Movement motivator talks the walk

A veteran of trekking across America, movement motivator Robert Sweetgall returns to the Flathead Valley this week to talk up walking at a series of free public events starting Wednesday.

“My main focus in all my community talks is motivation, movement, the value of physical activity and how it affects chronic disease, heart disease, cancer, stress levels, quality of life and sleep, mobility and independence,” he said in a telephone interview.

Sweetgall, 64, who has walked across the country seven times and has been in all 50 states, said people of all ages benefit from moving more, from children walking before school to senior citizens parking just a little farther from the store. With an infectious exuberance, Sweet quotes research that found small changes leverage big results.

“A study on 30,000 people found that if people just moved a little bit — just an extra mile a day — they had significant reduction in chronic disease risk for just getting off the couch,” he said.

Located in conference room 3 at The Summit, his free workshops begin with a clinic called “Nordic Walking 101” at 6 p.m. Wednesday. His second workshop, “Motivation to Move,” follows at 7 p.m.

Organizers ask that people call 751-4500 to RSVP for these presentations.

At the clinic, Sweetgall teaches a way of walking with two special poles similar to those used in cross-country skiing. He said this method revs up metabolism by 40 percent over “plain vanilla walking.”

“I’ve been Nordic walking for 21 years,” he said. “It’s basically planting a pole just like you are cross-country skiing. You push down the poles and you take stress off the knees, the hips, the ankles, the feet.”

Also by pressing down on the pole, the Nordic walker engages muscles in the abdomen, stomach and upper body. By using more muscles, this technique as instructed by Sweetgall fires up the metabolism along with stimulating left and right hemispheres of the brain.

“So you’re getting a double positive effect,” he said. “You’re getting increased caloric metabolic levels and you’re getting reduced impact stress levels.”

He said Dr. Pam Roberts has done an excellent job of engaging her Journey to Wellness participants in Nordic walking. (See sidebar.) Sweetgall promotes walking with poles for people with extra weight, bad knees, sensitive feet or balance problems.

“If you are in the field of physical therapy, I would say that 90 percent of your patients could benefit from this,” he said.

He encourages those interested to attend the clinic to learn the proper technique for optimum performance. Sweetgall and Summit officials also encourage clinic participants to stay on for “Motivation to Move” at 7 p.m. to learn how this former overweight Brooklyn boy nicknamed Butterball transformed his own life.

According to Sweetgall, he graduated from college with extra pounds from studying 10 hours a day, then went to work as a DuPont chemical engineer in atomic energy design. He recovered his fitness by running off 35 pounds and then became an ultramarathoner and triathlete.

Yet he still felt dissatisfied and longed to find meaning through helping others achieve better health.

“Pretty soon, I started to wonder, ‘what am I going to do with my whole life,’” he recalled.

His ruminations led to his idea to cross America on foot, stopping at schools and other venues to promote moving for good health. Sweetgall quit his $100,000-a-year job to launch his first journey in 1982 around the perimeter of the United States.

Starting with a combination of running and walking, he said the running got to him at around 3,000 to 4,000 miles so he changed to a pure walking mode.

“When I got back, It was nine months and I average 1.5 marathons a day for 279 days,” Sweetgall recalled. “So it was an endurance effort to say the least.”

His plan was to write a book on the first journey but instead he took a second walk through all 50 states from September 1984 to September 1985, stopping to talk at schools and Rotary Clubs.

“That was 11,208 miles at a comfortable walking pace of about 3 and a half miles per hour, which is about a 17-minute mile,” he said.

HE CONNECTED with reporter John Dignam who wrote 52 weekly columns following his year of walking the 50 states. As co-authors, they published Dignam’s columns with Sweetgall’s notes as “The Walker’s Journal: Experiencing America on Foot.”

One of his columns chronicled Sweetgall’s December 1984 crossing of the Continental Divide at McDonald’s Pass, accompanied by 80 students from two Helena schools who were bused up the pass to walk the last two miles. He described the experience to Dignam, who quoted him in his column.

“It was a good day for the Divide,” he said. “Clear and windy, about 17 degrees. All you could see were evergreen-lined mountains with snowcaps on top. It was beautiful.”

Sweetgall went on to write 16 more books including “Move to Improve,” a book he uses in pedometer-based programs and “It’s Your Move” with co-author Robert Neeves, who holds a doctorate in physiology. He has also penned many articles like “The Ten Healthiest Things Educators Can Do for Themselves and Their Students.”

Sweetgall takes on a missionary zeal when speaking about the disaster of cutting out physical activity in schools to make more time to study curriculum subjects. He describes starting school days with a walk to boost glycogen levels in brains as the best idea in the history of the world.

“It’s almost like carb-loading the brain for super power,” he said.

He hopes to start his presentation at Edgerton Elementary School with a walk first thing Wednesday morning. Sweetgall then moves on to make presentations for hospital employees, teachers and wellness teams, then has the two community presentations that evening.

On Sunday morning, he presents a 9 to 11 a.m. fitness and performance workshop as a warm-up for the annual Summit Classic scheduled for 1 p.m. This session includes training for longevity and putting fun into fitness and other motivational strategies.

Sweetgall invites the public to make reservations by calling 751-4500 to attend one or all of the sessions. He promises to provide simple techniques that take as little as 15 seconds to start people on their own journey to better health.

“If you think this might be a good point in your life to get on a new motivational track that is painless and simple and easy, this might be a good investment of an hour or two,” Sweetgall said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.