Monsters Within

The love-hate relationship with exercise is great. There are those people who love, do not live without the habit of routine, the kind that, if they go a day without doing their physical activity, for them it will be a lost day. But there are also those who hate and can’t even think about torture, which is doing something.

Even though everyone knows that exercising is good for health, the rejection of them remains strong. Even before the pandemic, hiking and hiking was on the decline among adults and children alike. However, during the pandemic the popularity of this exercise increased and many people started walking and hiking.

Exercise

What a lot of people don’t know is that hiking is a great way to not only get out in nature, it also has many benefits for your physical and mental health.

Hiking is different, in many ways, than taking a normal walk around the neighborhood. Not only is the terrain on the trails uneven or rocky, but there is usually some change in elevation, such as going up or down hills.

Also, for hiking, people tend to wear different shoes. For example, boots, which can be heavier than the shoes they are used to.

And these differences, in terrain and footwear, mean that the trail will use more energy than walking on flat terrain. This is also due to the fact that people on the trail need to use their muscles more to stabilize themselves on the rough paths.

Benefits

To give you an idea, while a brisk walk at about five kilometers an hour consumes four times more energy than sitting and resting, a trail consumes more than five times.

With this difference, a person can achieve the recommended 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, without having to run or go to the gym.

The health benefits of physical exercise are already known. And hiking has benefits even for those people who have pre-existing health problems.

According to one study, hiking leads to weight loss and improves cardiovascular health in pre-diabetic adults. This probably lowers your risk of getting type 2 diabetes.

Health

The benefits do not stop there. Hiking can also improve muscle strength, balance and flexibility in older people with obesity. Even those with balance problems or joint problems can go hiking, for example using trekking poles to lighten the load on their legs.

Another benefit of the trail is that it is classified as an “ecological exercise”. Classification that refers to the health that practice in nature brings to people.

Studies show that ecological exercise not only lowers blood pressure, it also has benefits for mental well-being, improves mood and decreases depression to a greater extent than exercising indoors.

Because of this, studies suggest that health professionals should recommend trails to patients as a cost-effective way for them to improve their health.

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