Nordic Walking & Stem Cell Research

[HTML1] Have you tried Nordic walking as part of your exercise program? It’s pretty simple. Grab a set of walking poles, hit the pavement and burn 40% more calories while reducing stress to your knees and lower joints. For a better understanding of this fitness practice, Life Love & Health Host Christopher Springmann speaks with certified personal trainer and mobility coach Jayah Faye Paley. She explains how those poles, similar to what you’d use for cross-country skiing, are designed to help you walk with your whole body instead of simply letting your arms dangle.

“When we’re very young and have lots and lots of attitude,” says Jayah, “we walk and we stride and strut and we sashay. As we get older we lose the movement in the spine. The natural movement pattern is called reciprocal gait. It’s where the right arm goes with the left leg, and the left arm goes with the right leg, and you’re walking down the street with attitude. You can tell often how old people are by how they walk. But when you’re using poles your body naturally uses that rhythmic rotation pattern. So you’re lengthening, elongating your spine, and getting rotation. Joints like movement. A young spine is a healthy spine and a healthy spine is a spine that moves.”

After an invigorating segment on Nordic walking, Christopher revisits the moment in 2009 shortly after the Obama administration lifted the national ban on stem cell research. Thanks to Proposition 71, a ballot initiative passed in 2004, California was leading the way in this field through the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, funded by a $3 billion bond. CIRM President Alan Trounson and board member Ed Penhoet discuss President Barack Obama’s executive order lifting the Federal funding restrictions on stem cell research, California’s state-funded stem cell research, and promising stem cell developments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), spinal cord injuries, and diabetes.

Segment A (0:00 – 11:00)
Life Love & Health: Special Edition producer Christopher Springmann speaks with personal trainer and mobility coach Jayah Faye Paley about the benefits of Nordic walking

Segment B (11:01 – 22:00)
Christopher Springmann speaks with California Institute of Regenerative Medicine President Alan Trounson and board member Ed Penhoet about moving forward with stem cell research

Segment C (22:01 – 33:00)
Alan Trounson and Ed Penhoet

More about Jayah Faye Paley
Jayah Faye Paley, fitness and wellness educator, presents hiking, walking and fitness seminars for national and state park associations and health-related organizations around the country. Jayah, an ACE-certified Personal Trainer, is the creator of the only comprehensive educational media on how to use poles, which includes the award-winning DVD POLES for Hiking, Trekking & Walking. For over 15 years, she has trained people of all ages, abilities and physical conditions (such as Parkinson’s, MS, arthritis, diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, etc.) as well as athletes, trainers and physical therapists to use poles to achieve, regain and maintain mobility for hiking and walking. She has authored and delivers courses which provide continuing education credits for personal trainers. Jayah is a breast cancer survivor; she has and manages lymphedema. She is the co-founder of the Lymphedema Education, Exercise & Prevention Group at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

More about the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine
For more information about CIRM and California’s Proposition 71, go to CIRM.CA.gov

© 2009, 2010 by On the Path Productions, LLC.  All rights reserved.

About Christopher Springmann

Christopher Springmann is Executive Producer and Senior Correspondent of Life, Love and Health, the award-winning health and wellness program that reaches millions daily on multiple news, talk and sports channels including Sirius XM, CNN, FOX, NPR affiliates, American Forces Network, and HealthRadio.net.

Life, Love and Health is also Mr. Springmann’s latest endeavor in a journey of “creative convergence” that started as a photographer for Time, Fortune, National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. He moved into writing leadership profiles for Chief Executive and California CEO magazines, which in turn provided the inspiration for creating Life, Love and Health: to fulfill the unmet need of telling America’s health story. Mr. Springmann meets this need in entertaining and emotionally engaging ways, with the authentic voices of real people, including a diverse group of doctors and nurses, patients and their families, plus researchers and innovators in the health-and-wellness field. He relies on the credibility and persuasiveness of people’s passionate storytelling to get the point across. People identify with the experiences of others and are encouraged to take positive, attainable actions to improve their personal and family health.

Christopher is also the Host of Life, Love and Health on WomensRadio. Life, Love and Health seeks to ultimately make a difference in people’s lives by encouraging individuals to take positive, attainable actions to improve their personal and family health.