More effective than cycling and running: why Ukrainians need Nordic walking

How to live well and happily? People in Scandinavian countries know the answer. No wonder the UN constantly recognizes the people of Finland as one of the happiest nations. And Denmark, Norway, and Sweden don't leave the leading positions on the list of the best countries for life. The Scandinavian lifestyle has recently attracted more and more attention. The mysterious words like hygge, lagom or fika are steadily entering the daily lives of people from around the world and become a symbol of balance, comfort, and a positive attitude to life.

What is Nordic walking?

Nordic walking became popular in the 1990s, but its very essence originated in remote ages when shepherds used sticks as support to ease walking in the mountains. Around the 1940s, skiers invented a way to train in the summer: hiking without skis, with only sticks in hand.

The actual boom of Nordic walking happened when the Finnish company released special walking sticks (Nordic)  in 1997 and later opened several points of training for athletic walking with sticks in the same year in Finland. The startup was a great success, and soon a new trend for improving health spread to other countries.