Why use walking poles

 

The most obvious use for walking poles is to help your balance and keep you steady when walking on uneven terrain. This is particularly useful when crossing streams or hiking on stony paths where there’s a chance you could slip or lose your footing. You can dig them into the ground and they’ll provide you with some leverage  – they won’t take your full weight, however, so don’t rely on them completely.

Simply holding poles in your hands and swinging your arms also improves your momentum. Without poles, it can be all too easy to just put your arms by your side or your hands in your pockets, but by swinging the poles, this will help propel you forwards, taking some of the strain away from your legs.

And it’s this strain on your lower body that is one of the most important reasons to use trekking poles. When you walk, you put pressure on your knees, and in particular the cartilage between the joints. If you’re doing a lot of ascent and descent walking, or if you carry a heavy rucksack, the effect is even worse.

By using poles when you walk, you take as much as 20% of the strain off your knees and onto your arms, which can make a huge difference both in the short and long term.

You can also buy anti shock walking poles that have built-in shock absorbers to lessen the impact even more, which is particularly useful if walking on hard terrain.

              For more details, you can visit our  website www.herisdo.com