You know it from walks, or from someone in your family: after a few hundred metres the calves start to hurt, the person stops, rests and walks on. With peripheral arterial disease, PAD, that is the typical picture. The gold standard is a supervised exercise programme, but it is not available everywhere. What if you live far from an exercise centre?
What the 2025 meta-analysis found
The authors pooled 8 studies with 508 patients and looked at how Nordic Walking does against supervised exercise.
- In the maximum walking distance, supervised Nordic Walking did not differ from supervised exercise.
- Neither did it in the distance to the first pain.
- In the time people kept exercising, supervised training was better (SMD −0.41). That is a moderate difference.
The authors conclude that Nordic Walking is a usable option when supervised training is not available.
How to read it
Nordic Walking does not win here, but it does not have to. For someone who lives far from an exercise centre, “almost as good at home” is a big thing. The point is that exercise happens at all, and regularly. Walking with poles can be done in front of your house, in a park, on your way, and it needs no equipment other than the poles.
It is also interesting that people in the supervised groups kept exercising for longer. Having someone lead and watch over you evidently plays a role. If you walk with poles alone, try to find a group or a friend. People who exercise with someone usually do not give up so easily.
What we do not know yet
Two further studies did not make it into the calculation because their comparison groups were different, so their results could not be added to the others. More studies and longer follow-up would be good to have.
Do you know that pain in the calves, and do you walk with poles? Tell us in the forum how walking is going and what helps you.
In case the “SMD −0.41” means nothing to you: it is a standardised mean difference, a number that lets you compare studies that measured a little differently. Values around 0.2 are usually considered a small difference, around 0.5 a moderate one and around 0.8 a large one. Our −0.41 lies between small and moderate, and the minus means that supervised training was better. No huge gap, but not negligible either.
What to take away
With leg pain when walking, poles may help you go farther than you would without them. It is a fallback route, not a miracle: pain is a signal and worth taking to someone who can judge it. Poles may be only part of the answer.
Do you know the feeling of having to stop at a shop window even though you do not want to? Tell us whether poles lengthened your walk.
Text: Kompas.
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