Quickstep Overview

Overview: A detailed explanation of the various components of Wisercise and how they work together to provide a life-long urban health fitness training system.

Mindfulness: Harness the Power of The Mind-Body Connection with the practice of Mindfulness. Free yourself from mechanical, conditioned ways of thinking and living which may be harmful to yourself or others.

Breathing: Ageing and the pressures of modern daily life will cause you to change the way you breathe. This article introduces a technique of deep breathing called the Complete Breath and highlights its role in maintaining good health and quality of life.

Posture: Many of the muscles used for breathing are also used for postural alignment. Good posture will improve your breathing and balance in addition to preventing falls and injuries. Learn how to fine-tune your posture for best results.

Stretching: Stretching is an extremely versatile and accomodating form of movement used by physiotherapists, athletes, ballet dancers, pugilists and the military. It is not only a bookend to vigorous exercise but a beneficial exercise in itself!

Aerobic Exercise: Add Years to Life & Life to Years with a traditional, easy-to-do exercise form that positively affects the years of life after age 40, lengthening life while postponing and compacting end-of-life disability.

Inside Aerobics: Find out what happens to you when you exercise aerobically and the benefits to your heart, brain and vital organs.

Best Aerobic Exercise: Researchers have found Walking to be the best aerobic exercise for daily health and wellness maintenance due to its accessibility, lowest injury rate of any exercise form and ability to reduce risk of premature death, dementia and other diseases.

Quickstep Overview: An overview of the Quickstep aerobic briskwalking technique. What is it? How can it benefit you?

Inside Quickstep: An inside look at Quickstep. Find out about Walking Mechanics, Tensegrity, Core Muscles and Balance and how to make these work together to make Quickstep go.

What is Quickstep?

Quickstep is a user friendly and versatile aerobic brisk walking technique.

The Quickstep technique may be used for exercise or in everyday physical activities which require you to walk from one place to another.

With the Quickstep technique every walk may be turned into a health and fitness promoting exercise.

Quickstep involves "internal controls" which are not visible to the naked eye. There is no hip wiggling, wild arm swinging nor heavy breathing involved.

No one will know that you're exercising — except, perhaps, for other Quicksteppers who will recognise how smoothly, gracefully and efficiently you move.

Best of all, Quickstep will work for you whether you're dressed in office attire or sports wear and everything in between.

How is Quickstep different from "normal" walking?

People usually walk at speeds of between 3 kph (1.8 mph) to 3.5 kph (2.1 mph).1

Quickstep is a type of power walking which enables you to generate walking speeds in the moderate to upper end of the natural range for walking gait, typically 5 kph (3 mph) to 8 kph (4.8 mph).

This style of walking has been recommended by the American Heart Association as an alternative to jogging.

At it's upper range, power walking is as efficient and effective as jogging but a great deal safer over the long term.

The walking gait causes significantly less impact to the joints so power walkers have a much lower (1% to 5%) risk of exercise-related injuries than runners (20% to 70%).2

Power walking produces a training effect that is beneficial to health and fitness.3

What benefits does Quickstep offer?

Studies show that walking has the ability to:

reduce the risk of hypertension cholesterol and diabetes mellitus

increase the size of the hippocampus

improve cognitive function and neural efficiency

reduce the risk of cardiovascular events by 31%

cut the risk of dying by 32%

Protection is evident even at distances of just 8 kilometers (5.5 miles) per week and at a pace as casual as about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) per hour.4.5.6.7.8.9

The Quickstep power walking technique will empower you to safely and consistently generate faster than normal walking speeds over longer distances. This will give you access to more health benefits and even greater protection against disease.

People who walked longer distances, walked at a faster pace or both, enjoyed the greatest protection.

Analysis of walking speed shows that a person's pace can predict their life expectancy just as well as the complex battery of other health indicators.10.11

According to Dr. Stephanie Studenski, one of the foremost authorities and researchers of mobility, balance disorders and falls in older adults, the efficient and synchronized functioning of multiple body systems, including the cardiovascular system, nervous system and musculoskeletal system are necessary to support a faster than usual walking pace.

As such, researchers associate the way we walk and how quickly we walk with fitness and health.

"Walking—or gait—speed is a powerful indicator of vitality."

"We're able to show that a person's capacity to move strongly reflects vitality and health."

“We are saying your body selects a walking speed that is best for you based on the health of all your body systems.

Your speed is your health indicator."

Stephanie A. Studenski,
MD, MPH.
Chief of Longitudinal Studies Section,
Translational Gerontology Branch,
National Institute on Ageing.

Since walking is so great for the body and the vast majority of people are capable of walking unassisted, people should be in superb physical condition for their entire lifespan.

Research has shown this is not the case.

We assume that the way we walk is naturally correct. This is how we've done it all along so it must be the right way.

It may come as a surprise, therefore, to learn that most people walk in a way that does them more harm than good.