Hi, my name is Tom Rutland and I've been enjoying the benefits of exerstriding since 1985.
I'm here to help you get off to a quick start so you can start enjoying the benefits of
this new total body exercise.
We've come to a park to introduce you to exerstriding, but one of the great things about exerstriding
is you can pick up your exerstriders, walk out your own front door and exerstride in
your neighborhood on city streets and sidewalks.
The first thing you need to know about exerstriding is that it's nearly as simple to do as walking.
The only thing that's very different about exerstriding is the range of motion of the
arms.
When you walk, your arms swing in front of the body and behind the body.
They move in opposition to the legs.
When the left leg is forward, the right arm is forward.
This is as natural as can be.
You don't have to think about it when you walk and you shouldn't think about it when
you exerstride.
Your body will do what it's been doing for years and the arms and legs will move in opposition
or what's called a cross pattern.
What's different about the arm swing?
Instead of swinging in front of the body and behind the body, in exerstriding you extend
the arm further forward into what I like to call the handshake position, extended with
a slight bend in the elbow.
And since you need to keep the arms and the legs in cadence, you can't swing as far back.
So you get a pendulum-like motion that moves from the handshake position down near where
the leg that's coming forward meets that arm.
The exerstriders have a right-handed and left-handed grip.
The little fulcrum on the bottom of the patented grip gives you a platform to apply the force
that gives exerstriding its benefits.
In order to use the poles, put your hand down through the top of the strap, grip, grasp
the pole and pull on the tab, on the loose end of the strap.
Tighten it until it's comfortably tight.
To get out of the strap, all you need to do is push on the little tab on the end of the
buckle and it opens easily.
Before we pick up the other exerstrider pole, let me show you how exerstriding works.
Pick up your pole and hold it out in the handshake position in front of your body.
Now put your other hand on your abdominal muscle and press the exerstrider pole down
into the ground.
You'll feel the abdominal muscle tighten.
If you reach around here, you'll feel the latissimus dorsi, the large muscle on the
side of the back, tighten.
The tricep, the muscle on the back of the arm and the pectoral.
Now lots of other minor muscles around the trunk and in the arm are working with each
stride too.
But each stride, the way that you get the benefits from exerstriding is to apply this
force with each stride.
And you'll get these contractions with each stride.
In a mile you'll do about 2,000 of the abdominal contractions and about 1,000 each of the lateral
contractions.
Now these are not done against a great deal of resistance, but if you do a high repetition
contraction of the muscle against a fairly low resistance, what you're going to do is
you're going to build lean muscle mass that has tremendous endurance, you're going to
burn more calories and you're going to develop the strength of those muscles gradually.
You're not going to develop a body that looks like a body builder, but that's not a goal
that you should have if you're looking for a real fitness.
What you need are lean, supple, strong endurance muscles.
Begin with your arms hanging loosely at your side and just begin to walk until your arms
and legs are swinging naturally.
Once they are, begin to extend the arms further forward, applying force as the pulls land
and you're exostriding.
Once again, start with the hands at the side and just begin to walk until you're walking
normally.
Then extend the arms in front of the body, apply the force as the pull lands and you're
exostriding.
If you have trouble learning with the technique where you begin walking and make the transition
into exostriding, here's an alternative technique you can try.
Some people like to call it the kick start technique.
Start out by extending one leg in front of the body, whichever leg is comfortable for
you and the opposite arm.
Now if you put all your weight on the back leg and push off, you'll start off with your
arms and legs swinging in opposition to one another and you're off to a start immediately.
Another technique that can be particularly helpful for some people is what I call the
Susan March technique.
Now because the feet and the pulls land at the same moment, it sometimes helps to get
a Susan March going in your head or audibly and land the feet and the pulls at the same
time.
It sounds a little silly, but it helps a lot of people bring the arms and the legs together.
So just start out with your best Susan March and see how it works.
It's good for laughs, but it works.
So give it a try if all else fails.
When you first begin to exostride, you may find it difficult to land the pull lightly
and apply the force.
There may be some bouncing of the tip or some sliding as you apply the force.
This will improve as you practice.
Your timing will improve, which will mean that the tip won't tend to bounce and as you
apply a strong push to the pull as it lands, you won't get any slipping.
So just work on it for a few minutes and you'll begin to feel more and more comfortable and
confident.
At this point, I'm going to give you a little tip on how to get better control of the landing
on your exostriders.
As you finish the push, contract the muscles in the hand slightly.
When you do so, the tip will raise off the surface and as you extend your arm forward,
you relax the grip and bring the pull to a light landing.
This will take some time to develop the fine coordination to make this landing very light.
But what you want to do is work on landing the pull as lightly as possible and then at
the moment of contact, applying as much force as possible.
Now you're going to go out and exostride and some days you're going to feel a lot of energy
and like you want to put a lot into it.
Do as much as you can each time you go out.
The more work that you put into the upper body, the more benefits you're going to get
from exostriding.
The cardiovascular effects of exercise are directly proportional to the amount of large
muscle mass that you use and the intensity with which you use that muscle mass.
Whenever I teach people to exostride, I hear several questions.
How fast should I walk?
Walk at a comfortable pace.
You don't have to walk fast to get the benefits of exostriding.
The intensity of the work that you do with the upper body is the key to exostriding's
tremendous benefits.
Another question people ask is how far should I exostride?
Begin to exostride the same distance you were walking before you picked up your exostriders.
It shouldn't be difficult to do the same distance.
Start out with a moderate intensity of upper body work and develop the techniques and increase
your intensity.
Once you begin to work with good intensity with the upper body muscles, you'll be burning
30 to 60% more calories in the same amount of time.
So you'll get more results or if you wish you can shorten your workouts and get the same
results.
Remember that exostriding at a moderate pace for a long duration will give you the most
results if weight loss is your goal.
Exostriding at a higher intensity for shorter periods of time tends to burn readily available
carbohydrates.
Exostriding at a moderate pace for a longer duration tends to draw on energy that's stored
in fat cells.
So you'll lose weight faster if you exostride for a longer period of time at a comfortable
slow pace.
The other question that people ask is should my arms swing parallel to one another?
Does it matter if they tend to move in toward the center of my body?
Do whatever comes natural.
We're all built slightly different and do whatever is natural for you.
That's the key with exostriding to do a natural relaxed stride.
Make the motion as fluid as possible, make the landing as light as possible, and apply
as much force as you can to get the maximum benefits from the exercise.
Another question is where can I exostride?
You can exostride anywhere you normally walk.
The great thing about exostriding is you can walk out your front door and exostride on
city sidewalks and streets in your neighborhood or you can go to parks and nature trails.
Exostriders also are great for mall walking and can be used when hiking.
They're particularly an advantage when hiking with a backpack as they help to support some
of the weight and give you added power as you send hills.
How can I get a maximum training effect from exostriding?
One way is to exostride up and down hills.
Simply walking up hills on a 10% grade can double your calorie consumption.
By using exostriders on hills, you can increase that calorie consumption by another 50% and
get results in less time.
That should be the basic information you'll need to get started.
Remember you can rewind the video and watch certain sections over and over again if you
need to take a closer look.
I also want to remind you that in addition to this video, you've got a printed instruction
manual.
Please take the time to read it.
It's got a lot of good information contained in it that we haven't had time to cover here
today.
Pay particular attention to the middle of the book.
You'll find refining your technique points to remember.
Review this section from time to time and make sure that you work on developing the
best possible technique.
This will mean that you'll get the most from exostriding.
Maximize the benefits.
Following the points to remember section, you'll find some variations on the techniques
that can help you develop an even higher level of cardiovascular fitness or just add variety
to your workouts.
We'll give you a quick look at some of those now.
Most of these alternative techniques are ways that you can get even more out of exostriding.
I believe that you can develop a good baseline level of fitness just by exostriding the way
you've been taught so far.
If you want to add intensity and get even more from it, here are a couple techniques
you can use.
One is called low walking or groucho walking in the book.
The only difference is you allow a good flexation of the knees and in doing so, you put more
workload on the quadriceps, a very large muscle in the legs.
This is automatically going to increase the intensity of the walking.
Now it looks funny to many, but if you really want to get a good workout for the legs at
the same time, and this is particularly good for those of you who downhill ski to build
that quadricep strength, all you need to do is to add groucho walking to the repertoire.
Another great way to increase the intensity of the workouts without adding any special
techniques is to just walk up and down hills.
Now you get a great workout if you walk up the hill and you groucho walk down the hill.
Now obviously if you're lucky enough to have some bigger hills, a long uphill and long
downhill are going to give you some really maximized benefits.
The remainder of the techniques that are described in the manual are designed to help people
who want to build a very high level of fitness, the type of fitness level that's necessary
for competitive athletics to achieve those goals.
I'm going to give you a quick look at those and you can learn more about them by referring
to your manual.
You can run with the poles.
Now in order to run with the poles, you're going to have to slow your pace a little bit,
but the upper body work again will more than make up for a slowed pace.
Running with the exostriders and working with good intensity of the upper body, you can
make running at 10 minutes a mile equivalent to running at about 7 minutes per mile without
the exostriders.
Remember, intensity of the work with the upper body is the key to maximum results.
Another technique that's very advanced is called bounding.
And like groucho walking, you allow a great flexation of the knees with each landing.
This really puts a lot of work load on the large muscles, both in the quadriceps and
as you bound forward in the gluteal muscles.
Combined with a slow cadence and a high intensity upper body, you get a maximum exercise effect
and it looks like this.
Now this is not for everybody.
This should only be a technique that's used by serious, well-trained athletes.
And use it sparingly in the beginning until you've got a feel for how much you can do
without getting stiff the next day.
Another technique that's a lot of fun and can really boost the metabolic effects is
skipping with the exostriders.
Now if you haven't skipped since you were a kid, here's an excuse to try it again and
experience what it feels like to skip.
It's a lot of fun and it's a tremendous workout.
I've used this with very competitive athletes to build the highest level of cardiovascular
fitness.
Work with good intensity of the upper body again.
There are a few other techniques described in the manual which are particularly useful
for cross country and downhill skiers.
So refer to the manual if you're interested in those techniques.
Starting today, throw the no pain, no gain myth right out the window.
Exostriding will prove to you that you can get the maximum fitness benefits that you
want in less time with a single, moderate, total body exercise.
When I started exostriding in 1985, it didn't take me long to realize that exostriding was
the single best exercise that I'd ever done.
I could simultaneously strengthen all the major muscles in my body, build a higher level
of cardiovascular fitness in less time, and because I supported part of my weight with
the upper body, I had less chance of injury.
I used to believe in the myth of no pain, no gain, but I've proven that you can build
the highest level of fitness with a moderate form of exercise that involves all of the
body's major muscles, working with good intensity at a comfortable pace.
I'm proud to say that at age 45, I'm more fit, stronger, and feel better than I did
ten years ago when I was running 50 to 60 miles a week.
I exostride about three to four miles a day, four to five days a week, and that's all I
need to keep a high level of fitness.
I think you'll see why exostriding is such an effective exercise as soon as you begin.
I hope you'll enjoy it, and you'll continue to enjoy the benefits of exostriding for years
to come.
Thanks very much.