Customer Reviews

Nordic Walking: The Complete Guide to Health, Fitness, and Fun

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Great Book to purchase for anyone interested in the sport of Nordic Walking. The book contains clear and concise information that comes from varied credible resources. A friend of mine purchased the book, I borrowed it, and decided I needed to add "Nordic Walking: The Complete Guide to Health, Fitness, and Fun," to my library. The book contains exercises for stretching, what the sport is and not, nutrition information, purchasing poles, and if a person is going to develop further interest in the sport, the book has information for entering Marathons held across the country. Glad I added the book to my library.

NORDIC WALKING tells how to walk using special lightweight poles that relieve stress on the knees, hips and more to offer a core workout. Nordic Walking is a low-impact exercise and this tells how to make the most of Nordic Walking poles, from selection to stride and pole movements, various exercises and routines. A 'must' for any Nordic walker and for any collection strong in health and fitness.

I would highly recommend this book as the best book out there for persons new to Nordic Walking. It gives an excellent broad over view of technique from several different perspectives not just one like all other books and includes great tips and resources for equipment, trails and so much more. Highly recommended by someone who has literally read every book out there.

The simplest form of exercise is walking. But capitalism has a way of marketing everything, and shrewd fitness-entrepreneurs have converted brisk walking into a new sport-Nordic Walking. According to this book, to become a Nordic Walker, you need to do more than just slip on your beat-up brogues and take the trusty old hiking stick in hand out for a brisk walk. Nordic walking requires special gear: maybe a 100$ set of Nordic Walking poles along with an equally expensive pair of special shoes. Of course you can now add in a few dozen costly training sessions with a certified trainer if you really want to get good. You get my point.
Without knowing it, I have been Nordic Walking for years. I often walk with poles. I use a pair of cross-country ski poles that outlived the skis. I hammered a pair of rubber crutch tips onto the sawed off ends. They are a bit heavier than the expensive carbon/metal alloy jobs you can buy from the many advertisers in this guide, but the idea is to work the upper body, so I figure the extra weight is an advantage. Adding an upper body workout to your brisk, aerobic walk may be sound. You can do it with 100$ poles, 2$ broomsticks, or hand weights. Whatever.
This book devotes pages and pages to the value of exercise, in case you didn't know that we Americans need more. Then it has many more pages of shopping opportunities with updated brand names: poles, shoes, clothing, gimmicks, videos, and training programs, for example. Most of us are attracted to fitness programs because we don't like the way we look in the mirror. Too fat. Too flabby. Unable to move it. All good reasons to embark on a fitness program. Well do you really believe that $1000 of gear is going to change any of that? Too fat? Cut back on the calories. Too flabby? Go shovel some compost. Unable to move it? Well go do something aerobic, with or without the gear.
Walking is one option for improving aerobic fitness, for sure, but it takes a lot of time. Lets get real: Most hard-working Americans will not stick with a time-consuming daily exercise routine. Maybe they will take a brisk, long walk on the weekend, but not every day. For this reason I recommend a 15-minute a day routine that combines 10 minutes of aerobics with 5 minutes of strength training. It is the workout in Rick Bradley's book "Quick Fit" (which I have reviewed). It is practical, costs nothing, and works.
I am very frugal, so I am sticking with my homemade poles for aerobic walking. Less is best for me. I admit that I have trekking poles for hiking and backpacking on dirt trails, and ski poles for the snow. So I am into poles. If I were to purchase a set of poles for just Nordic walking, I think the Boomyah poles look most promising, but I cannot recommend something I have not used. This is a good book to go to for shopping. It is not so great in describing technique. The fact is that every pole manufacturer has variations on technique, depending on pole design. Some poles have straps, some have gloves, and some have no strap at all. Some poles have fixed length, others are adjustable. You can find many demonstrations of technique on You Tube, and the Boomyah video is available there. It is one of the better ones available online. But be honest with yourself. Don't buy the equipment unless you are going to use it. There are really cheaper alternatives that may be just as good to use for that occasional brisk Nordic walk.