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103-643: Walking is used in the United Kingdom to describe a range of activity, from a walk in the park to trekking in the Alps . The word " hiking " is used in the UK, but less often than walking; the word rambling (akin to roam ) is also used, and the main organisation that supports walking is called The Ramblers . Walking in mountainous areas in the UK is called hillwalking , or in Northern England , including

206-499: A bivvy bag or bothy bag in case an accident forces a prolonged, and possibly overnight halt. Other important items carried by hillwalkers are: food and water, an emergency whistle , torch/flashlight (and spare batteries), and first aid kit. And, where reception permits, a fully charged mobile phone is recommended. Hillwalkers are also advised to let someone know their route and estimated time of return or arrival. W. A. Poucher (1891–1988) wrote several hillwalking guide books, in

309-664: A mass trespass on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire. However, the Mountain Access Bill that was passed in 1939 was opposed by many walkers, including the organisation The Ramblers , who felt that it did not sufficiently protect their rights, and it was eventually repealed. The effort to improve access led after World War II to the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 , and in 1951 to

412-484: A sustainable mode of transport , especially suited for urban use and/or relatively shorter distances. Non-motorized transport modes such as walking, but also cycling , small-wheeled transport (skates, skateboards, push scooters and hand carts) or wheelchair travel are often key elements of successfully encouraging clean urban transport. A large variety of case studies and good practices (from European cities and some worldwide examples) that promote and stimulate walking as

515-731: A treadmill , or in a gym, and fitness walkers and others may use a pedometer to count their steps. Hiking is the usual word used in Canada, the United States and South Africa for long vigorous walks; similar walks are called tramps in New Zealand, or hill walking or just walking in Australia, the UK and the Irish Republic . In the UK, rambling is also used. Australians also bushwalk. In English-speaking parts of North America,

618-538: A group or individual. Well-organized systems of trails exist in many other European counties, as well as Canada, United States, New Zealand, and Nepal . Systems of lengthy waymarked walking trails now stretch across Europe from Norway to Turkey , Portugal to Cyprus . Many also walk the traditional pilgrim routes , of which the most famous is El Camino de Santiago , The Way of St. James . Numerous walking festivals and other walking events take place each year in many countries. The world's largest multi-day walking event

721-554: A journey subsequently recorded in his long autobiographical poem The Prelude (1850). His famous poem Tintern Abbey was inspired by a visit to the Wye Valley made during a walking tour of Wales in 1798 with his sister Dorothy Wordsworth . Wordsworth's friend Coleridge was another keen walker and in the autumn of 1799, he and Wordsworth undertook a three weeks tour of the Lake District. John Keats , who belonged to

824-554: A map is also needed, and a compass may sometimes be needed on high moorland . There are usually places to camp on an extended trip, but accommodation of various kinds is available on many routes. However, occasionally paths are distant from settlements, so that camping is necessary. Water is not available on high downland paths, like the Ridgeway , though taps have been provided at some spots. Fifteen paths in England and Wales have

927-467: A means of transportation in cities can be found at Eltis , Europe's portal for local transport. The development of specific rights of way with appropriate infrastructure can promote increased participation and enjoyment of walking. Examples of types of investment include pedestrian malls , and foreshoreways such as oceanways and also river walks. The first purpose-built pedestrian street in Europe

1030-443: A measure of the degree to which an area is friendly to walking. Some communities are at least partially car-free , making them particularly supportive of walking and other modes of transportation. In the United States, the active living network is an example of a concerted effort to develop communities more friendly to walking and other physical activities. An example of such efforts to make urban development more pedestrian friendly

1133-428: A metachronal wave gait, tetrapod gait, or tripod gait. In a metachronal wave gait, only one leg leaves contact with the ground at a time. This gait starts at one of the hind legs, then propagates forward to the mid and front legs on the same side before starting at the hind leg of the contralateral side. The wave gait is often used at slow walking speeds and is the most stable, since five legs are always in contact with

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1236-444: A professional guide, or are self-guided; in these commercially organised tours, luggage is often transported between accommodation stops. In England and Wales the public has a legally protected right to "pass and repass" (i.e. walk) on footpaths , bridleways and other routes which have the status of a public right of way . Footpaths typically pass over private land, but if they are public rights of way they are public highways with

1339-580: A reciprocal responsibility to respect the interests of those who exercise their rights. The Scottish Outdoor Access Code provides detailed guidance on these responsibilities. Responsible access can be enjoyed over the majority of land in Scotland, including all uncultivated land such as hills, mountains, moorland, woods and forests. Access rights also apply to fields in which crops have not been sown or in which there are farm animals grazing; where crops are growing or have been sown access rights are restricted to

1442-469: A recreation in the mainly urban modern world, and it is one of the best forms of exercise . For some, walking is a way to enjoy nature and the outdoors; and for others the physical, sporting and endurance aspect is more important. There are a variety of different kinds of walking, including bushwalking , racewalking , beach walking, hillwalking , volksmarching , Nordic walking , trekking , dog walking and hiking . Some people prefer to walk indoors on

1545-399: A regular 1-2-3-4 beat. At the walk, the horse will always have one foot raised and the other three feet on the ground, save for a brief moment when weight is being transferred from one foot to another. A horse moves its head and neck in a slight up and down motion that helps maintain balance. Ideally, the advancing rear hoof oversteps the spot where the previously advancing front hoof touched

1648-578: A relationship between the speed of walking and health, and that the best results are obtained with a speed of more than 2.5 mph (4.0 km/h). A 2023 study by the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology , the largest study to date, found that walking at least 2,337 steps a day reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases , and that 3,967 steps a day reduced the risk of dying from any cause. Benefits continued to increase with more steps. James Leiper, associate medical director at

1751-643: A robot that can jump three inches off the ground. The robot, named Ropid , is capable of getting up, walking, running, and jumping. Many other robots have also been able to walk over the years like a bipedal walking robot. Multiple mathematical models have been proposed to reproduce the kinematics observed in walking. These may be broadly broken down into four categories: rule-based models based on mechanical considerations and past literature, weakly coupled phase oscillators models, control-based models which guide simulations to maximize some property of locomotion, and phenomenological models which fit equations directly to

1854-680: A rope, such as the traverse of the Cuillin ridge, on the Scottish island of Skye . The British Mountaineering Council provides more information on this topic. Navigation and map-reading are essential hillwalking skills on high ground and mountains, due to the variability of British and Irish weather and the risk of rain, low cloud, fog or the onset of darkness. In some areas it is common for there to be no waymarked path to follow. In most areas walking boots are essential along with weatherproof clothing, spare warm clothes, and in mountainous areas

1957-576: A set of weakly coupled phase oscillators , so another line of research has been exploring this view of walking. Each oscillator may model a muscle, joint angle, or even a whole leg, and is coupled to some set of other oscillators. Often, these oscillators are thought to represent the central pattern generators underlying walking. These models have rich theory behind them, allow for some extensions based on sensory feedback, and can be fit to kinematics. However, they need to be heavily constrained to fit to data and by themselves make no claims on which gaits allow

2060-481: A single origin, arthropods and their relatives are thought to have independently evolved walking several times, specifically in hexapods , myriapods , chelicerates , tardigrades , onychophorans , and crustaceans . Little skates , members of the demersal fish community, can propel themselves by pushing off the ocean floor with their pelvic fins, using neural mechanisms which evolved as early as 420 million years ago, before vertebrates set foot on land. Data in

2163-679: A specific cause. These walks range in length from two miles (3 km) or five km to 50 miles (80 km). The MS Challenge Walk is an 80 km or 50-mile walk which raises money to fight multiple sclerosis , while walkers in the Oxfam Trailwalker cover 100 km or 60 miles. In Britain, The Ramblers , a registered charity , is the largest organisation that looks after the interests of walkers, with some 100,000 members. Its "Get Walking Keep Walking" project provides free route guides, led walks, as well as information for people new to walking. The Long Distance Walkers Association in

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2266-836: A specified time. Many are organised as annual events, with hundreds of participants. In May and June, with longer daylight hours, challenge walks may be 40 or more miles. A few are overnight events, covering distances up to 100 miles. Well-known challenge walks include the Lyke Wake Walk and the Three Peaks Challenge in Yorkshire, and the Three Towers Hike in Berkshire. See also Long Distance Walkers Association . There are also some challenge walks aimed at children, young adults and youth groups such as

2369-620: A top speed of 18 km/h (11 mph). At this speed, most other quadrupeds are well into a gallop, even accounting for leg length. Walking fish (or ambulatory fish) are fish that are able to travel over land for extended periods of time. The term may also be used for some other cases of nonstandard fish locomotion , e.g., when describing fish "walking" along the sea floor , as the handfish or frogfish . Insects must carefully coordinate their six legs during walking to produce gaits that allow for efficient navigation of their environment. Interleg coordination patterns have been studied in

2472-401: A variety of insects, including locusts ( Schistocerca gregaria ), cockroaches ( Periplaneta americana ), stick insects ( Carausius morosus ), and fruit flies ( Drosophila melanogaster ). Different walking gaits have been observed to exist on a speed dependent continuum of phase relationships. Even though their walking gaits are not discrete, they can often be broadly categorized as either

2575-442: A week lowered their mortality rate from all causes by 39 percent. Women who took 4,500 steps to 7,500 steps a day seemed to have fewer premature deaths compared to those who only took 2,700 steps a day. "Walking lengthened the life of people with diabetes regardless of age, sex, race, body mass index, length of time since diagnosis and presence of complications or functional limitations." One limited study found preliminary evidence of

2678-682: Is a word used specifically to refer to hill or mountain walking in Northern England , including the Lake District, Lancashire, especially the Forest of Bowland , and the Yorkshire Dales , where fell is a dialect word for high, uncultivated land. Popular locations for hillwalking include the Lake District, the Peak District , the Yorkshire Dales , Snowdonia , the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains , Wales, Dartmoor and

2781-425: Is about 5.0 kilometres per hour (km/h), or about 1.4 meters per second (m/s), or about 3.1 miles per hour (mph). Specific studies have found pedestrian walking speeds at crosswalks ranging from 4.51 to 4.75 km/h (2.80 to 2.95 mph) for older individuals and from 5.32 to 5.43 km/h (3.31 to 3.37 mph) for younger individuals; a brisk walking speed can be around 6.5 km/h (4.0 mph). In Japan,

2884-402: Is because the impact of landing from the ballistic phase is absorbed by bending the leg and consequently storing energy in muscles and tendons . In running there is a conversion between kinetic, potential, and elastic energy . There is an absolute limit on an individual's speed of walking (without special techniques such as those employed in speed walking ) due to the upwards acceleration of

2987-590: Is descended from the Old English wealcan 'to roll'. In humans and other bipeds , walking is generally distinguished from running in that only one foot at a time leaves contact with the ground and there is a period of double-support. In contrast, running begins when both feet are off the ground with each step. This distinction has the status of a formal requirement in competitive walking events. For quadrupedal species, there are numerous gaits which may be termed walking or running, and distinctions based upon

3090-422: Is incomplete. Running humans and animals may have contact periods greater than 50% of a gait cycle when rounding corners, running uphill or carrying loads. Speed is another factor that distinguishes walking from running. Although walking speeds can vary greatly depending on many factors such as height, weight, age, terrain, surface, load, culture, effort, and fitness, the average human walking speed at crosswalks

3193-491: Is more restricted than other parts of the UK, so that in many areas walkers can only enjoy the countryside because of the goodwill and tolerance of landowners. Permission has been obtained from all landowners across whose land the Waymarked Ways and Ulster Way traverse. Much of Northern Ireland's public land is accessible, e.g. Water Service and Forest Service land, as is land owned and managed by organisations such as

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3296-572: Is one of the largest and oldest: It was converted from car traffic into pedestrian zone in 1962. Generally, the first successful walking robots had six legs. As microprocessor technology advanced, the number of legs could be reduced and there are now robots that can walk on two legs. One, for example, is ASIMO . Although there has been significant advances, robots still do not walk nearly as well as human beings as they often need to keep their knees bent permanently in order to improve stability. In 2009, Japanese roboticist Tomotaka Takahashi developed

3399-517: Is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined as an " inverted pendulum " gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step. This applies regardless of the usable number of limbs—even arthropods , with six, eight, or more limbs, walk. In humans, walking has health benefits including improved mental health and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and death. The word walk

3502-444: Is potentially one of the most dangerous of mountaineering activities, and most guidebooks advise carrying a rope, especially on harder scrambles, which may be used for security on exposed sections, to assist less confident members of the party, or to facilitate retreat in case of difficulty. Scramblers need to know their limits and to turn back before getting into difficulties. Many easy scrambles in good weather become serious climbs if

3605-691: Is the International Four Days Marches Nijmegen in the Netherlands . The "Vierdaagse" (Dutch for "Four day Event") is an annual walk that has taken place since 1909; it has been based at Nijmegen since 1916. Depending on age group and category, walkers have to walk 30, 40 or 50 kilometers each day for four days. Originally a military event with a few civilians, it now is a mainly civilian event. Numbers have risen in recent years, with over 40,000 now taking part, including about 5,000 military personnel. Due to crowds on

3708-636: Is the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam , opened in 1953. The first pedestrianised shopping centre in the United Kingdom was in Stevenage in 1959. A large number of European towns and cities have made part of their centres car-free since the early 1960s. These are often accompanied by car parks on the edge of the pedestrianised zone, and, in the larger cases, park and ride schemes. Central Copenhagen

3811-453: Is the pedestrian village . This is a compact, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood or town, with a mixed-use village center, that follows the tenets of New Pedestrianism. Shared-use lanes for pedestrians and those using bicycles , Segways , wheelchairs , and other small rolling conveyances that do not use internal combustion engines . Generally, these lanes are in front of the houses and businesses, and streets for motor vehicles are always at

3914-526: Is then at a minimum. This distinction, however, only holds true for locomotion over level or approximately level ground. For walking up grades above 10%, this distinction no longer holds for some individuals. Definitions based on the percentage of the stride during which a foot is in contact with the ground (averaged across all feet) of greater than 50% contact corresponds well with identification of 'inverted pendulum' mechanics and are indicative of walking for animals with any number of limbs, however this definition

4017-529: The British Heart Foundation , said that if the benefits of walking could be sold as a medicine "we would be hailing it as a wonder drug". It is theorized that "walking" among tetrapods originated underwater with air-breathing fish that could "walk" underwater, giving rise (potentially with vertebrates like Tiktaalik ) to the plethora of land-dwelling life that walk on four or two limbs. While terrestrial tetrapods are theorised to have

4120-421: The British Heart Foundation . WfH trains volunteers to lead free health walks from community venues such as libraries and GP surgeries. The scheme has trained more than 35,000 volunteers and there are more than 500 Walking for Health schemes across the UK, with thousands of people walking every week. The government agency responsible for promoting access to the countryside in England is Natural England . In Wales

4223-517: The Chase Walk . In the UK the health benefits of walking are widely recognised. In 1995 Dr William Bird , a general practitioner, started the concept of "health walks" for his patients—regular, brisk walks undertaken to improve an individual's health. This led to the formation of the Walking for Health Initiative (WfH, formerly known as 'Walking the way to Health' or WHI) by Natural England and

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4326-555: The Countryside Commission , one of the first being that for the Pennine Way by Tom Stephenson in the 1960s. Walks or hikes undertaken in upland country, moorland , and mountains, especially when they include climbing a summit are sometimes described as hillwalking or fellwalking in the United Kingdom. Though hillwalking can entail scrambling to reach a mountain summit, it is not mountaineering . Fellwalking

4429-551: The Lake District and Yorkshire Dales , fellwalking, from the dialect word fell for high, uncultivated land. Mountain walking can sometimes involve scrambling . The idea of undertaking a walk through the countryside for pleasure developed in the 18th century, and arose because of changing attitudes to the landscape and nature, associated with the Romantic movement . In earlier times walking generally indicated poverty and

4532-679: The National Trust and the Woodland Trust . Northern Ireland shares the same legal system as England, including concepts about the ownership of land and public rights of way, but it has its own court structure, system of precedents and specific access legislation. Long-distance paths are created by linking public footpaths, other rights of way, and sometimes permissive paths, to form a continuous walking route. They are usually waymarked and guidebooks are available for most long-distance paths. Paths are generally well signposted, although

4635-490: The Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It has some similarities with backpacking , trekking , and also tramping in New Zealand, though it need not take place in remote places. In the late 20th century, with the proliferation of official and unofficial long-distance walking routes, some walkers now are more likely to follow a designated long-distance route than to plan their own route. Walking tours are also organised by commercial companies, and can have

4738-657: The Scottish Highlands . The mountains in Britain are modest in height, with Ben Nevis at 4,409 feet (1,344 m) the highest, but the unpredictably wide range of weather conditions, and often difficult terrain, can make walking in many areas challenging. Peak bagging provides a focus for the activities of many hillwalkers. The first of the many hill lists compiled for this purpose was the Munros —mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet (910 m)—which remains one of

4841-678: The Scottish Youth Hostels Association , and the Mountain Bothies Association . London Living Streets is a charity "dedicated to making London one of the world's best cities for walking and enjoying streets and public spaces—a city that is genuinely inclusive of all its residents, workers and visitors and not just designed for car users". It has created Footways , a network of quiet and interesting streets for walking in central London. Walking Walking (also known as ambulation )

4944-400: The mass trespass of Kinder Scout had a far-reaching impact. The 1949 Countryside Act created the concept of designated Open Country , where access agreements were negotiated with landowners. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gave walkers a conditional right to access most areas of uncultivated land. In Scotland there is a traditional presumption of universal access to land. This

5047-469: The 1920s saw a steady reduction in the working hours of the British worker as well as a rise in real wages and a decreasing cost of travel. In the early 1930s, a rise in unemployment led to more leisure time, leading to a surge in walking known as a "hiking craze". There was also a high level of media coverage which, according to Ann Holt, was comparable to modern media hype. Frank Trentmann has suggested that

5150-425: The 1960s, which describe, in detail, the various routes up specific mountains, along with the precautions needed and other practical information useful to walkers. The guides cover Wales, Peak District , Scotland, Isle of Skye and the Lake District. Even more detailed guides were written by Alfred Wainwright (1907–1991) but these are mainly restricted to the Lake District and environs. His main series of seven books

5253-596: The Federation of Rambling Clubs, was formed in London in 1905 and was heavily patronised by the peerage . In the 1930s, walking reached new levels of popularity as a pastime: on any weekend some ten thousand ramblers could be expected on the moors of the Peak District, while in the country at large there were over half a million ramblers. A convergence of economic factors played their part in this boom in numbers:

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5356-578: The Lake District, as well as numerous routes in Scotland such as the Aonach Eagach ridge in Glencoe . Many such routes include a "bad step" where the scrambling suddenly becomes much more serious. In Britain, the term "mountaineering" tends to be reserved for technical climbing on mountains, or for serious domestic hillwalking, especially in winter, with additional equipment such as ice axe and crampons, or for routes requiring rock-climbing skills and

5459-597: The Ramblers launched their "Putting London on the Map" in 2010 with the aim of getting "the same legal protection for paths in the capital as already exists for footpaths elsewhere in England and Wales. Currently, legislation allows the Inner London boroughs to choose to produce definitive maps if they wish, but none do so". Walkers long campaigned for the right to roam , or access privately owned uncultivated land. In 1932

5562-519: The UK is for the more energetic walker, and organizes lengthy challenge hikes of 20 or even 50 miles (30 to 80 km) or more in a day. The LDWA's annual "Hundred" event, entailing walking 100 miles or 160 km in 48 hours, takes place each British Spring Bank Holiday weekend. There has been a recent focus among urban planners in some communities to create pedestrian-friendly areas and roads, allowing commuting , shopping and recreation to be done on foot. The concept of walkability has arisen as

5665-438: The UK. The Scottish Mountaineering Club are, through the experience and knowledge of their members, the largest publishers of guidebooks to climbing and walking in Scotland. Walking is a popular recreational activity in London, despite traffic congestion. There are many areas that provide space for interesting walks, including commons, parks, canals, and disused railway tracks. This includes Wimbledon Common , Hampstead Heath ,

5768-415: The animal to move faster, more robustly, or more efficiently. Control-based models start with a simulation based on some description of the animal's anatomy and optimize control parameters to generate some behavior. These may be based on a musculoskeletal model, skeletal model, or even simply a ball and stick model. As these models generate locomotion by optimizing some metric, they can be used to explore

5871-413: The body. In walking the body "vaults" over the leg on the ground, raising the centre of mass to its highest point as the leg passes the vertical, and dropping it to the lowest as the legs are spread apart. Essentially kinetic energy of forward motion is constantly being traded for a rise in potential energy . This is reversed in running where the centre of mass is at its lowest as the leg is vertical. This

5974-605: The centre of mass during a stride – if it is greater than the acceleration due to gravity the person will become airborne as they vault over the leg on the ground. Typically, however, animals switch to a run at a lower speed than this due to energy efficiencies. Based on the 2D inverted pendulum model of walking, there are at least five physical constraints that place fundamental limits on walking like an inverted pendulum. These constraints are: take-off constraint, sliding constraint, fall-back constraint, steady-state constraint, high step-frequency constraint. Many people enjoy walking as

6077-670: The comparable body is the Countryside Council for Wales , and in Scotland Scottish Natural Heritage . The Ramblers (Britain's Walking Charity) promotes the interests of walkers in Great Britain and provides information for its members and others. Local Ramblers volunteers organise hundreds of group-led walks every week, all across Britain. These are primarily for members; non-members are welcomed as guests for two or three walks. Among

6180-490: The confines of the city by rambling about in the countryside. However, the land in England, particularly around the urban areas of Manchester and Sheffield , was privately owned and trespass was illegal. Rambling clubs soon sprang up in the north and began politically campaigning for the legal ' right to roam '. One of the first such clubs, was 'Sunday Tramps' founded by Sir Frederick Pollock , George Croom Robertson and Leslie Stephen in 1879. The first national grouping,

6283-429: The courts have been asked to intervene. In Gloag v. Perth and Kinross Council the sheriff allowed about 5.7 hectares (14 acres) surrounding Kinfauns Castle , a property belonging to Ann Gloag , to be excluded from access rights. In Snowie v Stirling Council and the Ramblers' Association the courts allowed about 5.3 hectares (13 acres) to be excluded, but refused permission for a wider area to be excluded and required

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6386-537: The creation of the first national park in the UK, the Peak District National Park . The establishment of this and similar national parks helped to improve access for all outdoors enthusiasts. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 considerably extended the right to roam in England and Wales. A walking tour is an extended walk in the countryside, undertaken by an individual or group and lasting several days. Walking tours have their origin in

6489-414: The dominant means of locomotion among early hominins because of the energy saved. Human walking is accomplished with a strategy called the double pendulum . During forward motion, the leg that leaves the ground swings forward from the hip. This sweep is the first pendulum. Then the leg strikes the ground with the heel and rolls through to the toe in a motion described as an inverted pendulum. The motion of

6592-604: The eight Royal Parks , Hampton Court Park and Epping Forest . In recent years access to canals and rivers, including the Regent's Canal , and the River Thames has been greatly improved, and as well a number of long-distance walking routes have been created that link green spaces. The following are some of long-distance routes in London: Challenge walks are strenuous walks by a defined route to be completed in

6695-604: The energy costs for bipedal and quadrupedal walking varied significantly, and those that flexed their knees and hips to a greater degree and took a more upright posture, closer to that of humans, were able to save more energy than chimpanzees that did not take this stance. Further, compared to other apes, humans have longer legs and short dorsally oriented ischia (hipbone), which result in longer hamstring extensor moments, improving walking energy economy. Longer legs also support lengthened Achilles tendons which are thought to increase energy efficiency in bipedal locomotor activities. It

6798-610: The energy required for travel compared to true quadrupeds. In 2007, a study further explored the origin of human bipedalism , using chimpanzee and human energetic costs of locomotion. They found that the energy spent in moving the human body is less than what would be expected for an animal of similar size and approximately seventy-five percent less costly than that of chimpanzees. Chimpanzee quadrupedal and bipedal energy costs are found to be relatively equal, with chimpanzee bipedalism costing roughly ten percent more than quadrupedal. The same 2007 study found that among chimpanzee individuals,

6901-414: The energy used by utilizing gravity in forward motion. Walking differs from a running gait in a number of ways. The most obvious is that during walking one leg always stays on the ground while the other is swinging. In running there is typically a ballistic phase where the runner is airborne with both feet in the air (for bipedals). Another difference concerns the movement of the centre of mass of

7004-460: The fossil record indicate that among hominin ancestors, bipedal walking was one of the first defining characteristics to emerge, predating other defining characteristics of Hominidae . Judging from footprints discovered on a former shore in Kenya, it is thought possible that ancestors of modern humans were walking in ways very similar to the present activity as long as 3 million years ago. Today,

7107-405: The ground at a time. In a tetrapod gait, two legs swing at a time while the other four legs remain in contact with the ground. There are multiple configurations for tetrapod gaits, but the legs that swing together must be on contralateral sides of the body. Tetrapod gaits are typically used at medium speeds and are also very stable. A walking gait is considered tripod if three of the legs enter

7210-428: The ground. The more the rear hoof oversteps, the smoother and more comfortable the walk becomes. Individual horses and different breeds vary in the smoothness of their walk. However, a rider will almost always feel some degree of gentle side-to-side motion in the horse's hips as each hind leg reaches forward. The fastest "walks" with a four-beat footfall pattern are actually the lateral forms of ambling gaits such as

7313-457: The hands for extra support on the crags. It is an ambiguous term that lies somewhere between walking and rock climbing , and many easy climbs are sometimes referred to as difficult scrambles. A distinction can be made by defining any ascent as a climb, when hands are used to hold body weight, rather than just for balance. While much of the enjoyment of scrambling depends on the freedom from technical apparatus, unroped scrambling in exposed situations

7416-481: The kinematics. The rule-based models integrate the past literature on motor control to generate a few simple rules which are presumed to be responsible for walking (e.g. “loading of the left leg triggers unloading of right leg”). Such models are generally most strictly based on the past literature and when they are based on a few rules can be easy to interpret. However, the influence of each rule can be hard to interpret when these models become more complex. Furthermore,

7519-522: The landowner to keep the driveway unlocked to allow access. In addition to the general right of access the public also have the right to use any defined route over which the public has been able to pass unhindered for at least 20 years. However, local authorities are not required to maintain and signpost public rights of way as they are in England and Wales. Northern Ireland has very few public rights of way and access to land in Northern Ireland

7622-458: The legs act as pendulums, with the hips and shoulders rising and falling while the foot is planted on the ground. With no "aerial phase", the fast gait does not meet all the criteria of running, although the elephant uses its legs much like other running animals, with the hips and shoulders falling and then rising while the feet are on the ground. Fast-moving elephants appear to 'run' with their front legs, but 'walk' with their hind legs and can reach

7725-420: The margins of those fields. Access rights do not apply to land on which there is a building, plant or machinery. Where that building is a house or other dwelling (e.g. a static caravan ) the land surrounding it is also excluded in order to provide reasonable measures of privacy. The issue of how much land surrounding a building is required to provide "reasonable measures of privacy" has been the main issue on which

7828-478: The mind, improving memory skills, learning ability, concentration , mood, creativity, and abstract reasoning. Sustained walking sessions for a minimum period of thirty to sixty minutes a day, five days a week, with the correct walking posture may improve health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 's fact sheet on the "Relationship of Walking to Mortality Among U.S. Adults with Diabetes" states that those with diabetes who walked for two or more hours

7931-452: The most popular. The United Kingdom offers a wide variety of ascents, from gentle rolling lowland hills to some very exposed routes in the moorlands and mountains. The term climbing is used for the activity of tackling the more technically difficult ways of getting up hills involving rock climbing while hillwalking refers to relatively easier routes. However, many hillwalkers become proficient in scrambling , an activity involving use of

8034-467: The most realistic kinematic trajectories and thus have been explored for simulating walking for computer-based animation . However, the lack of underlying mechanism makes it hard to apply these models to study the biomechanical or neural properties of walking. The walk is a four-beat gait that averages about 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). When walking, a horse's legs follow this sequence: left hind leg, left front leg, right hind leg, right front leg, in

8137-689: The next generation of Romantic poets began, in June 1818, a walking tour of Scotland, Ireland, and the Lake District with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. More and more people undertook walking tours through the 19th century, of which the most famous is probably Robert Louis Stevenson 's journey through the Cévennes in France with a donkey, recorded in his Travels with a Donkey (1879). Stevenson also published in 1876 his famous essay "Walking Tours". The subgenre of travel writing produced many classics in

8240-831: The organisations that promote the interest of walkers are: the Ramblers Association , the British Mountaineering Council , the Mountaineering Council of Scotland , The Online Fellwalking Club, and the Long Distance Walkers Association , which assists users of long-distance trails and challenge walkers. Organisations which provide overnight accommodation for walkers include the Youth Hostels Association in England and Wales,

8343-407: The presence or absence of a suspended phase or the number of feet in contact any time do not yield mechanically correct classification. The most effective method to distinguish walking from running is to measure the height of a person's centre of mass using motion capture or a force plate at mid-stance. During walking, the centre of mass reaches a maximum height at mid-stance, while running, it

8446-521: The public does not have a legal right to walk, but where the landowner has granted permission for them to walk. Definitive maps of public rights of way have been compiled for all of England and Wales as a result of Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 , except the 12 Inner London boroughs which, along with the City of London , were not covered by the Act. To protect the existing rights of way in London

8549-465: The rear. Some pedestrian villages might be nearly car-free with cars either hidden below the buildings or on the periphery of the village. Venice, Italy is essentially a pedestrian village with canals. The canal district in Venice, California , on the other hand, combines the front lane/rear street approach with canals and walkways, or just walkways. Walking is also considered to be a clear example of

8652-435: The reduced use of muscle in walking, due to an upright posture which places ground reaction forces at the hip and knee. When walking bipedally, chimpanzees take a crouched stance with bent knees and hips, forcing the quadriceps muscles to perform extra work, which costs more energy. Comparing chimpanzee quadrupedal travel to that of true quadrupedal animals has indicated that chimpanzees expend one-hundred and fifty percent of

8755-561: The route, since 2004 the organizers have limited the number of participants. In the U.S., there is the annual Labor Day walk on Mackinac Bridge , Michigan , which draws over 60,000 participants; it is the largest single-day walking event; while the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk in Maryland draws over 50,000 participants each year. There are also various walks organised as charity events, with walkers sponsored for

8858-436: The running walk, singlefoot, and similar rapid but smooth intermediate speed gaits. If a horse begins to speed up and lose a regular four-beat cadence to its gait, the horse is no longer walking but is beginning to either trot or pace. Elephants can move both forwards and backwards, but cannot trot , jump , or gallop . They use only two gaits when moving on land, the walk and a faster gait similar to running. In walking,

8961-505: The same protection in law as other highways, such as trunk roads . Public rights of way originated in common law , but are now regulated by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 . These rights have occasionally resulted in conflicts between walkers and landowners. The rights and obligations of farmers who cultivate crops in fields crossed by public footpaths are now specified in the law. Walkers can also use permissive paths , where

9064-440: The space of optimal locomotion behaviors under some assumptions. However, they typically do not generate plausible hypotheses on the neural coding underlying the behaviors and are typically sensitive to modeling assumptions. Phenomenological models model the kinematics of walking directly by fitting a dynamical system , without postulating an underlying mechanism for how the kinematics are generated neurally. Such models can produce

9167-465: The standard measure for walking speed is 80 m/min (4.8 km/h). Champion racewalkers can average more than 14 km/h (8.7 mph) over a distance of 20 km (12 mi). An average human child achieves independent walking ability at around 11 months old. Regular, brisk exercise can improve confidence , stamina , energy , weight control and may reduce stress . Scientific studies have also shown that walking may be beneficial for

9270-436: The status of National Trails , which attract government financial support. Twenty-nine paths in Scotland have the similar status of Scotland's Great Trails . The first long-distance path was the Pennine Way , which was proposed by Tom Stephenson in 1935, and finally opened in 1965. Other paths include South Downs Way and Offa's Dyke Path . Major guides to these long-distance footpaths in Britain are provided by HMSO for

9373-459: The subsequent 20th century. An early American example of a book that describes an extended walking tour is naturalist John Muir 's A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916), a posthumous published account of a long botanising walk, undertaken in 1867. Due to industrialisation in England, people began to migrate to the cities where living standards were often cramped and unsanitary. They would escape

9476-534: The surge in walkers made it "the numerically strongest part of the new romanticism in interwar Britain". With these increasing numbers came increasingly strong demands for walkers rights. Access to Mountains bills , that would have legislated the public's right to roam across some private land, were periodically presented to Parliament from 1884 to 1932 without success. Mass rallies and trespasses were held in support of this cause, including an annual access to mountains demonstration at Winnats Pass and, most famously,

9579-401: The swing phase simultaneously, while the other three legs make contact with the ground. The middle leg of one side swings with the hind and front legs on the contralateral side. Tripod gaits are most commonly used at high speeds, though it can be used at lower speeds. The tripod gait is less stable than wave-like and tetrapod gaits, but it is theorized to be the most robust. This means that it

9682-460: The term walking is used for short walks, especially in towns and cities. Snow shoeing is walking in snow; a slightly different gait is required compared with regular walking. In terms of tourism, the possibilities range from guided walking tours in cities, to organized trekking holidays in the Himalayas . In the UK the term walking tour also refers to a multi-day walk or hike undertaken by

9785-523: The tour of the lakes, verified by his own repeated observations. To this end he included various "stations" or viewpoints around the lakes, from which tourists would be encouraged to appreciate the views in terms of their aesthetic qualities. Published in 1778 the book was a major success. Another famous early exponent of walking for pleasure was the English poet William Wordsworth . In 1790 he embarked on an extended tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany,

9888-425: The tuning of parameters is often done in an ad hoc way, revealing little intuition about why the system may be organized in this way. Finally, such models are typically based fully on sensory feedback, ignoring the effect of descending and rhythm generating neurons, which have been shown to be crucial in coordinating proper walking. Dynamical system theory shows that any network with cyclical dynamics may be modeled as

9991-450: The two legs is coordinated so that one foot or the other is always in contact with the ground. While walking, the muscles of the calf contract, raising the body's center of mass, while this muscle is contracted, potential energy is stored. Then gravity pulls the body forward and down onto the other leg and the potential energy is then transformed into kinetic energy . The process of human walking can save approximately sixty-five percent of

10094-537: The walking gait of humans is unique and differs significantly from bipedal or quadrupedal walking gaits of other primates, like chimpanzees. It is believed to have been selectively advantageous in hominin ancestors in the Miocene due to metabolic energy efficiency . Human walking has been found to be slightly more energy efficient than travel for a quadrupedal mammal of a similar size, like chimpanzees. The energy efficiency of human locomotion can be accounted for by

10197-469: The weather deteriorates. Black ice or verglas is a particular problem in cold weather, and mist or fog can disorientate scramblers very quickly. Many of the world's mountaintops may be reached by walking or scrambling up their least steep side. In Great Britain ridge routes which involve some scrambling are especially popular, including Crib Goch on Snowdon , the north ridge of Tryfan , Striding Edge on Helvellyn and Sharp Edge on Blencathra in

10300-453: Was also associated with vagrancy. Thomas West , an English priest, popularised the idea of walking for pleasure in his guide to the Lake District of 1778. In the introduction he wrote that he aimed to encourage the taste of visiting the lakes by furnishing the traveller with a Guide; and for that purpose, the writer has here collected and laid before him, all the select stations and points of view, noticed by those authors who have last made

10403-402: Was first published between 1955 and 1966. Both authors describe the major paths, their starting points and the peaks where they end, with important landmarks along each route. Neither are entirely comprehensive. More recently Mark Richards has written numerous walking guides, especially for the Lake District, for the publisher Cicerone Press , who are now the leading publisher of walking guides in

10506-472: Was formally codified into Scots law under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 , which grants everyone the right to be on most land and inland water for recreation, education, and going from place to place, providing they act responsibly. The basis of access rights in Scotland is one of shared responsibilities, in that those exercising such rights have to act responsibly, whilst landowners and managers have

10609-538: Was thought that hominins like Ardipithecus ramidus , which had a variety of both terrestrial and arboreal adaptions would not be as efficient walkers, however, with a small body mass A. ramidus had developed an energy efficient means of bipedal walking while still maintaining arboreal adaptations. Humans have long femoral necks , meaning that while walking, hip muscles do not require as much energy to flex while moving. These slight kinematic and anatomic differences demonstrate how bipedal walking may have developed as

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