Men, Pick Up Those Walking Poles!

Fitness walking with poles started out as a macho activity, developed by committed distance runners in the US and as a summer cross-training activity for elite cross-country ski racers in Scandinavia. Perhaps surprisingly to some of its early adherents, Nordic Walking gained recreational steam by being adopted as an effective, kind-on-the-joints fitness program by women -- middle-aged women, no less.

Here's yet another good reason for men to pick up a pair of poles and start walking. A seven-year study of 15,660 men (57 percent Caucasian and 43 percent African-American men with an average age of 59) found that those in the "very highly fit" category had a 70 percent lower death risk than those in the "low fit" category. Those considered moderately fit had about a 50 percent lower death risk compared with the low-fit group, according to Dr. Peter Kokkinos, director of an exercise testing lab at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, DC, and lead author of the study published last week Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. At the end of seven years, 44 percent of the least-fit group died, 30 percent of the moderately fit, 15 percent of the highly fit and only 8 percent of the very highly fit.

He suggested that "moderate fitness" isn't that difficult to achieve, saying, "You need to take a brisk walk for 30 minutes four to six times a week. It's not as easy as taking a pill, but let's be reasonable here." He added the increasing that activity into a fitter zone, which ultimately yields more benefits, doesn't take much more. He suggested jogging during part of that brisk walk. I'm no medical researcher -- and I don't even play one on television -- but I'm suggesting that adding poles and going for a brisk Nordic Walk for 30 minutes four to six times a week offers the same additional benefits -- perhaps even greater ones.

Remember that the fitter you are, the longer you are likely to live -- and your quality of life will be enhanced as well. So pick up those poles and get moving.