Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

Ep.153 Transform Your Walk, Transform Your Health: The Science Behind Better Movement

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 153

Share episode

Think you know how to walk? Think again.

In this episode of Asking for a Friend, I’m joined by international health expert Joanna Hall, founder of the WalkActive Method. Joanna reveals how improving your walking technique can dramatically boost posture, joint health, hormone balance, and even cognitive function—all especially important in midlife.

With 30+ years in sports science, Joanna explains how most of us are walking inefficiently, reinforcing poor movement patterns and joint strain. Her science-backed method helps women over 40 engage the right muscles, improve alignment, and walk better—not just more.

We explore why your hips, feet, and posture matter, how lifestyle habits and old injuries contribute to walking issues, and how small shifts can lead to major changes in strength, confidence, and longevity.

👉 Ready to walk your way to better health? Tune in and discover how to make every step count.

Check out the WalkActive Method at www.walk-active.com/michele/

You can also check out Joanna's blog!

Joanna Hall has graciously offered a discount code for Asking for a Friend listeners to try the WalkActive Method.

Michele50off at  https://walk-active.com/the-walkactive-method/


#midlifefitness #walkactive #womenover50 #posturecorrection #jointhealth #healthyaging #walkingformetabolism #midlifewellness #menopausefitness #mobilitymatters #walkstrong #podcastforwomen

Send us a text

_________________________________________
Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan

Have questions about Faster Way? Feel free to reach out.
mfolanfasterway@gmail.com

Follow Asking for a Friend on Social media outlets:
https://www.instagram.com/askingforafriend_pod/
https://www.facebook.com/askforafriendpod/

Please provide a review and share. This helps us grow!
https://lovethepodcast.com/AFAF

*Transcripts are done with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.

**This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Michele Folan:

Let's talk about something simple, accessible and surprisingly powerful Walking. It's the form of exercise most of us do without even thinking about it. But did you know that walking correctly can dramatically improve your posture, reduce joint pain, support hormone balance and even enhance your cognitive function, especially in midlife? In fact, studies show that walking just 30 minutes a day can lower your risk of heart disease, improve sleep, reduce anxiety and support healthy weight management. And for women navigating the changes of midlife hormonal shifts, energy dips, stubborn weight gain walking is one of the most effective and sustainable tools we have. But here's a catch how you walk matters. That's why today's episode is such a game changer Health, wellness, fitness and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife.

Michele Folan:

I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend. Welcome to the show everyone. I'm joined today by Joanna Hall, the internationally recognized health expert and founder of the Walk Active Method, a science-backed walking technique designed to help you walk better, not just more. Joanna has been featured in top publications like the New York Post for her insights on walking mechanics, posture and movement efficiency, and what she's created with the Walk Active Method is nothing short of transformational. Joanna Hall, welcome to Asking for a Friend.

Joanna Hall:

Michele, thank you what a really lovely, lovely, warm welcome and introduction. Thank you so much. I really feel very, very happy and very honored to be on your podcast and speaking to you, obviously personally, and to your fabulous listeners and audience, who are, you know, obviously we're all in the same boat. We just want to make some better decisions that improve the quality of our life.

Michele Folan:

So thank you oh, you are so welcome, and you and I were chatting before, and my audience is really the 50-plus female crowd. We walk probably almost every day for fitness, for brain health, for all that good stuff, and so I thought this was a really great topic to cover because of how much we're walking. Oh, and also for bone health, right? Yep, you know we want to make sure we're doing it correctly and getting maximum benefits, but before we get started, tell us a little bit about you, where you're from, because obviously you're not from the United States.

Joanna Hall:

No, thank you. No, I'm not from the United States, I'm from jolly old England. I'm British. I'm actually joining you today from Hertfordshire, which is just outside of London. It's a glorious day. We were just saying it's fabulous bright sunshine, but we still got that real chill in the air, so it's enticing us to get outside more, which is wonderful, and the light is great. But I'm here in the UK.

Joanna Hall:

I'm a mum, I'm in my 50s. I have been in the global fitness industry for over three decades now. It has been my passion, it's been my purpose and it's given me a lot of joy and I've met some amazing people as well as having a very humbling experience through it. I'm not completely alien to the US. I did my sports medicine internship in Seattle at Virginia Mason Sports Medicine Clinic and I had my first degree is in sports science. My second degree is in sports science and I actually majored within body composition change with sedentary women. That was my kind of my thesis, very neat.

Joanna Hall:

Yeah, women's health has always been a real sort of focus of mine and through my career. As we knew, are probably aware, the fitness industry, the health sector, is quite unstructured and you are probably aware, the fitness industry, the health sector is quite unstructured and I think if you have a passion and you want to sort of communicate, it's taken me through a really interesting and diverse background. So I've written a number of books 14 books which have actually been translated into seven different languages. I have been the resident fitness and diet expert on the UK's number one morning show, where I was leading health fitness well-being campaigns every week on a Monday morning, which was really insightful about what could we give the nation to give them some amazing transformational change overnight.

Joanna Hall:

And you know how that has changed with what gives people excitement and actually what women are really wanting now and maybe the perception of what people thought women wanted. So that's been a really interesting insight. And now, obviously, as the creator and founder of the Walk Active Method, which I've been developing and evolving really right through my whole career, but it's gathered a lot of momentum over the last 15 years so that we teach it as an online program as well as in-person events. Uh, we have our training app and it's really designed to help people not just walk more but importantly, to coach you to walk better for your posture, for your joints and um, yeah, it's kind of like my baby, but it's something that I feel really passionate about and it's just lovely to be able to connect with people like yourself who have that fellow passion.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and you know you, you, you did your, I think, what you said, your your thesis on sedentary women? Yes, so is that where you started thinking about walking as being a game changer for fitness? Oh, wow.

Joanna Hall:

That's a really interesting question. So from my perspective, I've always felt that somehow we've been chasing the wrong end of the stick here and this whole message about exercising three times a week or four times a week and just get your 150 minutes. There is significant merit in that, but I think what we need to appreciate is that we all lead busy lives and busy lives may mean that we have pressures coming from a commercial background running business pressures and busy life may mean from a personal perspective, from a family perspective, from a social perspective. So the actual reality of what has been shown in a white lab, clinical situation to have a meaningful impact for us can actually translate quite differently to what actually fits within our lifestyle. So I have been very passionate about really what is achievable, what's sustainable, what actually gives us joy is achievable, what's sustainable, what actually gives us joy and is going to be with us, not just today or tomorrow or next week, because we may be feeling like it's bikini season or whatever those kind of pressure points are or have historically been, but something that can really be the bedrock right through our lives, and thinking about what gives us joy and also the moments in life that gives us joy. They're all connected by actually how we get from point one to point two, point A to point B, and we do that by walking.

Joanna Hall:

So I think it's a way that has always been part of my DNA really, in that, just as we may improve how we do a sit-up, or we may improve how we do a tennis serve or a golf drive, actually why don't we think about how well we walk which may sound a little bit contentious but if we can improve how we improve the quality of our walking, which really is the blueprint of everything that we do, that can have a powerful benefit. And so that was part of my thesis looking at body composition change for my master's degree for sedentary women, but it was also actually looking at it in terms of total caloric expenditure, and that, I suppose, was an opportunity to highlight the importance of how we can move our bodies more effectively. And also, I think it highlights the pressure we can sometimes put on ourselves to get so much out of those three times a week in the gym to get there, park the car, manage everything else, which often then becomes a pressure rather than a pleasure, and obviously that has different impacts then on our parasympathetic nervous system our actual joy, our emotions, our relations and so forth. So it's kind of a smorgasbord of experiences. Through my life.

Michele Folan:

You know and this is one thing I tell my clients about a walking practice is that it doesn't have to happen all at one time and there's truly benefits in walking after you eat. Yes, so in that if that's 10, 15 minutes, whatever you have time for, but it doesn't have to be an hour and a half walk, we can break it up through the day, which I think lowers that resistance and that tension level that people have around working out. I do have a question for you about the walk active method. How does it differ from simply walking more?

Joanna Hall:

Okay, so, as a sports scientist and fitness educator, the walk active method is based on actually allowing the body to utilize the right muscles in the right way, at the right time and the right sequence. So that means that when we actually move from point a to point b, there is a correct movement pattern, and that correct movement pattern has to happen in the right order and in the right sequence and also in the right way. And the analogy that I would give is, if we think about looking at Tiger Woods hit a golf drive, or Roger Federer or Andre Agassi actually doing a tennis serve, we can see that there's effort involved in it, but it doesn't look like they're really kind of battling with their body. There's an element of fluidity, there's an element of joy and obviously there's an amazing outcome, but they make it look easy. There is obviously an element of effort, but they make it look easy, and that's because they are utilising for that particular activity. They're utilising the right muscles, they're utilising the right way, they're utilising them in the right time and the right sequence, so it creates a better performance but also gives more joy. So, as a sports scientist, what happens with walking is that we may go out with all good intentions to walk for our mental well-being. We may go out with all good intentions to improve our bone density, to actually help maybe improve our cardiovascular fitness.

Joanna Hall:

However, our movement pattern, which is um contaminated, if I can say that, because of muscular imbalances that we all have, and also contaminated by actually our lifestyle, by sitting down quite a bit, whether it means we're spending time in the car or at our desk with hobbies, or maybe looking after an older relative, because we're at that stage now, or younger little ones, yeah, all of that means we have a lifestyle that imposes the body to become more compressed. And then, if we add a third element to that, Michele, which is actually our own personal story, which could be whether we had a C-section, if we have had a child, or maybe we've had surgery, maybe we've actually had an injury, maybe we've had a fall, maybe actually we have one leg a little bit longer than the other, this will be our personal story, what experiences we've had through perimenopause, menopause. So the combination of muscular imbalances, our personal lifestyle and our own physical story creates this what I call tricky triangle. And this is important because we can go out for a walk and we will walk from point A to B. Or we may walk with a friend or we may walk for our fitness, but actually the movement quality that we are utilizing to do that is suboptimal. We are not optimizing the body to utilize the right muscles, which should be the posterior chain and the fascia net of the body, and to actually utilize them in a lengthening way and also at the right time in the right sequence.

Joanna Hall:

So walk active teaches us to walk well, to walk our best walk, and that's really why it's different and, as a sports scientist, it came from a very personal space of where I created it to heal myself, but also over the years of developing it and having written the books and created our online programs.

Joanna Hall:

Anecdotally, so many people have really noticed that a even as regular walkers they've had a transformational change in their posture, how their joints feel, their fitness, actual mental well-being aspects, blood glucose levels changing. It has actually also been scientifically validated through south bank sports performance laboratory by dr darren james to significantly improve your posture more than normal walking because we had our control group. It's also been shown to significantly reduce the joint strain at the knee and at the ankle more than normal walking and also has been shown that when you learn the walk active method, it will significantly improve your walking pace by up to 24 percent over a four-week period, compared to normal walking. So it's about taking everything that we always do, but actually doing it to the best of our ability, in a way that gives us joy, improvement, improving our posture, improving our breath, but we can integrate it into our life in an easy way, in a bite-sized results.

Michele Folan:

Okay, first of all and I wanted you to get into that because, first of all, I know I'm desperate to show you, I know, I know. So it's so funny because the listeners can't see you, but you all she cannot sit. Still, she is so excited about this topic, which I love. So when I first started, or when I went, when Joanna and I first met, she was like all walking around the room and because I was pointing out the fact that I was having some knee pain, and particularly when I was walking downhill, and she very simply showed me a way for me to change my gait. Once, I think you train your brain almost, if, if I'm correct, yeah, where it becomes natural. But you, but you, you have to think about how you are, how, how you're walking, right, and I, I have one question so as we get older, do we inherently shorten our gait? That's a really good question.

Joanna Hall:

So the weight of available evidence currently suggests that as we get older, there is a reduction in gait length, in stride length, and that is associated with cognitive decline, with a reduction in how well our brain works.

Joanna Hall:

I also think that happens because, obviously, the aging and how we utilize our body and, importantly, this tricky triangle.

Joanna Hall:

But I don't think it has to be like that.

Joanna Hall:

I really do not think it has to be like that.

Joanna Hall:

I think we do ourselves, if I may say so, and I think this is a may sound a bit contentious, but I think we can invest a lot of time, energy, worry and money into thinking about our wellness and what supplements we may have, what latest class we may do, and I would encourage us and challenge us to actually think about something that is so simple and is something that we all do, but actually we can do it better by a process and you're right, it does involve a process of retraining the brain a little bit, but it's in its simplest format, michelle. Actually, all we're asking ourselves to do is stop something and start something. That's all we're trying to do, which is like any decision we have to stop a decision and move in a different direction and it relates to four parts of the body it relates to our feet, it relates to our hips, it relates to our head and shoulders and it relates to our arms, and it's a simple, tried and tested format of how we utilize those four parts of our body to walk better.

Michele Folan:

One thing I did want to point out, and the reason I asked about as we age, does our gait shorten? Because I've also noticed that when people get older and when I'm talking 70s, late 70s, 80s, 70s, 80s that they tend to lose that, that stride where they walk with their like a step out forward, and they tend to do more of this, more of a side step, where I think part of that may be that need for stability. They want to feel more stable in their gait, and so I wanted you to know I did work on my gait and I she's clapping I noticed a difference. Yay, okay, I may not be doing it totally correctly, but I I will. I will say that I did notice a difference, and so I think it would be really good for you just to. I know you can't show us technically, because this is not video, but can you give us a sense of what that would look like for someone? That is curious.

Joanna Hall:

Okay. So, first of all, if, um, I've got a freebie little webinar, but if we, if listeners, would like to go, we'll, we'll give the link afterwards so we can actually visualize this as well. But hopefully, what I'm going to try to do is paint some pictures for people to see. Okay, so they think, okay, that crazy English woman who's telling us to walk better with the walk actor method. I know what she means. I'm painting some pictures, so let me give you some pictures that may work for you. The first thing I would say and this is where I need you to be open with your mind is, if you are standing up and you are looking at a path ahead of you, you think I'm going to walk down that path. We obviously think that we're walking from where we are right now, which might be point A, and we're going to walk to point B. The number one mistake that the vast majority of people do first of all is that we walk into that space, we walk towards that space, and that may sound well. Of course, we're going to walk forward Again. That's where we need to go. We're stepping forward, but in actual fact, the very action of stepping forward into our space with our front leg means that we stimulate and we set off a sequence of muscle recruitment pattern which doesn't serve our posture. It doesn't actually help our bone joints, our joints, to actually be correctly aligned and it also doesn't actually allow us to utilize our glutes and improve our stride. So the first thing, if I can give people to kind of think about and this is where it may sound a bit like whoa, that's a bit like strange is I'd like people to not walk into their space but to walk out of the space. Ok, so if we're standing and we are looking at that path, we're completely still and imagine that I'm actually standing behind you, we're together, we're both looking at that path, but I'm standing behind you and if you start to walk to help us utilize the back chain, the posterior chain, which is going to be our glutes, that's going to improve our posture, it's going to help open up the hip flexors. I'd like you to think that you are walking away from me, okay. So what that will do first of all is, cognitively, it will give you some stimulation about what is happening at the back of our body, because everything in us and the way that we lead our lives is about it's forward, it's there. I've got to be here, okay. And that means that our posture comes forward, our shoulders stoop a bit, our torso becomes a bit more compressed, so our gut health is compromised. So the first thing we need to think about is actually we're walking out of our space. So imagine I'm standing behind you and you're going to walk away from me. Okay, you're going to walk away from me. That's the first little picture I'm going to give you. Second little picture is imagine I'm giving you a post-it note Okay, a little post-it note and everybody can pick up their post-it note and on your post-it note I'd like you to write a message saying I love Michelle's podcast.

Joanna Hall:

Okay, I love Michele's podcast. So we've written that on the post-it note. That post-it note I hope everybody's doing this at home that post-it note is going to go on the sole of your shoe, on the sole of your shoe. So we're still walking down that path. I'm still behind you, but all of your listeners who've got your wonderful post-it notes saying I love Michele's post-it podcast, a podcast they are leaving their back foot behind them so that I can see what they've written on that post-it note on the back foot. Does that make sense. Yeah, yeah, it's all on that back foot. So what that will do is for you to be able to see it, you've got to leave that back foot there behind you a little bit longer. Okay, now, this may feel a little bit kind of odd, but this is going to be so profound for your posture. It's really going to help safeguard your knees and actually help open up tight hip flexors, which can be a contributing factor to shortening of our gait, and it will also importantly, help us create more zaza zoom for our fore propulsion to walk fitter. Okay, enhancing the stability from the foot up into the hip.

Joanna Hall:

Okay, so we've got me walking behind you and you're walking away from me. That's my first picture. My second picture is our little post-it note on the sole of your foot and you're going to leave it behind you so we can read that lovely message that we've written. And then maybe a third picture, if I may, is actually thinking about what we're feeling. Okay, what we're feeling, so, if we take the palm of the hand and we rest the palm of the hand with the fingertips pointing down on our legs, so the fingertips are on top of our thigh and the palm of the hand is kind of on the hip bone. Yeah, so if we take a step forward, we'll feel how the fingertips stay in contact with the thigh, but as we leave that back leg behind us walking away from me. That's my first picture. Second picture we're leaving that back foot behind us with the post-it note. What we're trying to get is a feeling of opening up the hips, so the fingertips are actually pointing a little bit backwards, a little bit backwards in contact with the thigh. So those three kind of simple things to kind of maybe try to incorporate.

Joanna Hall:

Go and have a little play. Maybe you're listening to this when you're out and about walking, maybe you're listening to this in your home. Have a little play. And I'd encourage you, on all of us, to be curious. Curious about building a positive connection with our body, because if we can utilize the posterior chain, that is deeply powerful for our posture, for our breath, for our joints and how we see the world. Okay, which may sound a bit of a big statement, but I was taking a longer stride. Yes, yes.

Michele Folan:

Because I was being more intentional about how I was walking.

Joanna Hall:

So can I congratulate you on that, how I was walking. So can I congratulate you on that, because one of the big commits that many people make if we are going as midlife women and we want to go out and we want to improve our cardiovascular fitness through walking, because maybe we're concerned about our joints, we don't want to run Okay, one of the main mistakes that people make is to improve and get faster with our walk. We think it's just purely about how quickly we move our legs so the stride becomes shorter and the legs become quicker, like walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. That is a big no-no. That is going to compromise and exacerbate more knee discomfort. That's actually going to contribute to more lower back discomfort because we fire into the hip flexors which are attached to the lower spine.

Joanna Hall:

So to actually walk fitter and to walk further and to walk faster, we want to be thinking about what I call the pace formula. So number one is our technique should always be our number one priority. Number two, we lengthen the stride from the back because we utilize the posterior chain. And number three then we start to think about speeding up our legs, but it's not just our legs. So if you're saying that you notice an improvement in your gait and you slow down. That's absolutely wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful yeah.

Michele Folan:

I am not always the best student, joanna, but hey, I do try to listen. You are nailing this girl, you are nailing this, I am. You are a walk activist, joanna. We're going to take a quick break and when we get back I want to talk a little bit about the health and wellness impact of the walk active method. Are you chasing more than just a summer body? Because, let's be honest, this stage of life isn't just about fitting into the mother of the bride dress. It's about feeling strong, mobile and confident today and for years to come.

Michele Folan:

Yes, my clients are reaching their goals. They're wearing clothes they haven't touched in years but, more importantly, they're building lasting health. They haven't touched in years, but, more importantly, they're building lasting health, improving their lab work and showing up in life with energy again, because they've trusted the process. If you're ready to stop starting over and finally feel good in your body again, join me for my six-week midlife metabolism reset. This is your time, click the link in the show notes and I'll be waiting for you. Okay, we are back, and before we went on break I mentioned I wanted to talk about the health and wellness impact, but I'm curious for you how has your own health and wellness changed since incorporating and developing the walk active method Significantly.

Joanna Hall:

I would say significantly. First of all, I never really set out to create this scientifically proven walking system. What happened? If I may just kind of share something with you, very personal I don't really talk about this as very much, but I actually, when I was 11 weeks pregnant with my daughter, who's now 18, actually 19, actually sorry she'll kill me and she's 19 now I had retrocecal appendicitis and I got rushed to hospital and the surgeon operated on me. But as I was coming round, he's standing at the end of the bed, bed speaking to my husband saying um, the operation was actually a bit tricky. We couldn't really find the appendix. It was really inverted, it was really twisted and obviously your wife is pregnant, bearing in mind we'd also had to find a form that we could lose our baby. So it was a bit kind of stressful, but anyway, um, all is well that ends well.

Joanna Hall:

However, as I'm kind of recovering from having this deep abdominal surgery where he went in twice and had a good old rummage and hopefully my belly was going to grow with my pregnancy, as a sports scientist and fitness educator, I knew that I was going to leave myself deeply exposed for posture problems, for joint problems, at a time when you want your body to be physically healthy and feel well and feel vibrant. You're going through a lot of change physiologically, but also you're going through a lot of change psychologically. So I used my knowledge as a sports scientist to apply that to heal myself from this deep surgery whilst I went through my pregnancy. So I share this with you because it wasn't something that I set out to do. It really came from personal space of feeling really quite scared, vulnerable at a point where I was at transition in my life of, you know, working, having a career and then having my first child, getting married, having our family, all these things that kind of go through how we're going to make this work, which can make us feel very vulnerable and exposed. So the walk active method came from a very personal space where I was seeking something, where I wanted to feel positive about my body. I wanted my body to feel strong, I wanted to feel that it was going to recover and I wanted to feel something that could actually fit with my life when I was going through significant change. So it really came from that space. And then, as I was healing and getting fitter and stronger, and we had a baby girl you know, who's now 19,. I then started to teach it to clients and clients were like saying, wow, this is really great and it's got a series of drills that we do and taking the science of what really works. So it really grew organically to to where it is. So, in a nutshell, I think the benefits I have seen from clients sharing with us it has been really transformational for them in terms of physical confidence. I think it's been really quite transformational in terms of cardiovascular fitness At a time when we can be at a transition in our life, when we feel we need to make that investment in our cardiovascular fitness because of, obviously, the health concerns we have for women with heart disease and heart disease globally is the number one killer.

Joanna Hall:

In the US it's the number one killer, yep, and in the UK it's number two killer after dementia and also at a time where we're thinking it can be a time to come together socially and get out more in nature, when we can sometimes feel very enclosed with thoughts that can sometimes erode us.

Joanna Hall:

Yeah, okay, and we want to build ourselves up and we want to create the best environment that makes us feel really, really good right now but also, importantly, make us feel good next week, next month, next year and next decade. And that's where I really feel the walk active method is unique in that and I know that may sound a bit ballsy, but I really feel that, having been in industry globally for, you know, for three decades, I really do think it can. It can transform your body, your mind and your brain, but, importantly, you can transfer those benefits across all aspects of your life and that's what gives you the positivity. It's not about being perfect and you made that point because you said I don't think I've quite got it perfect yet. I think it's great because a little more captive goes an awful long way. It really does. And in today's society, when we can often feel that we are less than I think, walk active makes us feel I am more than yeah, yeah, I know I think that's wonderful.

Michele Folan:

Can you share an actual success story about someone that you've worked with with the walk active method?

Joanna Hall:

So I've worked with a variety of people, including members of the Royal family, which has been really wonderful and sort of numbers of celebrities, but I suppose just to give sort of two extremes. So one is a lady who was really super fit and she was a runner and she loved that and stuff like that. She had a very demanding job and then she went through a very challenging situation. She lost her physical confidence, she lost her job and she was then going to take she kind of took early retirement, but it made her feel very small and made her feel very vulnerable and she was looking, she wanted to get back into running, but that you know, by this time she felt very concerned about her joints and so forth. So I taught her the walk actor method and what that did for her was it allowed her to reclaim a positive connection with her body. It also, importantly, actually reclaimed her physical fitness at a time when she never thought she would do that. And, importantly, she said to me I never, ever felt I was going to get that run as high, which I just loved, and why? She said I was feeling depressed and I was physically grieving. And I think this is an important thing we can experience grief in the classic format, but if we have been active in a past life and we don't have that physicality now, we can experience physical grief. She was experiencing physical grief, and Walk Active gave her back that joy. She said I never thought I was going to get that buzz again. So that would be one kind of story I would share. That's wonderful, yeah, really wonderful.

Joanna Hall:

And then another one would be a lady who had actually had she'd lost her mum and she was primary carer for her sister, actually, who had a number of health considerations and she had three young boys and a very loving husband. But basically all roads led to her, which is not uncommon, and I'm sure we have many people who feel that a lot of roads are leading to them and in that situation it can make us feel very less than this created a clustering of scenarios where her blood pressure was going up, she didn't really feel like exercising, she lost a lot of physical confidence, she put on weight and it escalated to such a point that her GP told her that she had a very fatty liver and that she really needed to start exercising and doing something, because she was in a very, very vulnerable health position and she hated exercise. She absolutely hated exercise. It was something that she didn't do. She was actually a professional singer. She was had an amazing voice, so she had physical confidence in that sense. But to actually put herself out physically didn't really work for her. So she actually enrolled on one of our eight-week personally mental programs. We were on two we called what one which is called reclaim you and another one which is called walk to wow, and she actually lost a stone and a half on our six-week program. Her fatty liver markers came right down from being very high and her GP and GP being considerably alarmed to actually being in the healthy bracket. So she was amazed by that.

Joanna Hall:

Over the six-week period she regained her physical confidence. Her relationship with her husband got better. She felt she had more resilience and she said I actually feel that I want to go out and do this and it makes my body feel good, rather than I need to do this because I need to make this investment in my health. So those kind of softer benefits and I know probably the soundbite there is. Well, she lost a stone and a half.

Joanna Hall:

Yeah, she did through the walk active method because it's all about how we utilize the core and the whole fascia and utilize the body so the body becomes neat and effective. But actually it's the softer things there that I think are far more profound in our life in terms of the quality of our relationships. Feeling more resilient, actually feeling like I want to get out there and do it, that's what creates the momentum in our life. And to have something that can be a blueprint that allows us to fit with our life, so that I can do it rather than having to find more time to do it, I think for me that I find that very humbling and I feel quite honored in some of the things that we've had in that sense.

Michele Folan:

So, yeah, it's wonderful yeah, it's amazing what movement and getting out in nature and a sense of accomplishment can do for your overall psyche. And I see this with my own clients, joanna, where I have a client right now. She's 67, had always been athletic, had run in her earlier years. Husband retired, she kind of pulled back the reins on her own self-care and fitness to just hang with him and, you know, for her to lose major inches and weight and to feel good about herself, that was all the momentum she really needed to keep going. Right, you mentioned something about fascia. Now I have covered fascia on the show, but can you bring some clarity around how fascia is involved in your walk active method?

Joanna Hall:

Yes, with pleasure. So I believe I'm coming back to this idea that we want to utilize the way the body should move, as opposed to leaning into how we have learned to move and how lifestyle creates incorrect movement pattern. So the fascia allows us really to have three things happening in the body. The fascia, I believe, allows us to have stability, it allows us to have space around the joints and it also allows us to have strength in the body. And it's a bit like this external framework. I like to think about it almost like spandex and because of the actual physical structure of fascia, which is kind of like three-dimensional net all layers. It has multi-layers, which I'm sure lots of you really isn't how you train your trainers and your clients. It has multi-layers and it crisscrosses over.

Joanna Hall:

What we're wanting to do with the fascia is actually stretch the fascia across all its dimensions. And when we stretch the fascia across all its dimensions, that will mean that we get more space around the joints. The length of the muscles around the joints then creates the stability super important for posture and super important for our balance and then that also gives us an element of strength. So obviously that's important for posture and super important for our balance, and then that also gives us an element of strength. So obviously that's important for bone density, but in a way that allows our body to be supported. And what the walk active method does is it actually allows the fascia to be stimulated with every single step we take, so it allows us to have a grace to our movement pattern. It allows us then also to have a fluidity to our movement pattern.

Joanna Hall:

So if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, this must be looking like power walking and you've got your weights and you're pumping your arms forward and back, I would say it really isn't like that. It is about like that. That Mo Farah, that amazing runner, you know, we see them. They just look like they're so graceful, okay, and absolutely anybody and everybody can walk better. So the fascia is really allowing that alignment in our body so that it can create that elastic quality, that propulsion, that zip. And if we think about a young child and we see them kind of coming out of the house, they're all springy and bouncy and they've got the vitality and it's yeah let's go, let's go but what happens to us as we get a bit older?

Joanna Hall:

it's like, okay, everything is, everything hurt, you know, and it feels arduous. But when we learn, walk active, really what we're doing is we are pre-stretching that fascia. So it's giving us that like zaza, zoom every single step. And so many clients say, say, it really makes me feel like, yeah, I've got some energy, it makes me feel, I feel my space, it makes me show up better.

Joanna Hall:

Um, and it translates across all aspects of your life and I think one of the if I may just share one of the analogies I give is because of the rotational quality.

Joanna Hall:

It's a bit like this beautiful spider's web that we may see glistening, you know, in the summer, in the morning dew.

Joanna Hall:

It looks beautiful, it's all symmetrical, but unfortunately, if a fly flies into that spider's web, that web will still stay in contact but it will get a lot of knot around that fly.

Joanna Hall:

That fly is caught and our lifestyle of muscular imbalances and our lifestyle of maybe sitting down or having asymmetrical movement, of maybe caring for somebody, or the way we drive our car or something, together with our physical imbalances, means that we still have this fascia, but our fascia is not looking like this beautiful spider's web, glistening in the dawn and being beautifully symmetrical in its pattern. It kind of actually looks like it's got loads of kind of pop marks, the spiders all caught in it, and that's what makes us create an inappropriate movement pattern. That's what can create discomfort, that creates poor posture and it takes away the fluidity of our movement so our walking feels more arduous. And with Walk Active we train you to actually through very simple drills and exercise with audio coaching and the video exercises to really build on it sequentially with just 10 minutes a day to have that positive connection to train your fascia through your body so you feel more comfortable. So I think fascia is really interesting but it relates to how we utilize all of our body in a really nice, positive way.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and one thing that I didn't know until that show that I did with the fascia expert is that we have fascia around our organs. I mean it's our largest organ. I mean it is everywhere in the body and accessing it is possible. It just takes some training and experts to show you how to do that. I had a thought here, as you were talking about fascia what role do the arms play in all of this?

Joanna Hall:

Great question. So the arms are the fourth part of the walkout technique. What we want to. If I start with, what do we want to stop? Because if we stop the wrong movement pattern, it allows everybody to work effectively. So the arms are the fourth part. So we try to get the feet right, then the hips, then the head and shoulders, but with the arms we want to stop either.

Joanna Hall:

Having mechanical arms where we're punching them forward and back, you know, like power walking. We want to stop that because, even though we may think that will give us more cardiovascular benefit, it compromises the correct positioning of the humerus, the top of the arm, going into the shoulder girdle, and will give us more stiffness in the back. Okay, the other thing that we want to stop is actually not using the arms at all, because often when our posture is bad, the arms just hang loose, limply. What we want to try to do is allow the arm just have a natural swing. Okay, that's the first thing.

Joanna Hall:

When we start walking, we build it up in the body. First of all, are the arms having a natural swing? So that's not, I'm not making them swing. Is there a natural swing? The second thing I would encourage us to think about is I'm just turning my back to you and unfortunately we can't see that, but we've got that little little video webinar for people to access if they want is that you want the movement to come here from the back of the shoulder girdle, so when the arm moves back, the back swing is bigger than the front swing, and if the back swing bigger, you get an improvement with your posture because we open up the front of the arm here, and then that will also give us more mobility in the upper back, which in turn then actually starts to utilize the obliques, which also then gives this space in the diaphragm, and that's what starts to stimulate the internal fascia, which is what you were just talking about. So the art it all links together.

Joanna Hall:

Oh my God, you're giving each other a script. Michele, we're on fire, girl.

Michele Folan:

I know, right. I mean, this is, we're in a flow. We're in a flow here, Joanna. Okay, that was a great explanation, because I see people in my neighborhood doing the power walk thing with their fists up, right, no, stop, stop stop, stop and I know people are going what that's surely doing me some good?

Joanna Hall:

Please stop doing that. That is complete and utter false economy, because you'll be putting more strain on your upper shoulders. You will be reducing the action of the thoracic spine to improve the mobility of your spine. If your spine becomes stiff, there is a relationship between a stiff spine and incorrect movement of the hips, which then comes back to the stride length and it will shorten the stride, which is then related to cognitive decline. So the whole body and how we walk can be really beneficial. So we don't want to walk like that, we just want to have beautiful, graceful arms.

Michele Folan:

Okay, and I worked on that too. So, just so you know I am working on this. I work in progress. This is more of a personal question. What is one of your own personal self-care? Non-negotiables, something that keeps you grounded and energized every day?

Joanna Hall:

So I really like this question. I also think it's a tricky question. And I think it's a tricky question because you and I and fellow health professionals, we do what we do because we're driven by passion and sometimes there is a trade-off that we kind of we give so much. But it's where do we find that kind of balance to make sure there is who's looking after the health professional, who's looking after, you know, the person, who's feeding our energy and vitality? And this is something that I will say I wrangle with, you know, and I think it's sometimes very easy.

Joanna Hall:

When we listen to health professionals and think, oh, you know, it's easy, they've got the mindset, it's easy for them, the first thing I would say is it's not easy, I have to kind of wrangle with it. But I know that the pain of not taking some of these simple things for myself is bigger than the joy I get out of it. Okay, so what I mean by that is, if I find myself not taking that self-care, I can get overtired. I find I get a bit ratty, I'm not very good about putting things in perspective and everything kind of comes crashing down. So I know that's a kind of a pain point for me and I'm better to like okay, I really need to invest in my self-care because I'm I find that a stronger motivator to move away from that pain, rather maybe like oh, the joy of getting up and doing it every day, because I do enjoy it, without a doubt. But what I'm trying to say is it's it, and I hope this resonates people. It's not always simple, okay, it's not always like, yeah, easy, I'm doing really easily. So one of my non-negotiables is every morning I do start with an element of positivity and I have this little kind of battered up book in fact I'll show you I've got it here. Look how battered this is like it's a mess, it's a mess, it's a mess and it's sort of a promise of a new day and it's like every day this is like a little. There's a positive quote, a little bit of paragraph and explanation and then a takeaway message and I tend to get up in the morning.

Joanna Hall:

My utopia would be get up in the morning.

Joanna Hall:

I put the kettle on, I get my cafeteria of coffee, I have a glass of hot water, I bring it upstairs, I pull back the curtains, I do a bit of fascial mobility, which takes like three minutes, and have a bit of a nosy about what's going on the neighborhood, because you know, we all like to be a bit nosy.

Joanna Hall:

That's all cool and see the light, and then the cafeteria is ready, and then I'll pour myself some cafeteria hopefully I would have done some mobility, uh, which just makes me feel good, and then I will sit down and I will have a little bit of positivity. Yeah, and I really just I just sit quietly and I just think about what is it telling me? And it's amazing, like sometimes I read it and it's like, oh, my god, I really needed to hear that today. Other times it's like, oh, that's good. But yeah, I think that's probably the most consistent thing and I think that positivity for me frames my outlook, it changes my narrative in my head, it shifts my perspective and my outlook and it creates a floodgate of energy for, hopefully, other things that are positive for my wellbeing and for my loved ones.

Michele Folan:

Okay. So what you just said really resonated. And again, this is something that I think gets missed so often is that if women don't take that time for them whether it's fitness, whether it's some mindset work, whether it's just simply being out in the sunshine in the morning, it's just simply being out in the sunshine in the morning that if we don't show up for ourselves, it is super difficult to show up for those around us. So it's not just your family, it's your clients and your business associates and all those other responsibilities that you have. Show up for yourself first, so that you can impact the people around you.

Joanna Hall:

Yeah, so right, and it's not easy. You have to kind of carve out what feels right for you. So I really appreciate you asking me that question, but I don't want people to think that I've got it sorted. I do seek out light, I do seek out being in the fresh air, but I find it doesn't need to be like an hour and a half of self-care. I can kind of get it down to even just like five minutes. But that's my time, you know. I just it has to be good coffee.

Joanna Hall:

You know, it's the three things it's positivity, it's posture and it's coffee. It may not always be in that order, but it's those three things. Okay, and let's keep it real. But for me that kind of creates a framework that allows me to rest and play and be easy and to show up for myself and hopefully show up for my loved ones and to show up for clients and business and conversations like this. Yeah, and be authentic. Because it is about being authentic. It's easy to try to maybe share things that people want to hear, and especially in today's society when it's we're very outcome orientated but to to try to be, you know, authentic and actually not be perfect when, especially as women, we often have that we've got to do things perfectly mindset, which can be quite corrosive and erosive.

Michele Folan:

Thank you for saying that my pleasure. Yeah, because it is what. What people see is not always the reality. And yeah, I think we need to give ourselves a break sometimes. Joanna, what resources or tools do you provide for someone brand new to walk active, because I want to talk a little bit about the app and what people can expect to find there.

Joanna Hall:

Oh, thank you. So we have, within our learning portal, on our app, we have our learn the walk active method. Now this would be. If anybody's thinking, oh, I'm interested, I'd like to learn the walk active, this is where I would roam up. This is the place to start.

Joanna Hall:

It's a 14 day program and I ask you to walk three times a day for 10 minutes just 10 minutes. But each day has a particular focus and you watch a little educational video, no more than 10 minutes, and then every alternate day, I'm your walkout coach in your ear guiding you through. So we layer on the different parts of the walkout technique to improve your posture, reduce your joint strain and to help you walk better and over the week. So week one is all about the posture and technique, and then week two, we actually start to look at pace and what does the brisk pace mean? And then we have some walk to the beat sessions where you walk to different music beats and I'm your coach and it's like really lifts your spirits and then you can find the pace that is right for you to really improve your walking fitness. So that really gives you the building blocks to the walk active method and that's yours for life. That's the one off price. It's yours for life.

Joanna Hall:

But we also support that as soon as you start to buy any of our programs or come to our live events.

Joanna Hall:

We also support that with our weekly community live coaching, which is all part of supporting people, and we also have our walk with walk active with Joanna posture and pace classes. So you tune in wherever you are. It's a live stream class and we walk active together and I teach you in real time. It's raw, it's authentic, but it's just a great way to really help build walk active into your daily life as you learn it and wherever you want to follow it with various programs. So our learn the walk active method is our where to start and then, once you've done that, you can actually maybe follow our walk to wow, which is focusing on our core. That's our six week program. And then we also have a six-week program called Stroll to Stride 5K, which is about our cardiovascular fitness and that's actually the program that we're running in New York and doing a really interesting study with the cardiologist unit in New York looking at inflammation and the walk-active method and how beneficial it is for managing inflammation.

Michele Folan:

Oh, this is wonderful. That's right up my alley too.

Joanna Hall:

Yeah.

Michele Folan:

Oh, that's awesome and I think you know what. As a side benefit of this, you're building community and I love that. All right, Joanna Hall. One last question when can listeners learn more about the WalkA ctive method and find you? Oh, thank you so much.

Joanna Hall:

So we are on Instagram and Facebook, but the main protocol really is our website, which is walkactivecom, and you can have a little hyphen between the walk and active. That would be great. So you can find all information there about our online courses, our private personal mentoring, as well as, obviously, the learn the walk active method. But what we would love also, michelle, um, is that we have a free resource which is going to be exclusive for you guys, um. So if you just put walkoutcom and then put backslash michelle, there is a free, actual walk active webinar. So all the things that maybe I've spoken about, people will be able to see kind of visually and kind of put that in context as well. So the post-it note, some tips to put it in practice so you can really feel that difference in one session. So if you go to our website so it's walkactivecom, backslash Michele, it is there, and if you can't find it, just send us an email. It is there and we will send that to you.

Michele Folan:

Perfect, and I will put all that in the show notes. Joanna Hall, this was a lot of fun. Thank you for being here today.

Joanna Hall:

Oh, michelle, thank you so much. I've really really enjoyed our conversation and thank you so much for having me on your wonderful podcast. I really appreciate it.

Michele Folan:

Hey, thanks for tuning in. Please rate and review the show where you listen to the podcast. And did you know that Asking for a Friend is available now to listen on YouTube? You can subscribe to the podcast there as well. Your support is appreciated and it helps others find the show. Thank you.