Walking backwards might 'look a little weird,' but it could be just the exercise you need

Janet Nevala has walked for exercise her whole life, but about 10 years ago she added a new element to her jaunts — walking backwards. 

"Every time I walk, I just do a little twirl and walk backwards for a bit, and I'll do it just a few times during my walk," said the 62-year-old nurse, who lives in Notre-Dame-du-Portage, Que. 

"People do kind of look at me. I've had a couple of smiles," she told The Current.

Nevala was on a normal forward-moving walk one day when her foot caught in a pothole and she fell. She wasn't hurt, but felt humiliated. When she later heard that backwards walking can help with balance, she started adding it to her routine — and found she liked the challenge. 

"I feel like I'm mastering something, so because I'm 62, I feel like … 'Gee, look at me!'" she said.

"The balance part is really important because I don't want to fall again."

Videos and tutorials about walking backwards have been popping up on social media recently, but biomechanist Janet Dufek has been studying this form of exercise for about 20 years.

"It had been somewhat trendy and hip many years ago, I'd say in the late 1980s, 1990s, and had gone dark for a bit. So it's the new fad that's being revisited," said Dufek, a professor of  kinesiology and nutrition sciences at the University of Nevada.

Back in the 1980s, Dufek was involved in the development of what became the elliptical trainer, and was instrumental in the exercise machine having both forward and reverse motion.

Dufek said she and her fellow researchers were convinced that backward motion had added benefits for strengthening muscles that normal forward motion did not. Her subsequent research into walking backwards has shown that there's less impact on the joints by using