Dr Michael Mosley admits he was completely wrong about exercise which burns more fat and counters heart disease

Doctor Michael Mosley has said he was ‘completely wrong’ about a form of exercise - and explained that it would help lose more weight, counters heart disease, help with back pain and works as a full body exercise. The health and wellbeing expert, speaking on his BBC podcast Just One Thing said that Nordic Walking - which uses poles - burns more calories, work more muscles and boosts quality of life.

Dr Mosley, who is famed for his 5:2 and Fast 800 eating plans said he had thought it was for ‘older walkers’ who weren’t strong enough to walk without them. However he explained: “It turns out I am completely wrong using poles like this actually boosts the intensity of walking, turning it from a walk into a full body workout. Not only does it up the intensity of the walk, but it can lead to greater fitness and weight loss than regular walking. Almost anyone can do it. In fact, a recent study showed that Nordic walking is surprisingly good for people with existing heart disease.”

Dr Mosley said the Nordic: “Could help you burn more fat without going any further or faster.” He cited a study where researchers randomly allocated 38 middle-aged people to about an hour’s brisk walking done three times a week for six months. Half of them were asked to do Nordic walking while the others did regular walking. Although both groups got fitter, it was only the group who are swinging the poles who saw significant reductions in body fat.

He said: ”Why? Well, it is probably because when you are striding out with poles flying, you are engaging almost twice as many muscles involving the muscles of your upper body can also help improve your posture, which is something I badly need to do. Nordic walking can also help with back pain.” In the case of back pain Dr Mosley said for a recent study, 80 volunteers with chronic low back pain were randomly allocated to Nordic walking for an hour, 2 to 3 times a week for four weeks or simply asked to continue with their normal life. At the end of four weeks, the Nordic Walking group reported significant reductions in pain along with improvements in fitness, strength and flexibility. They also reported an impressive 23% improvement in their mental health.

Doctor Jennifer Reed from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute explained a test which was carried out on patients with heart disease. She said patients were randomly assigned to one of those three groups and performed those particular exercises twice a week over the course of 12 weeks in a rehabilitation centre.

She said: “We found that Nordic walking led to greater improvements in functional capacity over the course of the 12-week programme, all of our groups led to improvements in functional capacity, but it was Nordic walking that actually led to a greater improvement.

“Functional capacity is describing activities of daily living activities that you would do during your normal routine day to day that require physical effort. How we measure functional capacity in this trial was by using a six-minute walk test where we asked our participants to walk around an indoor track as quickly as they could for six minutes. And that distance measured at the end of the six minutes represents our measure of functional capacity. “

She explained that the group doing Nordic walking came out on top, a result which ‘surprised’ her. She said: ” think it was effective for a number of reasons. One is that Nordic walking does lead to improvements in strength, upper body, lower body and core muscles. Also, there can be an increase in confidence, an improvement in posture that comes with regular use of the Nordic walking poles as well as gait speed of walking. All of those elements likely contributed an improvement in functional capacity following the Nordic walking group.”