1 . I’m a walker, logging an average of 9000 steps a day several times a week around my neighborhood. On recent trips to Copenhagen and Stockholm, I noticed tall, fit Scandinavians (斯堪法尼亚人) walking along on city streets with poles, as if they were cross-country skiing without any snow.

It was a surprise to learn that the addition of the poles makes it a more vigorous, full-body exercise than simply walking — and, as a 76-year-old looking to stay healthy while enjoying the outdoors, I decided to give it a try.

There’s plenty of help online for the new Nordic (北欧的) walker: stand tall, swing your arms out as if to shake hands, and plant your poles with vigour. Then there’s the little matter of the strap (带子) on the pole. This allows the walker to grip the pole when thrusting forward and then relax that hand as the other hand pushes forward — a skill of coordination that builds stronger muscles.

For a warm-up, I started slow: Nordic walking down the hall that extends from my front door to the deck. Keeping balance wasn’t my only problem. The novel use of my arms and upper body was surprisingly demanding. After half an hour, my heart was pounding and I was sweating, but I still wasn’t much good.

Still, I carried on because there’s no arguing with the exercise’s benefits. Nordic walkers’ upper-body exercise increases their heart rate significantly more than walking without poles. And according to cardiologist Dr Aaron Baggish, with poles “you’re engaging 80 to 90 per cent of your muscles.” It also helps people with Parkinson’s, says Burrill. “We put poles in their hands and it’s amazing because they start walking with real rhythm.”

After a few clumsy days of being convinced I would never succeed, suddenly everything clicked. Not only was I able to coordinate the movements, I was aware that my heart, arms and core were getting a workout. Nordic walking is a form of exercise I expect to enjoy for years to come.

2 . Making day-to-day activities more intense for a few minutes — such as briefly stepping up the pace of a walk — could offer people who don’t exercise some of the health benefits that exercisers enjoy, according to a new study of roughly 25, 000 adults who reported no exercise in their free time.

Those who include three one- to two-minute bursts of intense activity per day saw a nearly a 40 percent drop in the risk of death from any cause compared with those without such activity. The risk of death from cancer also fell by nearly 40 percent, and the risk of death from cardiovascular (心血管的) disease dropped almost 50 percent, researchers report online December 8 in Nature Medicine.

“This study adds to other literature showing that even short amounts of activity are beneficial,” says Lisa Cadmus-Bertram, a physical activity epidemiologist (流行病学家) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So many people are daunted by feeling that they don’t have the time, money, motivation, transportation, etc. togo to a gym regularly or work out for long periods of time,” she says. “The message we can take is that it is absolutely worth doing what you can.”

The researchers were looking for bursts of intense activity that met a definition determined in a laboratory study, like reaching at least 77 percent of maximum heart rate and at least 64 percent of maximum oxygen consumption. In real life, the signs that someone has reached the needed intensity level are “an increase in heart rate and feeling out of breath” in the first 15 to 30 seconds of an activity, Stamatakis says.

Regular daily activities offer several opportunities for these bursts, he says. “The simplest one is maximizing walking pace for a minute or two during any regular walk.” Other options, he says, include carrying grocery bags to the car or taking the stairs. “The largest population health gains will be realized by finding ways to get the least physically active people to move a little more.”

3 . In 1965 three fathers in Washington State faced a problem familiar to many parents in 2022: how to keep their restless children entertained. They threw together wooden paddles (乒乓球拍), a badminton net, and a perforated (有孔的) plastic ball. The sport “pickleball” was born, getting its name — according to one story — from a dog named Pickle, who kept running away with the ball.

Today pickleball, which is a mix of tennis, badminton and ping pong, is the fastest-growing sport in America. In the five years to the end of 2019, pickleball participation grew by more than 7%, while Americans’ overall activity level stayed flat. Now, the sport has picked up more swing thanks to COVID 19. Last March, when gyms closed, portable (便携的) pickleball nets temporarily sold out. “It’s a trend.” says Derek Heil, an employee at Dick’s Sporting Goods in Dallas, who has seen a sales spike for pickleball equipment over the last year. Players set up courts, which are half the size of tennis courts, in driveways.

The 3.5 million Americans who play pickleball are about one-tenth the number who play golf and one-fifth the number who play tennis. Yet there are reasons to bet on the sport’s spread. Like many outdoor activities, pickleball is social, but it is easier to learn than tennis and faster and less expensive than golf. Country clubs and recreation centers are changing some of their tennis courts into pickleball courts to meet demand. The more places there are to play, the more players will try the sport.

Hoping to predict where the ball is going to land, producers of tennis racquets (球拍) are starting to make pickleball kit too. “Pickleball is viewed as an opportunity,” says Stu Upson of USA Pickleball, the sport’s national governing body. As more people take up the sport, demand for televised matches and sponsorships will increase. Mr. Upson expects that one day pickleball will become an Olympic sport, although that may be a long shot.

4 . Lacrosse (曲棍球) is a popular sport in Canada. The Indians in Canada invented it. They used it to train for war. They invented this game before Columbus arrived in the New World.

People play lacrosse outdoors. The lacrosse field is seven meters long. At each end of the field there is a goal. The goal is a net. There are ten players on each team. Each player has a stick called “ cross”. The player hit a ball into the net as many times as possible. Lacrosse is a very fast game because the players can catch and pass the ball at a high speed with their sticks. Players often get great fun it playing lacrosse.

There are many lacrosse clubs and lacrosse teams all over Canada. Every night Canadians can watch the lacrosse games on TV or listen to the lacrosse games over the radio.

At one time lacrosse was the national summer sport in Canada. Today it is still popular with Canadians.

5 . It’s not often to see a woman who’s seven months pregnant running a marathon. But Beatie Deutsch is anything but typical.

The 30-year-old mother of five is ranked as one of the top women marathon runners in the world and, as of today, has qualified for the 32nd Summer Olympics. What impresses people more deeply is that, unlike many Olympic hopefuls who have been training their whole lives, Deutsch only took up running four years ago.

Why did she train for a marathon? “I was really out of shape after having five kids,” she said. “So I set the goal for myself of running a marathon and that helped me. I needed something to be motivated to get out there and train every day. I didn’t ever expect it to take me to this.”

The Israeli press has been tracking her with pride, calling her “Speedy Beatie”. Hoping to add more purpose to her newfound fame, Deutsch uses her running as a way to raise money for a charity Beit Daniella. This nonprofit organization provides a recovery center for youths who are struggling with mental health issues.

That mission is helping fuel her Olympic dreams. At the Tiberias Marathon last month, Deutsch was the fastest woman in the race. This past September, she finished the Cape Town Marathon in two hours and thirty-six minutes. That’s a few minutes shy of her personal best of two hours and twenty-nine minutes, a time that qualifies her for the Olympics. She will try to shave even more time off when she competes in the Rotterdam Marathon this April.

It’s remarkable for someone who started her athletic career in her late 20s. “I always tell people to have big dreams, and set huge goals. Don’t get caught up in the place where we are right now and have tunnel vision and are limited in what we see of ourselves,” said Deutsch, who now travels the world as a motivational speaker.

6 . Race walking shares many fitness benefits with running, research shows, while most likely contributing to fewer injuries. It does, however, have its own problem.

Race walkers are conditioned athletes. The longest track and field event at the Summer Olympics is the 50-kilometer race walk, which is about five miles longer than the marathon. But the sport’s rules require that a race walker’s knees stay straight through most of the leg swing and one foot remain in contact (接触) with the ground at all times. It’s this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.

Like running, race walking is physically demanding, she says, According to most calculations, race walkers moving at a pace of six miles per hour would burn about 800 calories(卡路里) per hour, which is approximately twice as many as they would burn walking, although fewer than running, which would probably burn about 1,000 or more calories per hour.

However, race walking does not pound the body as much as running does, Dr. Norberg says. According to her research, runners hit the ground with as much as four times their body weight per step, while race walkers, who do not leave the ground, create only about 1.4 times their body weight with each step.

As a result, she says, some of the injuries associated with running, such as runner’s knee, are uncommon among race walkers. But the sport’s strange form does place considerable stress on the ankles and hips, so people with a history of such injuries might want to be cautious in adopting the sport. In fact, anyone wishing to try race walking should probably first consult a coach or experienced racer to learn proper technique, she says. It takes some practice.

7 . Race walking shares many fitness benefits with running, research shows, while most likely contributing to fewer injuries. It does, however, have its own problem.

Race walkers are conditioned athletes. The longest track and field event at the Summer Olympics is the 50-kilometer race walk, which is about five miles longer than the marathon. But the sport’s rules require that a race walker’s knees stay straight through most of the leg swing and one foot remain in contact(接触) with the ground at all times. It’s this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.