Walk

Walking, Tacuinum sanitatis Casanatense (XIV ^century)

Walking is a mode of locomotion natural. It involves moving in support of alternative on legs , standing still and having at least a foothold in contact with the ground, otherwise it is running.

In the human being , walking is a major transport modes and is known as fatigue, with the bicycle , the scooter or roller , as opposed to motorized transportation. It can also be practiced as a sport or leisure.

The history of walking

Origins

Walking, separate from the crawling is the method of moving bipeds. It was used more or less adroit at the onset of early hominids , there are about 2 million years. This mode of travel allowed members before release, allowing the gradual manipulation of tools, simultaneously walking. Therefore, walking is no longer a mere means of travel, it becomes the means by which man projects his action. It thus supports the evolution of mankind by creating the conditions for the development of his intellectual faculties.

However, man is not the first animal to have invented walking. The first animal to be able to move while being upright on its hind legs was probably the Euparkeria. Most birds have retained this ability that is found more rarely in mammals and reptiles.

From the Palaeolithic to the Industrial Age

Walking has long been the only means of travel between man and the race. Even after the invention of the wheel , the Roman legions are walking, and walking is still widely used for the movement to use the Middle Ages when owning a horse is an attribute of wealth. So until about 1850, man can not accelerate its average speed, which is approximately 1 meter per second. The increased maximum is about 200 km per day through the use of infrastructure and animal forces or wind performance. For example, at the height of the Inca empire , the messages could be transmitted in a few days throughout the country through the network of roads and relay along the Cordilleras.

The difficulty of travel leads to two main modes of life:

The nomadic

Humanity has lived in the nomad state throughout the Paleolithic , the Mesolithic period during which it gradually became semi-nomadic to begin to settle during the Neolithic. This lifestyle involves an acute awareness of the territories covered, often with a logic circuit whose latitude ranges from 80 to 2000 km. This lifestyle designed to take maximum advantage of the wealth of local resources both for the practice of gathering and hunting or practice of pastoralism. It is estimated that in 1500 approximately 60% of the world's population practiced nomadism.

The inactivity

Appeared during the Neolithic sedentary lifestyle involves travel back and forth from a fixed point. This lifestyle then generally imposes a living space with a radius of 7 km, until the early ^nineteenth century for much of the population, whose only mode of transportation as walking, life was entirely in this space. Product exchanges are made step by step, 90% of products were produced in a radius of 7km. This proximity is also the basis of the first political divisions in France. In the late eighteenth ^century, the French division of the territory in common is based on the distance walked in one day.

The invention of the automobile

It was not until the popularization of the automobile in the twentieth ^century to change the relationship of man with walking. This invention is then rise to the fantasy of the abolition of constraint of space and time, which is found in the constant search for speed. Functionally, the march was so competitive with a car available to everyone, but also cycling and public transport. However, there still remains many fans walking from the promenade, stroll, and lovers of nature, mushroom pickers, hikers and other golfers.

Military History

Since time immemorial, soldiers have moved into homogeneous groups, among other scroll , and walking is the mode of travel for excellent foot soldiers. These displacements obey strict rules (foot drill, MAP), whose main elements are:

• Style not (not slipped in Britain, goose-stepping of the German Army during the Third Reich, etc.).
• the rhythm that can be dictated by a sergeant-instructor ("left-left ...") or music (singing led by the soldiers themselves or accompanying music - see military march (music) )
• maintaining spacing in the corners (on-site trampling of soldiers inside the turn to the range to those outside remains straight and sweeping the industry as a radius)
• etc..

Walking as a mode of locomotion

It is contrasted by the modes of locomotion such as crawling , the swimming and running.

Psychomotor

Standing and the fact that the displacement of body mass whereas it is only supported by one member implies the operation of the sense of balance. The walk is defined by the fact that there is always at least one ground support, as opposed to running , which it can not be resting on the ground at any given time.

The entire musculoskeletal system is put to work (without excess) when walking, making it a sport enjoyed keeping in shape and often recommended (see below ).

Acquisition by the child

After a period during which the child explores his world by crawling, it will gradually straighten his legs, then try walking. This step usually takes place between 12 ^th and 20 ^th month.

Comparison with other modes of locomotion

Walking is the mode of locomotion not seen the most energy ^{Description of mechanism}

Walking is generated by tilting the body forward while standing, which causes a movement of a fall, caught by the projection of one leg forward. More detail, walking based on a double rocker mechanism composed of legs and arms. The basin is in fact naturally subject to rotation when a leg is thrown forward because this movement is supported on the opposite leg. This is to counteract this rotation as the arms make a reverse movement to the legs. Thus, the pool retains the same axis, allowing to walk right. Then, to catch the falling movement as long as walking, rear leg in turn is projected forward using its potential energy , which saves the effort, while the arms do the reverse movement, also using their potential energy. The march was stopped by an upturn in the body.

gait cycle

• Definition

the activity which takes place over time or a lower limb is found at the same position during walking. As the pitch is the distance between both feet simultaneously on the ground, the gait cycle corresponds to two steps. When analyzing the mechanism of walking, we decompose the gait cycle into different phases:

• Stance phase with its sub-phases:

1. Taligrade phase.

It takes place between 0 and 15% of the gait cycle. It corresponds to the transition from heel support on the ground on foot to the floor.

1. Phase Plantigrade
2. Digitigrade phase.

• The swing phase with its sub-phases:

1. Phase shortening
2. Phase of elongation.

Walking as a mode of travel

She may object to different categories of modes of travel:

• it is not mechanized and non-motorized;
• it is individual.

Modal share by country

In any movement of an individual fit, walking is the first and last stop of the trip: to go up a vehicle and return if travel includes.

We consider that the average in industrialized countries, the average distance of a walk through a move with a goal is a few hundred meters (rarely over 500). In addition, other modes of transportation become more interesting and take it ( bike , public transport , car ...).

Trips made entirely on foot therefore vary greatly depending on the length of the average person travel in their city and the availability of alternative modes of transport, motorized or not.

Walking as part of a multimodal trip (eg, walk + public transport) depends strongly on the organization and availability of transport, since the latter do not travel door to door.

Individual and collective benefits

According to epidemiological studies of the WHO , physical activity is a minimum of thirty minutes of brisk walking per day to maintain a "good health". However, 20-50% of people in physical activity below this level followed 3127 healthy adults (2151 women and 976 men), aged 19 to 94 years. The study showed that the number of steps per day recommended for those who want to control their weight is 12000 for women aged 18 to 40 years, 11,000 women between 40 and 50, 10000 50 to 60 years and 8000 from 60. Men 18 to 50 should be 12,000 steps per day, and 11,000 not 50 years from 8 to 10 miles a day to maintain an ideal weight.

Risks

The risk of injury is relatively small: in urban areas, its frequency is comparable to the bike and slightly higher than that of the car.

Exposure to pollutants in the air is slightly larger than in vehicles, which increases the risk of lung disease associated.

Walking as a leisure

Walking as a sport has existed for a long time: it was already part of the Chinese philosophy of Lao-tzu (ca. -500): The word Tao means, it is also the path taken by Walker . Walking is one of the practices grouped under the term wei-wu-wei, do-not-acting.

Race walking

Walker competed

Under Article 230 of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)

"Race walking is a progression of steps so that the walker makes contact with the ground occurs without any visible loss of contact (to the human eye). The front leg must be straightened (ie, that the knee should not be bent) from the time of first contact with the ground until it is vertical. There are several distances (20 and 50km for men, 20 km for women. "

This sport is to walk as quickly as possible and as far as possible, the only constraint being to always have a ground support. Studies conducted by the athletes and their coaches have produced a form of walking visually quite different from the usual practice of walking everyday, optimizing the length of the pitch and dynamics.

It is an Olympic sport. The Olympic distances are 50 km walk for men (the record is held by Denis Nizhegorodov , 3h34'14 "11 May 2008 in Cheboksary ) and 20 km walk for women and men. One of the great champions of the discipline is Vladimir Golubnichy (winner in 1960 and 1968, second in 1972 and third in 1964). There is however much longer races like Paris-Colmar stretches, each year, over a distance of nearly four hundred and fifty kilometers.

Hiking

Hiking in Trentino-Alto Adige near Merano.

Hiking is an outdoor activity that involves a practice of walking which is to follow a route, marked or not. The walk is both a hobby and a form of discovery of physical exercise.

This is the ^nineteenth century as hiking in the sense we know it appears. It differs from walking, practiced since ancient times as a means of locomotion, for its entertainment value. One of the fathers of the hike is Horace-Benedict de Saussure. He did not just defeat the Mont Blanc but also traveled many mountains: Jura , the Vosges , the Drill, Vivarais. The German Karl Baedeker ( 1 801 - 1 859 ) publishes guides in which he describes his walks. In France in 1837 , is published the first guide to hiking in the forest of Fontainebleau : Four walks in the forest of Fontainebleau. In 1842 , Claude Francois Denecourt ( 1788 - 1875 ) traces its first trail in the same forest. The "trail Denecourt" still exist. In 1872 , appears in Alsace The Vosges Club , which will blaze trails in the Vosges mountains.

References

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