Nordic Walking: Dart Off the Back Pain

Nordic Walking has become a trend sport. Katharina Terhaest explains at the MEDICA-Physiotherapy-Forum to her audience its effectiveness against back pain. 20/11/2009

Katharina Terhaest explains the
effectiveness of Nordic Walking;
© Trade Fair Dusseldorf

"Does anyone here have back pain right now?" With this question, the physio therapist opened her presentation. Indeed several listeners raise their hands and thus, signal that they are feeling back pain in that moment. They are not alone: About 84 percent of the European population suffer temporarily from back pain, explains the physiotherapist.

Her Bachelor thesis focused on the question whether Nordic Walking has an actual impact on reducing back pain. The therapist examined 15 persons. "All test persons suffered from chronic, unspecific back pain" explains the physiotherapist Katharina Terhaest. Six persons exercised Nordic Walking for several weeks, the rest of the group acted as control group.

For adequate comparison all participants were questioned before and after the testing period, whether they suffered from back pain and how the pain restricted their daily life. The final testing showed that the test group training with Nordic Walking had evidently less back pain than the control group. The explanation is simple: With Nordic Walking the body is upright, back muscle and abdominal muscle are strengthened and stress is reduced.

With her study Katharina Terhaest won the second price of the science award from the Federal Association of Self-employed Physiotherapists - IFK. "We are very interested in finding out more about the effectivity of Nordic Walking," says Katharina Scheel from IFK. She welcomes further studies concerning this sport. Maybe, then, health insurances will cover the costs for Nordic Walking therapy.

Simone Heimann
MEDICA.de