Walking as a Way of Life

Week of December 3, 2022

This program explores walking for fitness, recreation, and transportation, how to incorporate walking into your life, and what it takes to create vibrant, interesting places to walk.

Walking as a Way of Life
There’s a lot more to walking than meets the eye.  Ever since we took our first steps, we’ve been putting one foot in front of the other – it’s just something we do to get around.  But, we usually take it for granted and don’t give it much thought. As a way to enjoy nature, get fit, or just get from one point to another, walking is a great way to explore the world and get healthier.  This talk will explore how walkable places are good for social connections, the environment, the economy, AND our personal health, what makes a place great for walking (and why some places aren’t), and examine our individual and collective roles in building and promoting walking and walkable places.

Designing Places for Walkability
What does it take to create safe, attractive and comfortable walking environments?  Learn some of the basic urban design principles that underlie the places where we most like to walk, the transportation planning practices that balance walking with other modes of transport, and how to advocate for better walking environments in your community.

Walking for Fun and Fitness
Walking is one of the easiest ways to stay fit and active, lead a healthy lifestyle, and avoid obesity. We’ll explore ways to incorporate walking into your daily routine, discuss basic techniques for fitness and recreational walking, how to rev up your walks to increase health benefits, techniques for meditative walking and how to identify safe and comfortable walking routes in your community.

Walk Your Way to Fitness
Learn some basic techniques for fitness walking to help you bring health and energy to your life!  This workshop will cover walking techniques, including stride, posture, shoes, and stretches for warm-up and cool down with on-the-track instruction and evaluation.

Fitness Walking Technique 2022
Tips for Successful Hiking 2022
Walking Footwear Handout 2022

 

Lynn Weigand, Ph.D., has “walked her talk”  for recreation, transportation and fitness for most of her life and brings a unique perspective to the topic with experience as both an urban design and transportation planner, and as a fitness coach. As an urban planner, she has managed transportation planning projects focusing on pedestrian and bicycle access and was the founding director of the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation at Portland State University.  She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Studies with a focus on designing healthy communities.  Lynn also is a Certified Personal Trainer and the owner of Portland, Oregon -based Encore Fitness, focusing on fitness walking and health coaching.