Walking Poles

I am an Asthmatic as well and i find poles a God Send when doing alot of hills and like a few of you guys im in my 50"s,but on the flat i find them a pain i like hands free Lindsay

Personally I wouldn't now consider tramping without poles, though this wasn't the case a few years ago, and just maybe some of the painful symptoms I now endure could have perhaps been prevented, or at least postponed, had I done so. Who knows, maybe not, but for all the positive reasons already mentioned I would certainly endorse their use now. As for being a pain on the flat? Compered to the pain suffered without them this is a small price to pay.....in my opinion anyway. Apologies for repeating myself but I would like to again make mention what many still consider to be the authority on the pro's and con's of walking poles. http://www.persona...~pjclinch/poles.htm As for the technicalities of the downward pressure exerted being equal to the square of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle, I'll leave that to those who understand it......as you can see I don't!

Technicalities of the downward pressure im with you on this one normclimb to much for a Friday and i must get back to work now Lindsay

If Normclimb link does not work for anyone, try googling "Pete's Pole Pages" instead. The correct page should be at the top of the list.

Strange that.......but thanks. It worked when I first did it but not now for some reason. Computers, who'd have them?

I suppose the point was meant to be that it's not a free lunch. Whether they're helpful will probably depend on what kind of build you have and how well the rest of your body can absorb the pressure off the legs (plus a little extra). I enjoy trying to understand what's going on, anyway. Thanks for the link. It's this one, right? http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/poles.htm When I googled it, I found this page near the top, which was also an interesting read: http://www.slackpacker.com/trekking-poles.html . It's unfairly opinionated in places though.

When i was young dumb and full of...... well you get the picture. Macho sreaming from every pore tramping was about the quickest time from point to point and anybody slower was obviously not ment for the bush i would have laughed derisevly at any mention of a walking stick of any discription. In fact if Sir Edd hadnt used an ice axe we would have laughed at that too. Years go by lessons are learnt (some quite painfully Im with Normclimb i wonder how much damage i could have avoided) Now i wouldnt walk anywhere without the pole.

At the risk of appearing young and dumb, I still like some understanding of what's happening medically with something like this. Finding objective information is tricky with so much marketing though. For what it's worth (and obviously only for whoever cares), Google Scholar's a good starting point for objective studies that are generally positive about walking poles: http://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?q=walking+poles They'd need to be read in context though, and it's possibly better to talk to someone qualified to interpret it all. I still can't find any objective long term studies about upper body effects (if it exists), and that'd be really interesting to read about.

I'm sure you'll find something of interest in one of the following: http://walking.about.com/cs/poles/a/polestudy00.htm http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/load-carriage-force-production-comparison-between-standard-and-anti-shock-trekking-poles http://www.polewalkabout.com/Benefits Happy reading

For me its about balance as ive got older and my knees have got worse. My confidence in stepping down for instance without lancing pain to the knees means i take more care with every step. The pole becomes a balance adjuster i dont actually place much weight on it so much as spread my confidence over a greater area so to speak. Much like a blind person users a cane for direction i suppose. I do use it as a lever for climbing steep tracks but again not much wieght is put on it. Like a good canal jumper the pole gives direction and a point to pivot on without actually placeing a great deal of weight on it. In short the pole has become an extension of my body that is noticed in the bush seconds after i have walked away from it. Means im not 30 minutes down the track and having to go back for it.