In the collective imagination of fans there have always been two statements about the sport: that it is healthy and that walking cannot be considered just another modality. However, the passing of the years and the arrival of today’s society have managed to call them into question.
On the one hand, people who reach and exceed fifty with a competitive spirit do so with bodies plagued by injuries and many ailments. This leads them to golf, swimming, hiking or cycling, in the best of cases. And, on the other hand, the recurring successes of the athletic walking They have caused an increasing awareness of the importance of this modality, as indicated by José Antonio Carrillo, the coach of the Spanish Olympics. «Not only is it the athletic discipline with the most metals in the Games (8), but we are references for other modalities such as hurdles or triple. The anteversion and retroversion of the hips that we develop are increasingly taken into account by technicians in other tests to improve their performance.
The mantra that walking is not a sport The trainer refutes this by saying that “a walker walks at 15 km per hour, faster than any runner of more than 800 meters on the track. If we maintain this for twenty or forty kilometers, you can imagine the effort it entails,” he points out proudly.
So no one doubts that you can obtain the benefits of sport and at the same time avoid injuries by walking at a good pace. So, out of the blue, the need arose to create games adapted to the elderly in which their integrity would not be endangered.
Football, proud pioneer
In 2011, the English team at Chesterfield decided to develop walking football, which currently has more than fifty thousand players registered on the islands and which in Spain has the Getafe, Betis and Cartagena as main promoters. It is about playing football in teams of six, walking without running, without raising the ball more than one meter above the ground and, of course, without tackles or physical contact. “With this initiative we seek to help people over fifty to improve their state of health and enjoy through the practice of adapted football, a modality that is not only sporting, but also egalitarian and social,” highlights Gema Macías, coordinator of Walking Getafe CF Foundation Football Other characteristics are that it is played without a goalkeeper, on a 42 x 21 m field, that the goals are smaller (3 x 1) and the players cannot get closer than three meters from the frame. As in athletic walking, you must always keep one foot in contact with the ground. There are unlimited changes and there is no offside. You cannot give more than three touches before passing or shooting and you cannot shoot at goal from your own field.
In the slipstream of the football proposal the handball The journey of ‘Walking Handball’ began in Holland. As in walking soccer, its rules highlight always keeping one foot glued to the ground; Now, here you cannot shoot if all the players are not in the opposite field (to avoid counterattacks). Now this game has arrived in Spain. «After fifty years as a handball coach at the Valdeluz school, I am very proud to have hosted the first match of this specialty in our country. This encourages lifelong players to remain in contact with our sport in a different way, but one that maintains all the values that we instilled in them since they were little,” says Gustavo Caso-López, his alma mater.
Precisely the taste for sport is what will make many decide on these innovative proposals. «I think it is a great way to kill the itch we have for handball, even though we are already in our sixties; besides, without risk to our health», indicates Antonio Martín Herreros, the best player to come out of the Valdelucense youth team, who went on to play for TNT Uniexpress in the Asobal League in the 1980s.
These playful versions are destined to succeed among an increasingly older population, but more active and concerned about their physical, mental and social health.
#Walking #sport
