Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Underachiever's Guide To Swinging Your Arms When You Walk (And When You Skate)

Interesting, this just in from Yahoo News: Out on a limb: Arm-swinging riddle is answered.

Among other things, "Holding one's arms as one walks requires 12 percent more metabolic energy, compared with swinging them." It's like how they say smiling takes fewer muscles than frowning, which I've always loved. Don't smile because you're happy, smile because you're lazy. Yeah.

But it must be the same for skating. Swinging your arms, not smiling. To judge by most photos, I don't smile when I skate. I should try that, and see if it makes me faster. Back to arms though, it does check out with me that swinging my arms is somehow more efficient for skating. It's part of the machine, I feel that I'm skating right when I'm feeling like a machine.

Oh, wait. What about for losing weight. Which way to do I have to walk to lose more weight. KIDDING.