Hi, all!
Scott, love the dogs!
I have a question, if anyone has a chance to help me with this: how do I get my body to walk *faster*? I know I'm supposed to be working on distance right now since this is only week three, but I'm frustrated that it takes me so long to walk. I can't do my 4.5 mile walk today on the treadmill because I walk too slowly and my gym has a one hour limit on the TM (and, I hate it).
I checked--my mall is just over half a mile for a complete loop--the idea of doing that many laps to build up serious mileage is discouraging--they only give an hour on Sunday morning and it seems that until I get faster, I can't really get a lot of walking in there (It's 90 minutes on Saturdays, so that's a possibility for my regular walk days instead of distance).
Thanks! Have a great day, all!
Hi Duckie
Walking fast is just a matter of proper form and technique. You don't have to be a full racewalker to get to where 12 min miles are comfortable for distance.
To start with walking properly is not running slow, it's a whole different sport. With a whole different motion.
To start with, before you even think about practiceing fast walking, warm up good with easy brisk walking for a mile. Then pick up your speed slowly over the remainder of your walk till you are in a comfortablly hard zone where you can just hold the pace. If you don't your shins and lungs will be screaming at you and you will not get far at all.
Posture is important walk tall not bent forward like a sprinter. Your arms need to swing more toward the back than the front since unlike a runner your stride length is behind you. When you are walking fast it will feel like you are makeing short little strides because most of the stride length is to the rear.
You want your feet to land directly in front of you. A good way to practicce this is to walk on a line in the road like the white line down the center if you have a road with little traffic. You would leave foot prints in a straight line and not two seperate lines. Done properly it feels like you are walking downhill.
Your power in walking comes from your core, butt abs and hips and the push off is on the toes of the rear foot. concentrate on your leg swing coming from your butt and hips, keep your abs firm. The hip motion in race walking is from swinging your leg from the hip to the front of your body. The Europeans have much more swing than the American style.
So now you stand up straight, arms pumping more to the rear, feet landing in a straight line in front of your body and your leg swing starts at you butt. Unlike a runner who has a bit of forward lean, leg motion comes from raising and lowering knees and arms swinging to the front.
You have to practice speed walking for short periods till your shins are strong. You can add a little more each week.
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/rayzwocker/worldclass/animated.htm
http://www.dropshots.com/mmprwusa#date/2007-06-01/20:10:12
I hope this helps you a little bit. The first link is what racewalking looks like in motion and the second link is a bunch of still photos to see a freeze frame of different motions.
Walking Panda
