Incline Walking for People in a Flat Country

Today I followed a link where a writer wrote "My every-other-day workout is walking three miles, fast, on a high incline on the treadmill—often times with hand weights too." and I find it amusing. It’s amusing because in Switzerland, and especially in the old town of Geneva, Nyon, Lausanne, Neuchatel, Fribourg and other towns it is impossible to go for a walk without having a steep climb or a steep descent.

If I walk my pandemic loops I have several steep climbs, to get into my village, but also to get into or out of other villages. It’s normal for all walks to involve an incline and a decline. That’s why running around here can be quite physical.

If I run from home to Nyon I can run downhill almost the entire way but if I want to run a loop then I have to run or walk uphill at some point, especially if I go down to the loop. In this landscape you don’t need an inclined treadmill to climb. The landscape is already inclined.

Whilst they write that inclines are kinder on joints declines are not. If you’re hiking downhill you’re braking with every step, and knees take a lot of strain.

I’d also add that sometimes indoor training can do damage. I suspect that it’s when I increased resistance on one or two types of machines that my knee joints worked too hard and became weakened. I suspect that it’s because of indoor workout machines that I damaged my knees. I would be wary of allowing the resistance to be too high.

And Finally. in some countries, and some regions, you can’t avoid climbing and descending, so the notion of runs and walks being flat is moot. In London people can go 20km with twenty metres of climbing. In Switzerland you would climb at least 200m, if not more on some daily walks.