#1933 Walking On Soft Sand - Harps

I was doing something before. I was doing a little bit of kind of figuring out of stuff, a bit of research on like really simple research, but it's really interesting. It's a very specific thing. So this is something of an atypical podcast. Some of you will find this really interesting. Some of you will not. If you're not really interested in the kind of fitness exercise is health wellbeing stuff,

this might not be for you. Might be, but it's really relevant for everybody, from people who are completely unfit through to people who are a little exercise bunnies and fitness kind of addicts. For one, a bedded word, so one of the things that I do regularly is because I live near the beach. I live about seven or eight hundred meters from the beach. I walk to the beach,

and then I walk in the soft sand. Sometimes I walk up above the beach where there's a dirt tracks, sometimes on the concrete path that runs exactly by the beach, and sometimes I more often than not, I walk at least a k or two in the soft sand. And it's always amazed me how different it is to walk in soft I mean soft sand, not firm sand, but soft sand, compared with walking on a hard surface, you know, round the street, round suburbia, foot path, sidewalk, whatever you

call it. And I had a fair idea of calorie expenditure, in other words, how much energy, how much more energy we would need to complete the same task at the same speed, In other words, a five kilometer walk for an hour walking at five kilometers per hour, meaning of course we walk five k's in one hour, which means, of course, how speed is five kph. Of course, now comparing that five kilometer per hour walk on a hard surface versus a soft surface, like where you don't have

the same footing, you don't have the same purchase. It's obviously much harder to walk one hundred steps in soft sand than one hundred steps on a hard surface. So what does that do? What does that do to the calorie burning? What does that do to the energy expenditure? What? Now, I erroneously thought, or I mistakenly thought, it probably increases it by about I don't know, thirty to fifty percent,

which is quite an increase. Guess what I did a little I did a little research looking for some actual academic kind of study or some journal articles. And so let me just preface this with so I used myself as the guinea pig. So me eighty one kilo me walking at So if you vague, if you're a bit lighter than me, you would take these calories down if we did same activity five k walk sixty minutes soft

sand versus hard surface. But eighty one kilogram me would burn about or expend more scientifically, about two hundred and eighty calories. Remembering that our calories energy measurement or measure of energy, I should say I would expend about two hundred and eighty calories in that five k walk. If I was traversing the urban landscape, walking around on a hard surface. Now, listen to this. Research indicates that walking on soft sand requires significantly more energy than walking on

hard surfaces. Well, we knew that, but we didn't know how much. A study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that walking on sand says just sand, but anyway, I'm going with soft sand demands approximately two point one to two point seven times more energy expenditure than walking at the same speed on a firm surface. So, in other words, more than double and depending on how hard you work, almost triple. Now that's crazy, that's crazy. So

have a listen to the numbers. So remember craig eighty one kilo, craig five k walk one hour, two hundred and eighty calories in my current shape and weight. Now, then we transfer that activity from the hard surface to the beach. Now I'm walking in soft sand. I'm doing the same Now, this is the fascinating thing, Right, I'm doing the exact same thing. I'm just doing it on a different surface. So I'm walking, I'm walking at the same speed, I'm in the same body, I'm the same weight,

and I'm doing it for the same duration. All the variables are the same except for the surface that I'm walking on. So if we look at so two hundred eighty calories times, let's go the upper limit, which is two point seven times more energy expended. So my calorie expenditure would go in that time from two hundred and eighty calories to seven hundred and fifty six. Now, even if we just doubled it, which is lower than what they're saying, because their bottom is their ranges two point

one to two point seven. Even if we just doubled it, well, it still is five hundred and sixty calories. If we go to the kind of the middle of their predicted range two point one to two point seven, we go to two point four. So let's go what they say the range is. Let's go in the middle of that range. That would land me up from two hundred and eighty calories up to six hundred and seventy two. Now, how

good is this? By the way, if you want to expend more energy, you want to burn a few more calories, you don't have lots of time. This is a good thing to know what it's handy, especially if you live near sand. If you don't, well, I'll give you another option at the end. But what about this? What if I decide that I want to burn more energy in half the time than my normal five k walk around suburbia. So now I do thirty minutes at the same speed

on soft sand. And if we're going off the top number two point seven, so we go, Craig's walking for two point five kilometers now, because it's only half the time, he's doing the same thing. He's walking his eighty one kilogram body. But now in thirty minutes he's burning three hundred and seventy eight calories in half the time that he is burning two hundred and eighty calories in an hour on a hard surface. So more than double the energy expenditure, even if we wind it back, double the

energy expenditure per unit of time. But even in that half hour, three hundred and seventy eight calories versus two hundred and eighty calories for that hour on a hard surface, it's not only does it match the calories at almost it's almost one hundred calories more. At the very least, we can burn twice the amount of calories per unit

of time walking on a soft surface like sand. All right, So here's my caveats though, here's my little Hey, think about this, Be careful of this, because you know they're there. I guess the downside, there aren't really too many downsides. But if there are any downsides, I guess it's it's not a stable surface obviously, So if somebody is really unstable, and somebody has real, real balance issues, this might not

be a good idea. Having said that, like my eighty five year old mum, she wouldn't be tearing the sand up. But I know that my eighty five year old mum could walk if we really just cruised, she could walk for a collonnter in the soft sand. We don't have to be walking at her normal foot pass speed, but she could do it. So it's really I mean, obviously it's an individual judgment call. And as I always say, if you're not sure about any of this, check with

a health professional, fitness professional, doctor, whoever it is. I'm just sharing some science and some thoughts and ideas with you, and I guess the great thing is not that we want anybody falling, but having a fall into soft sand is way better than having a fall on concrete. We don't want any fourth though, And think about now other than the chloric benefits, or the energy expenditure benefits, and

the time saving benefits. There's a raft of other things that walking in soft sand does for our body, including, but not limited to, so there's a lot more there's a lot more total muscle activation because we've got to work harder because essentially the ground under us moves, right, it's not like concrete that doesn't move. It moves, So

we've got to work harder. So there's more muscle activation in our carbs and hamstrings, the muscle at the back quads, muscles at the front of our thigh glues that's our bum and those little kind of foot muscles, the intrinsic foot muscles. Because we're walking on this unstable surface, we need greater engagement and greater activation and use of all of these muscles in the lower body. Benefit Number two

improved ankle and foot strength. Because the sand shifts under our feet, we are forced to use all those stabilizing muscles through our ankle through like you know, well, our whole leg, but specifically for this ankle down, using our stabilizer muscles much more than when we're out and about walking up and down the hard surface in a supermarket

or something like that. For example, there are core benefits, so your core being the muscles through your waist, and really you know you've got stabilizing muscles through your whole body, but your core works harder to stabilize your trunk with each step when you are on an unstable surface, so

you can improve core strength. Of course, there's great cardiovascular demand because your heart rate's got to climb because you are working, because you're still doing the same speed if you're based on this example i'm giving, but you're walking on a surface that's much harder to walk on. Yes, you're going to burn more energy per unit of time, but yes, your heart rate's going to need to increase. So as your heart rate increases walking the same speed.

So now instead of I'm just giving you an example, let's say you're walking around suburbia. And let's say I'm walking around Suburbia and my heart rate is one twenty as I'm walking around the street at five k's per per hour, which are not super fast for me, but it's okay. I would say my heart rate would be somewhere up around one sixty, maybe one fifty if I'm walking. I'm just guessing, but it would be significantly higher work walking on that unstable, soft, loose sand because of all

of the things I've mentioned before. So there's a real fitness benefit, there's a real cardiovascular benefit, improved micro adjustments for neuromuscular conditioning. So as as we step, as we move through this less predictable landscape than concrete, our neuromuscular system, all our nerves and nervous system in general, and all of the muscles that are operationalized by these nerves get

a greater workout. So there are constant micro adjustments which equal improved neuromuscular facilitation and coordination that happen in sand that don't happen to the same level on a on

a hard surface. So also think about because we're increasing or we're working all those stabilizer muscles, all those stabilizer muscles through our hips, knees, an calls, everything, we over time we will improve our balance and our coordination and our stability, thereby potentially reducing falls and injury risks over time. So you know, we're getting fitter, we're using more energy, but also we're making our body more stable because we're

on an unstable surface. That's the thing. It's like, you know how people do bench press on a ball? What's the difference. One of the differences between bench pressing on a ball and a hard bench or hard ish bench thing is because you're on a ball, which is convex. It is round, and it rolls and moves. It doesn't sit like a chair. It just moves all over the joint. Then you're lying. You've got part of your body on the ball, but most of your body not on the ball.

Now you are an unstable surface, analogous to walking in sand. You're on an unstable surface, which is called the ball. And now you're not just using your chest muscles when you're bench pressed, you're using all the stabilizer muscles in your body because you're lying on something that's fucking rolling around. In other words, working on something that's less stable or completely unstable in the regards of a ball, means you need to employ greater engagement of all your stabilizing muscles.

You do that for long enough, over time, you become safer in an unstable environment. I guess. Also another benefit is soft sand reduces ground reaction force, so, in other words, less jarring, less impact, less of that negative kind of force going through ligaments, tendons, joints, bones, skeleton. So walking on a softer surface less stress on knees, hips, and spine, and I guess can be can be ideal, maybe ideals overdoing it may be suitable for rehab and low impact training.

And you know, I mean, there are so many, there are so many benefits. I've got a few more, but I won't, you know, I'll do one more. My last one is my last two. Let's do that. So my second last one is it improves muscular endurance because walking on a soft surface like sand fatigue's muscles quicker, which means you are now you're now tapping into, you know, an energy system and a level of conditioning that you

don't when you're walking on the hard surface. So now you've got to work harder, in other words, and walk harder. So you're going to build not only fitness and strength and muscular endurance, but you're making your body, you know, more functional and operational. And the last one I just mentioned in there, which is lower body strength. So walking in soft sand builds functional lower body strength because you're

working harder. You're now working the amount of resistance that you're working against when you're walking around suburbia is significantly less than the resistance that you're working against when you're on the soft sand. Now I'll get out of your hair. But think about how we could correlate this idea, like where we go, Well, there's walking, and there's walking, and

you go, is walking good or bad? Well in terms of for fitness or strength, or aerobic endurance or muscular endurance, or balance or coordination or neural conditioning or well, it's not so much as walking good or bad. It's like, let's talk about the different kinds of walking. You know. We can talk about anything in this kind of light, and it's like, well, maybe it's all about the thing, or maybe it's about how we do the thing, you know, And that could be anything from walking walking on a

hard surface to sand to having a conversation. Some conversations are easy, some are hard. Maybe we have the easy ones and avoid that. It's not about having a conversation. It's about the context, it's about the topic. It's about how important it is that we have that conversation with that person. So think about things that you commonly do which you could tweak or adjust, will modify there's one variable that you can change in the doing of that thing.

Like for example, I'll give you a quick example, and this is another gym when I apologize. But there's a dude I was talking to recently. I see him in the gym, and he always he always does the same thing. For chest, he always bench presses, he always uses the bench, and he always uses the bar bell. I reckon. I've seen him for five years and he does that. He does that for chest and not much else. And we were talking and he was telling me that he's really stunted,

as in, he's not improving, he's not getting stronger. And I said, well, why don't you do the exact same movement bench press on a bench, but do it with dumbbells. So all we're doing right there is changing one variable. We're going. Well, now instead of two hands on a bar, we've got two hands on two bars, two small bars. And now we're doing a movement in a way that we call unilateral. So we're lifting instead of doing say one hundred kilos with two hands two arms, now we

may be doing fifty kilos each hand. That's a totally different beast. That's a totally different beast. So think about the things that you're currently doing that you can tweak or adapt or adjust or do a slightly different way for a much, much greater benefit. See you next time.