REVIEW:
DO PILATES AND NORDIC WALK THE WALK?
What impact do Pilates and Nordic walking have on
overweight or obese clients?
WORDS: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MIKE CLIMSTEIN & JOE WALSH
Title: Effects of Nordic Walking versus Pilates
exercise programs on blood glucose and lipid profile
Author: Dr. Hagner-Derengowska et al. (Clinical
Neuropsychology, Faculty of Health Sciences,
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toru , Poland)
Source: Menopause: The Journal of The North
American Menopause Society. Volume 22 (11),
1-9. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25803666
Introduction: I’ve recently made the move
back to Sydney’s Northern Beaches where
I’ve joined my local health and fitness
facility. I continue to be amazed at the
Pilates ‘following’: young and mature-aged
alike, participants seem to be continually
queuing up to enter the group exercise
studio, regardless of different instructors
or time of the day. I just can’t understand
the attraction, but as so many others do,
I decided it was worth investigating. We
initially sourced an article on the cardiometabolic benefits of Pilates and, as always,
we attempted to find the most recent
research published. Now, this particular
journal, Menopause: The Journal of The
North American Menopause Society, is not
in our usual repertoire of publications, but
it had a very interesting (and appropriate)
article in which Dr Hagner-Derengowska and
her colleagues investigated the beneficial
effects of Pilates in, no surprises here, postmenopausal women.
Methods: A total of 196 post-menopausal
females who were overweight or obese
volunteered to participate in this study. Study
participants were divided into three groups,
88 individuals were non-randomly assigned to
a Pilates group, 88 individuals were assigned
to a Nordic walking group and the remaining
28 | NETWORK WINTER 2015
20 were assigned to a control group. The
researchers chose Pilates as it represented
resistance exercise and Nordic walking as it
represented dynamic/aerobic exercise.
Most of us are familiar with Pilates
classes (as I note, they seem to be ubiquitous
thesedays) – but fewer of us are familiar with
Nordic walking. In a nutshell, it is fitness
walking with specially designed poles and
a learned technique to create a low impact,
total body workout. Widely used overseas
as a form of sports cross training, health and
fitness professionals undertake certified
training in order to teach their clients (visit
nordicwalking.com.au for more information).
All of the respective exercise groups’
60-minute sessions were supervised three
times a week, with heart rate recorded via
heart rate monitor. The exercise groups
were also advised to complete ‘homework’
exercise for the same amount of time
while at home (although the details were
not specified). The Nordic walking group
completed approximately 3.6 kilometres for
each supervised session. The outcomes for
this study included weight, body mass index
(BMI), lipid profile (total cholesterol, highdensity lipoproteins, low-density lipoproteins,
triglycerides) and blood glucose.
Results: Let me preface the findings by
saying that both Pilates and Nordic walking
resulted in numerous significant benefits,
illustrated in Table 1, which is a great result
for both modes of exercise.
Three of the parameters in the Nordic
walking group had significantly better
changes compared to the Pilates group; the
fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol
and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The
authors also commented that a substantially
greater number of women (both exercise
The 30-second article
• Researchers investigated the
physiological effects of Pilates and
Nordic walking in overweight or
obese post-menopausal women
• Pilates was chosen as being
representative of a static exercise
and Nordic walking was selected as
a dynamic/aerobic exercise
• Weight, BMI (body mass index), lipid
profile and blood glucose were
measured
• The Nordic walking group had
significantly better changes than the
Pilates group in three areas.