadian Diabetes Dialogue magazine where they were extolling the virtues of this high cardio exercise just made for people like me.

My husband knew from a ski buddy who leads a Nordic Walking group and is also a Podiatrist, that you need shorter classic skiing poles. You can see this in the pictures. He cut off some extra poles I had to the right height. The best part is the cushion grips on the bottom of the tips that look like downhill ski boots. Apparently they take weight off the lower extremities and so are easier on the joints. BINGO! A solution for my Charcot's Joint in my foot!

These little "booties" are also curved to roll you forward in order to keep a fast walking pace as are my special rocker sole shoes. They do the trick as far as getting my heart rate up into my target zone of 125-137 and keeping it there for 30 minutes. The result? A perfect workout!

I am so elated! Aquafitness was great for resistance and muscle toning, but it actually did not cut it for cardio. I have extremely long legs and an extraorinary long stride and I've always been a faithful walker at 2 miles a day.

Now, if I can only work up to doing this 4 times a week, I'll be ecstatic!

Mother of Invention, getting a lot of funny looks as I pole around a town with absolutely no snow!