Healthwalk to Fitness
Coach Jake Jacobson's second book, "Healthwalk to Fitness" Heartfit Books, 1998, is geared towards walkers who want to get fit. The book includes an 8-Week Healthwalk Program and a 14-day Healthwalk Your Weight Off Program. These two programs, plus the wealth of motivational and how-to-walk information, sprinkled with cartoons and anecdotes, make this a perfect book for those who want to change their lifestyle through walking.
The premise is to copy the technique of the racewalker, even if you never race. To overcome the block many of us who walk for fitness have, he uses the term healthwalker. That is exactly the tack I took in the past six months, and as Coach Jake proposes, I have felt a dramatic increase in fitness without actually increasing the distance that I walk.
Chapter 1: The Wise of Walking explores adopting the attitude of an athlete, the benefits of walking vs. running, and the heart health benefits of walking. This is good ammunition to have on hand if you find yourself pooh-poohed by runners or to convince loved ones to join you for a stroll.
Chapter 2: Here's How first explores gear. What to wear, shoes, stopwatch and that all-important Vaseline. Next, how to breathe. Strange, I never worried about breathing when I walked a slow pace. But after adopting a racewalk pace it becomes suddenly a matter of concern. Then 14 pages on stretching, warm-up and cool-down exercises, with pictures and how-to. Then a chapter on heart rate.
Only now does Coach Jake delve into HOW to walk. He describes how to copy the style of a racewalker, using photos of the correct and incorrect way to use your arms, posture, and foot placement, with a good bit on cadence breathing also.
To balance the walking, Coach Jake includes a chapter on strength training with abdominal exercises and upper body exercises. These build the muscle groups that healthwalking leaves out.
Chapter 3: Achieving Lifetime Fitness addresses adopting an athletic lifestyle. First, good nutrition, and Coach Jake's advice and recommendations, would please my registered dietitian friends.
Coach Jake's Eight Week Healthwalk Program gives you a day-by-day recipe to concentrate on good walking form, increase walking time judiciously, and assess your progress to fitness.
Coach Jake's Healthwalk Your Weight Off Plan combines an eating plan with an exercise plan, with 14 days planned out, complete with recipes.
I wanted to just rip both of these out of the book and post them in my kitchen to keep me on track with both my walking and my eating.
Chapter 4 is a catch-all of short articles on a variety of walking topics, with some real gems.
Coach Jake's positive attitude and passion for walking is infectious. This book would be a great gift to yourself or for someone you love who you want to get out on the walking trail.
Net Links:
Walking Bookstore
My selections of
books on walking.
Racewalking 101: Great
course in racewalking with animations.
Racewalking Techniques and Training
Healthy Eating and Sports Nutrition
Walking with the AVA and IVV
Review: ShapeWalking by Marilyn L. Bach. Combine
walking with strength training and flexibility exercises for total fitness.
