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 (Nordic Walking History

1930’s – Development: Because competitive cross-country skiers began experimenting with ways of staying fit during the snow-less summer months, a dry-land training method with the use of skiing poles, but without skis, was discovered.

1980’s – Research: A series of sports medicine studies commenced and since then have positively correlated the use of walking poles with easy & attractive, all-body high fitness levels. Nordic Walking for everyone was on!

1997 – Wrist-strap & Nordic Walking Poles: The next innovation, by a well-known Scandinavian ski pole manufacturer, was special Nordic Walking poles with a uniquely designed wrist strap.

This unique innovation enables the walker to effortlessly release the pole at the end of the arm’s back-swing, and grasp it again at the beginning of the arm’s front swing. This brought the use of all parts of the upper body into active use and the finest all-body exercise and sport was born.

1998 – Nordic Walking Sport: This Nordic Walking wave swelled out from the Scandinavian countries to the rest of the world

2000 – 

2003 –

2005 – South Africa: Southpole Nordic Walking South Africa was established in Cape Town.

2018 – World Nordic Walkers: Today, over 11 Million people in 65 countries are infected by the Nordic Walking benefits & enjoyment, making Nordic Walking the fastest growing sport in the world.

2015 Nordic Walking event – Venice

2018 – Nordic Walking names: It is called or known as:

• Balance Walking
• Pole Walking
• Urban Poling
• Urban Walking
• There are a number of technique variations (e.g. Diagonal, Alpha, Japanese, Push-pull)
• Pole variations include BungyPump (sprung-action poles) and Exerstriding (different handles, hand-straps and pole length)