Insurance for walkers

Bookleen

I am looking for some advice here. I am involved with a new nordic walking group. It's still very early days. Just wondering what is the situation regarding the necessity for insurance for members of the group, or indeed for the leaders? We are only walking in Phoenix park.
Any advice would be welcome.

irishlostboy

i guess it depends what you mean by a group. if its just a private peer group of friends and the like, i doubt you need it. but this is not legal advice. just an oppinion.

Bookleen

Thanks for your reply. We hope to attract a group of approx 30 -50 members. That way we would expect approx 15 or so people to turn up on any given weekend for the walk. At present we appear to be attracting people who enjoy the outdoors and who have been relatively active in the past but for one reason or another have slowed down. This is great, and I am pleased to have something to offer those who have been injured or are middle-aged. This is a not-for -profit leisure activity and currently we do not have a membership fee nor do we charge for attending the walks. We would like to keep costs down, but still wonder about the need for insurance cover.
Since this is such a new "Sport" here, I feel I am floundering a little in the dark.
All comments, advice and warnings are welcomed!

Evil Phil

I guess you could join the MCI as a club - they would give you public liability insurance. That's what my club did.

http://www.mountaineering.ie/

BeardyGit

I'll second the MCI route. Quick and easy to arrange....

Bookleen

Thanks very much for that advice. I have already contacted them and they are just what I was looking for. Nordic Walking fits nicely under their umbrella.
I appreciate being pointed in the right direction. Thanks again.:D

BostonB

Never heard of nordic walking before. Its mainly for fitness is it?

Bookleen

BostonB wrote: »

Never heard of nordic walking before. Its mainly for fitness is it?

Nordic Walking also known as ski walking, pole walking or fitness walking is a form of exercise consisting of walking with poles similar to ski poles.
Nordic walking can be done year round in any climate and anywhere a person of any age or ability might otherwise walk without poles. It combines simplicity and accessibility of walking with simultaneous core and upper body conditioning similar to Nordic skiing. The result is a full-body walking workout that can burn significantly more calories without a change in perceived exertion or having to walk faster, due to the incorporation of many large core, and other upper-body muscles which comprise more than 90% of the body's total muscle mass and do work against resistence with each stride. "Normal Walking" utilises only 70% of muscle mass with full impact on the joints of the legs and feet. Nordic walking produces up to a 46% increase in energy consumption compared to walking without poles.

Compared to regular walking , Nordic walking involves applying force to the poles with each stride. Nordic walkers use more of their entire body (with greater intensity) and receive fitness building stimulation for the chest, lats, triceps, biceps,shoulder,abdominals, spinal and other core muscles. This extra muscle involvement leads to enhancements over ordinary walking at equal paces such as :

• increased overall strength and endurance in the core muscles and the entire upper body
• significant increases in heart rate at a given pace
• greater ease in climbing hills
• burning more calories than in plain walking
• improved balance and stability with use of the poles
• significant un-weighting of hip, knee and ankle joints.

Bookleen

I copied and pasted the last post. What did I do wrong?

Evil Phil

I guess vBulletin doesn't like the tags you used, I've cleaned it up for you.

fergalr

Nordic Walking also known as ski walking, pole walking or fitness walking is a form of exercise consisting of walking with poles similar to ski poles.

I've done a fair few kilometers walking with poles, although not sure i'd precisely call it nordic walking... was thinking about going along to a class sometime to see if there's any technique I'm missing.

The result is a full-body walking workout that can burn significantly more calories without a change in perceived exertion or having to walk faster, due to the incorporation of many large core, and other upper-body muscles which comprise more than 90% of the body's total muscle mass and do work against resistence with each stride. "Normal Walking" utilises only 70% of muscle mass with full impact on the joints of the legs and feet. Nordic walking produces up to a 46% increase in energy consumption compared to walking without poles.

This is quite surprising - you say 'up to a 46% increase in energy consumption' but I don't understand that.
In order to compare like with like, I assume you are talking about covering the same distance over time, ie, that you do the same amount of effective work - otherwise the comparison doesn't make sense, but then I don't see how you say it uses up to 46% more energy like that is a good thing.

Based on what little experience I have of using poles in the hills, I would also have to dispute this - surely there's no way anyone would use walking poles outside a fitness class if it used anywhere near 46% more energy, in any meaningful sense?
Your either not comparing like with like, or that figure must be atypical, or wrong - or I've somehow misunderstood?

Compared to regular walking , Nordic walking involves applying force to the poles with each stride. Nordic walkers use more of their entire body (with greater intensity) and receive fitness building stimulation for the chest, lats, triceps, biceps,shoulder,abdominals, spinal and other core muscles. This extra muscle involvement leads to enhancements over ordinary walking at equal paces such as :
* increased overall strength and endurance in the core muscles and the entire upper body
* significant increases in heart rate at a given pace

Again, I don't understand this, for the same reason as before.
At a given pace, (eg 6kmph) walking with poles increases the heart rate significantly versus when you walk without them?
This would again mean it's a less efficient way of moving the body around, as you have a higher heart rate for the same pace?

That genuinely doesn't tally with my experience of walking with poles. (Also, you see a lot of people use poles in long adventure races, more likely because it lowers their heart rate, or prevents muscular fatigue - genuinely don't think they would if it increased their HR significantly).
I'm sure it's possible to walk with poles in quite an inefficient way in order to raise the heart rate, but I'm not sure why you would want to learn to do this, if that is what's being talked about?

Do you mean that there's an increase of heart rate for the same perceived exertion? That'd make more sense to me, or at increase in pace at the same perceived exertion.

* greater ease in climbing hills
* burning more calories than in plain walking
* improved balance and stability with use of the poles
* significant un-weighting of hip, knee and ankle joints.

Not knocking walking with poles here, think the reduced muscular fatigue and less weight of lower poles joints is great, just wondering about some bits of the rationale given here.

Cheers,
Fergal

fergalr

Actually, never mind, I see that was from wikipedia, guess if I want to discuss it I should go there

Bookleen

Evil Phil wrote: »

I guess vBulletin doesn't like the tags you used, I've cleaned it up for you.

Thank You evil Phil. You are not evil at all!

Bookleen

Hi Fergair, Thanks for your reply but as you so rightly noted I had just copied and pasted it (and not so well even at that!) so I do not feel an expert in analysing it.
However, I love nordic walking and hope to develop the skill over time. Right now I am arranging regular workshops with a physiotherapist who has trained as a Nordic Walking Instructor. Our next workshop is scheduled for Saturday morning in Phoenix Park, Dublin. This lasts for approx 2 hours and 30 minutes and covers the technique of nordic walking as well as stretching exercises to do with the poles. She will also answer all questions.
You must book in advance and the cost of the workshop is €40. There are still some places available. Anyone interested can come back to me on this site for further details.

Bookleen

Sorry Fergair, I wish to correct the details in the last post. The next workshop is Saturday at 10.00am on 6th December in Phoenix Park.

Stark

I will b-b-b-b-b-be there.