For most of us, walking is something we do automatically. It doesn’t require much effort, so many of us fail to remember the benefits of walking for health.
Physical activity doesn’t need to be hard. Whether you’re regularly active or not, even a quick ten-minute daily walk can deliver a host of health benefits. But what happens if we stop walking ahead and start challenging our brains and bodies by walking backwards? Not only does this change of direction demand more of our attention, but it may also bring additional health benefits.
One of the most well-studied benefits of walking backwards is improving stability and balance. Walking backwards can improve how a person walks and balance for healthy adults and those with knee problems. Walking backwards causes us to take shorter, more frequent steps, leading to improve the muscles of the lower legs. But the benefits of changing direction aren’t just that—an interest in backwards movement has led researchers to discover various other benefits. While normal walking can help us maintain a healthy weight, walking backwards may be even more effective. Energy expenditure when walking backwards is almost 40 percent higher than walking at the same speed forwards, with one study showing reductions in body fat for women who completed a six-week backwards walk.
Walking backwards is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. So, how can you add walking backwards into your exercise plan? When walking backwards, we’re more likely to crash into something or fall over, so in the interest of safety, it’s best to start indoors where you won’t crash into someone or outside in a flat, open area. Look over your shoulder. Keep your head and chest upright while reaching back with your big toe for each step, rolling through the foot from toe to heel. Once you become more confident walking backwards, you can begin to speed things up.
1. Why does the author mention “the benefits of walking” in the beginning ?| A．To introduce the benefits of walking. | B．To show people’s lack of exercise. |
| C．To lead us to “walking backwards”. | D．To tell us the importance of walking. |
| A．Increase. | B．Consumption. | C．Experiment. | D．Construction. |
| A．When is safe to walk backwards? | B．Why should we walk backwards? |
| C．How can we start walking backwards? | D．What’s the weakness of walking backwards? |
| A．Physical Activity Is Easy And Simple. |
| B．Walking Backwards Is Really Good For You. |
| C．Walking Doesn’t Require Any Special Equipment. |
| D．Walking Ahead Challenges Our Brains and Bodies. |
相似题推荐
Dear Brett,
Thanks for your email. You do lots of sports at school in Canada. I’d love to play ice hockey one day.
We do lots of sports at our school too. We’ve got a swimming pool and our class go swimming every Wednesday. We also play tennis, volleyball and football, but football in Australia is different from soccer. We can touch the ball with our hands!
There are lots of after-school sports clubs in Australia too. I go to a surfing club after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We go to the beach and learn how to surf. It’s great fun!
Can you surf in your country? Looking forward to your reply.
Rob
1. Which kind of sport may Brett be taking part in?2. What does Rob usually do on Wednesday?
3. What is allowed when it comes to playing football in Australia?
4. How often does Rob go surfing?
【推荐2】I’m sure we all know by now that exercise is great for you.
Firstly, exercise can completely change your mood! When you work out, your body produces endorphins, which will give you a rush of happiness.
Secondly, exercising is sociable. Whenever I move to a new city to study or work, I look for exercise classes to do.
Thirdly, exercise makes you feel confident. We all know the physical effects of exercise on our bodies but we don’t always talk about the mental effects. Exercise might give you a feeling of confidence from being comfortable with your body and appearance.
Finally, it helps to relieve stress. Focusing on lifting weights or going for a run can help you forget the problems and stress of daily life, studies or work. During exams, I always spend an hour a day in the gym. It makes me feel less anxious and it also helps me to sleep well.
| A．What kinds of exercise do you usually take? |
| B．You will feel better after a workout than you did before it. |
| C．But most exercise classes are too expensive for ordinary people. |
| D．This new confidence might even help in your social or work life. |
| E．So, next time you’re feeling down, put your trainers on and get sweating. |
| F．But sometimes finding that motivation to work out can be a little difficult. |
| G．You meet like-minded people there, and you can support each other during a difficult workout. |
【推荐3】Are you looking for a new way to exercise?
More and more people of all ages are trying water exercise in a swimming pool.
First, I need to ask a question —
Finally, all kinds of exercise are good for you, but water exercise has one more important advantage.
| A．Why is exercising in the pool easier? |
| B．There are many advantages of this exercise. |
| C．Do you want to keep cool while you are exercising? |
| D．Most people feel more relaxed when they are in the water. |
| E．Second, most kinds of water exercise are also safe and easy to learn. |
【推荐1】If, like me, you’re the kind of person who finds it hard to make decisions, then Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink might just be the book you have been waiting for. Because Blink is all about rapid cognition — that is, those moments when we make snap judgements, for example, when meeting someone for the first time or looking at something we’re thinking of buying.
He analyses exactly what goes on in our heads when we make split-second decisions and compares this to the thought processes involved when we take longer to come to a decision. Interestingly he claims that, “There are lots of situations — particularly at times of high pressure and stress — when fortunately haste does not make waste.”
What makes Blink a really interesting read is the number of stories that Gladwell includes to support his theories. One such story involves doctors in the Emergency Room at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. After told to change the way of diagnoses, instead of asking for information such as the patient’s age and weight and medical history, they were going to focus only on the patient’s blood pressure. And now Cook County is one of the best places in the US at diagnosing chest pain.
Of course, there are occasions when we leap to the wrong conclusion. In his research, Gladwell discovered that almost all the CEOs of the top companies in the US are tall. There is no actual relationship between height and intelligence, but for some reason, corporations overwhelmingly choose tall people for leadership roles. There is something going on in the first few seconds of meeting a tall person which makes us think of that person as an effective leader, which unfortunately stops us from making an informed decision.
All in all, Blink is a fascinating study on an activity that we all do several times a day. Read it and make better decisions.
1. What does the underlined word “snap” in the first paragraph mean?| A．Instant. | B．Decisive. | C．Hesitant | D．Important. |
| A．By obtaining the patients’ medical history. |
| B．By basing diagnoses on patients’ blood pressure. |
| C．By abandoning regular ways of diagnosing patients. |
| D．By inquiring about current health condition of the patients. |
| A．Tall people tend to be capable leaders. |
| B．A person’s height and intelligence are closely related. |
| C．CEOs of top companies usually draw right conclusions. |
| D．The first impression of a person can result in bad judgement. |
| A．To honor a writer. | B．To recommend a book. |
| C．To introduce a research. | D．To explain a phenomenon. |
【推荐2】Do you have a sore throat, a running nose and a headache? Do you keep coughing and sneezing? If you do, the chances are that you have a cold or perhaps flu, but which one? Although both colds and flu are caused by viruses, they are very different illnesses.
Colds, which usually last about a week, affect the nose most. They commonly cause a runny nose and sneezing. Sometimes, they cause a headache, a cough and slightly aching muscles.
Flu is a much more serious illness and is caused by different group of viruses. People with flu usually get all the symptoms described above. However, they also get a high fever, a dry cough and much worse aching. Fever is one of the characteristic symptoms of the flu for all ages. The symptoms also last much longer. Sometimes they don’t disappear for at least two weeks.
Flu can be a deadly disease. The elderly, who are weaker and less healthy than most young people, can die from flu. This is one reason why old people are advised to have a flu injection (预防针) before the start of winter when flu is most common. This injection is inexpensive and definitely worth it.
If you have a cold or flu, you must always deal with used tissues(纸巾) carefully. Don’t leave dirty tissues on your desk or on the floor. Someone else has to pick these up and viruses could be passed on. And finally, remember to cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze! You don’t want to see the small drop of liquids blown out of your nose and mouth when you sneeze, do you? Disgusting, eh? Now you can understand why it’s a good idea to cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze!
1. According to the passage, people with colds rarely get _______.| A．a headache | B．a high fever | C．a runny nose | D．aching muscles |
| A．flu injection can cause death | B．most old people die from flu |
| C．flu is most common in summer | D．flu can kill old people easily |
| A．it helps keep your classroom tidy | B．people hate picking up dirty tissues |
| C．it prevents the spread of colds and flu | D．picking up lots of tissues is hard work |
| A．Both colds and flu last the same time. |
| B．Both colds and flu can be prevented by injection. |
| C．Both colds and flu are caused by the same viruses. |
| D．Both colds and flu have an aching symptom. |
| A．Cold or Flu? | B．The Different Symptoms of a Cold and Flu |
| C．Prevention Is Better Than Cure | D．Cover Your Nose and Mouth When Sneezing |
【推荐3】Tiny, black-capped chickadees (北美山雀) have big memories. They store food in hundreds to thousands of different locations in the wild — and then comeback to these places when other food sources are low.
Scientists have known that chickadees have incredible memory skills. That memory can be a matter of life or death for these birds when there are no enough food resources in colder months.
Some researchers thought that neurons called place cells (细胞) would explain these birds’ ability to remember where their food is stored. These cells are known to include information about where things are in space. But recently，Selmaan Chettih and his team found that each time a chickadee hides a seed (种子) in a specific location, a unique brain pattern appears — separate from place cells
To observe this, Chettih and his team created special areas with lots of feeders filled with sunflower seeds. They put small flaps (片状下垂物) where birds could hide seeds.
The scientists tracked the activity in their brains. Each time a bird hid a seed under a flap, researchers saw a brief unique brain pattern appear—what they called the barcode. Different patterns appeared even if the birds hid many seeds in the same location. When the birds revisited these sites and retrieved the hidden seeds, the same barcode-like pattern appeared again, as though all the information about each location and seed were related to a unique brain pattern.
The researchers compared these memories to episodic memories in humans, which are memories of specific events or personal experiences. They’re important to how humans connect time, people, places and sensory information together.
Chettih says that this see chiding behavior has a clear pattern of activity, which may help researchers build a structure for how the brain creates and stores memories
1. Why are memory skills necessary for chickadees?| A．Memory skills can help them survive in colder months. |
| B．Memory skills show their intelligence and learning abilities. |
| C．They need memory skills to identify different types of food. |
| D．They use memory skills to avoid being attacked by other animals. |
| A．Chickadees’ memories were controlled by place cells. |
| B．Chickadees preferred hiding sunflower seeds. |
| C．Unique brain patterns appeared when chickadees hid seeds. |
| D．Chickadees often hid many seeds in the same location. |
| A．Repaired. | B．Regained. | C．Decorated. | D．Designed. |
| A．To introduce a study on chickadees’ memory. |
| B．To present a detailed description of chickadees. |
| C．To compare chickadees and human memory skills. |
| D．To provide readers with a way to improve memory skills. |
