DailySquashReport.com

Running On The Moon!
by Bob Hanscom

August 3, 2012 - When it comes to developing fitness for playing squash or for participating in whatever your chosen sport may be - or just trying to lose weight, there is not much doubt that running is the best way. Whether it’s on a treadmill or outdoors, running is best and burns more calories than an elliptical, which translates to more weight lost.

Running a 12-minute mile — a moderate pace — burns approximately 572 calories per hour for a 150-pound person. Running outdoors is even better for weight loss, because you burn more calories creating your own forward momentum instead of having a treadmill do it for you.

But what about the impact and stress on the body's knees, hips or back running causes, especially if you're going through rehab. What if you could train and "run on the moon," where you would experience only 17% of the force of gravity that you experience on Earth. That certainly would make a difference! Well...perhaps that possibility has become a realty - with the anti-gravity treadmill. Here it is!

Rather than feeling the impact of every step on the treadmill, this machine allows an athlete to take a load off...literally. Using NASA technology, he or she steps into a pressured-controlled chamber from the waist down. In a process called un-weighting, the machine is set at a percentage of the athlete's body weight—starting as low as 20 percent (ideal for someone rehabbing an injury)—before walking or jogging as normal.

To Gavin Noble, a specialized triathlete competing for Ireland at the 2012 Summer Olympics, who used the device in February to rehab a stress fracture in his shin, it's like "running on the moon."

"Being weightless was a little weird at first, but then it became fun," said Noble. More than that, it sped up his recovery. "I was on it every other day for up to 60 minutes at a time for two weeks." Normally, that injury would sideline you, but by relieving the pounding on joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles, he could continue to train as he healed.

Team USA's marathoner Kara Goucher and basketball star Candace Parker, also likes to defy gravity. "I started using it two years ago after experiencing a great deal of swelling in my knees," says Parker. "It allows me to do a high-level cardiovascular workout without it taking a toll on my body."

So all...the next time you want to do some serious training by running - or having to rehab an injury, perhaps you would want to consider finding out where YOU could experience "Running on the moon!