Why Racewalk? How to do it.

The first step to any fitness program is to evaluate WHY you are doing it. Unless you are motivated, you will not stick with it. Racewalking is not a magic bullet which will make you fit without time and effort. Even if your goal is just basic fitness, if you haven't made time to walk several times a week already, why will this change after you learn to racewalk? What will you do differently from today on to reap the rewards and benefits of being fit?

Good intentions are fine, but it will take good actions to become and stay fit. There is not much better use of your time than the few hours a week it takes to become fit. The good news is, however, that you do not have to exactly follow all the rules of racewalking just to walk faster. If you are not planning to compete, then just approximate the form and your daily walking speed and thus your fitness will increase.

Form

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The drawings above show the proper technique of racewalking. There are two main rules of the sport.

• One foot must be in contact with the ground at all times, and;

• The knee must be straight when your forward heel touches the ground and must stay straight as the leg passes under the body. (Note the straight leg as I am ready to place the heel down.) Staying on the ground is usually not a problem early in your walking unless you attempt to go much faster than your form and conditioning allow. A good way to check yourself is to watch your shadow and see if your head is "bouncing" up and down. Proper walking keeps the head steady.

Knees

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Knee straightening is often more of a problem early on. In normal walking or running, the knee is bent so racewalking is an unnatural action which our bodies are not used to. Often stretching of the hamstrings and calf muscles are required to help straightening because of tightness in the back of the legs. A good test is to stand sideways to a full length mirror. Place your feet together and keep them flat on the floor. Look at your knees when standing. Are they straight? Lock the knees and let the bones hold your weight while relaxing the muscles.

Next, shift your weight from one leg to the other by bending first one knee, then the other. The weight bearing leg should be straight. You should also see and feel your hips riding up and down as each knee in turn bends and straightens. Weakness in the knees may be a problem in which case some supplemental strengthening exercises may be needed. Prior knee injuries may also keep you from full straightening. In extreme cases, racewalking in competitions may not be possible although it can still be a good fitness activity with less than perfect form. If tightness in the backs of the legs prevents straightening, try some stretches such as wall pushes for the calfs and hamstring stretches or back stretches.​

During walking, there are several other techniques which contribute to knee straightening and speed.

Exaggerate the normal walking motion by pointing your toe upward. This forces the knee straighter and starts the powerful pushing motion which makes for walking speed. This toe up landing may cause some pain and stiffness in the lower shin muscles but this will usually disappear after a few minutes of warmup. Remember, you are using new muscles and there is always a break-in period. Lower your toes and resume normal walking for a few minutes until the stiffness goes away.

Stride​

Place each foot while landing on the same straight line. Pretend you are walking on a string stretching out in front of you and you want to step on it every step. This technique forces your hips to rotate forward and back as well as up and down and contributes to stride length and speed.

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Take a short stride. Don't stride out far in front of you. The power in the stride should come from the backward pushing versus reaching out in front of you. A good way to check how far out in front you should step is to raise both your toes well up and walk on your heels with a normal stride. You cannot step very far out this way. The landing point will be a shoe length or one and a half shoe lengths in front of your body. This is the point you should use when racewalking. Fitness or powerwalking emphasizes a long stride in front but this actually curtails speed because it causes a "braking" action and bending of the knees. Notice the dotted line on the drawing below. The stride in front is about 1/4 to 1/3 as long as the stride to the rear.

With a short forward stride and a longer pushing stride to the rear, you can get the rapid stride rate or turnover which brings speed in racewalking. The benefit of the short forward stride is also that the period of straightening of the knee is lessened. Remember, the leg must be straight from landing to when it passes under you. If you keep the stride short in front, this becomes a matter of only a few inches.

Arms and Hips

The arms and shoulders should be relaxed and comfortable. Begin by walking with the arms held loosely at your sides and just move them back and forth naturally as you walk. Your shoulders should feel relaxed and the arms should move effortlessly. To change to racewalking style, simply bend your elbows to 85-90 degree angles and keep the rest of the motion the same. Keep the arms low. The "stroke" of the forearm should be back and forth at waist band level and not cross the center of your body. Don't bring the hands up too high in front - not past mid-chest level. You want back and forth motion, with a little side to side motion to help the hips move forward and back.

A way to get the feel for the hip action is to use your arms. Stand straight, and put one arm across your waist, and the other will be rotated like a windmill, but keeping it on a single plane, as if you are standing with that shoulder close to a wall. Now, swing that arm fully extended forward, up, and back. As you swing back, your arm at your waist will feel the hip of the side of the moving arm being pulled back and then forth when arm comes forward. This is the hip action in racewalking where hips not only move up and down, but forward and back. This action extends the stride length several inches, which adds up to minutes in a race. In the diagram above, the line on the shorts moves forward and back, showing this hip action. Watch your racewalking technique as you walk by storefront windows and you will see this action. Better yet, have someone do a video from the side, and also front and back to critique and sharpen your technique.

Keep the elbows in close to the body and avoid the "chicken wing" look. Your arms help you keep rythym and balance and propel you forward. Too much side to side motion works against you. By bending the elbows in an L shape, you can move your arms back and forth faster than with straight arms. You are cutting down on the length of the pendulum formed by the arms and can move them in short, precise movements but not reaching too far out. Remember, your stride should have more length in the back than the front and the arms should correspond. Your hands should be relaxed but keep the wrists straight. I've found a loose fist to be helpful to keep your arms driving forward. Make an "O" with your thumb and index finger and the rest of the fingers will follow. Turning your hand so the palm is turned slightly toward the ground helps keep your arms low. Pointing your thumb up tends to lift your arms up too high in front and also might cause lifting of your feet off the ground, breaking the rules of racewalking.​

Training Principles

The following section is for those of you who intend to compete at racewalking or will use racewalking as a serious fitness activity.

Increasing Mileage.​

Increase your miles in steps, over a period of time. If you have a good fitness base already, you can increase faster. If you are just starting to build a base, increase slowly. If you overdo it, soreness or pain in the legs will usually make you slow down anyway. After an increase in miles in any one week, drop back to near your old level the following week. This allows the body to recover from the excess stresses of the longer week. Build up in this "stepped" fashion. For example, if you are doing 15 miles a week, increase to 20 the next week but then drop back to 16-17. The following week go to 22-23, with a drop back to 17-18. This schedule would build up to 40 miles a week over about 3-4 months.

Hard-Easy.​

The above steps already give you an idea of hard and easy weeks alternating. You should extend this concept to days also. Plan your hard and easy days and weeks. Hard days are longer than average or faster than average. Easy days are either off days or slower, shorter mileage days. Your definition will vary as your fitness increases. An easy day to start may be 2-3 slow miles. Later, this may be 8-10 slow miles if you are training for the longer distances. A hard day may be a session at the track or any type of faster walking. It can also be a longer day such as your weekly longer walk of 10-15 miles.

Again, the definitions for each of us will vary but the concept of rest in between harder sessions is most important. As you get older, the schedule may be E-E-H-E-E-E-H over the course of a week. Hard weeks are ones when you increase your distance, do several speed sessions or have a race. You should then plan on taking the next week easier. If you are doing two speed sessions and a longer walk in a hard week, cut back to one speed session and a medium distance walk the following week. Save your energy for the hard days. Don't get into the "push every day" mindset. Relax and enjoy the easy days. Take pleasure in just being out strolling. Save the mental and physical energy for your quality workouts and long walks. If you overdo it your body will tell you to back off but it's a lot easier to carefully plan your schedule and insure you will feel good when the time to work hard comes. If you have a workout planned and feel rotten that day, it's best to postpone it until you feel better. Pushing through a bad day will just leave you exhausted and cause you to need more recovery days. Look at your training long term. Staying healthy and eager will bring dividends.​

Yearly Plan​

Break your year down into specific seasons with a different emphasis for each. Our weather makes this a natural pattern in the Northwest.

Winter. Concentrate on building a good mileage base. Bundle up and get out there regularly, but GO SLOWLY. The emphasis is on building your aerobic base and strength. By not worrying about speed, you can devote your energies to getting out and walking without added pressures. If it's truly icy, then racewalking is difficult because of the push off needed. If you can, jog on snow or ice since you can maintain better footing. Otherwise, find a treadmill or nordic track or other aerobic firtness machines and work out indoors. Use the holidays with the days off from work for extra miles. It also will help keep from gaining weight during the holiday binge season.

Spring. As weather improves, work on strength and technique. Good workouts are hill repeats. Just walk strongly up a decent hill of 100 -200 yards and slowly jog or walk down to prevent jarring the knees on the downhills. Repeat several times and slowly increase the number of repetitions over a few weeks. Other good workouts for this time of year are hard pushes of about 1/2 to 2 miles. Concentrate on being smooth and relaxed while walking faster. You can also do up to 3 miles of continuous harder walking to get you used to keeping good form while you are tired.​

Summer. Now is the time to get sharp. Use shorter repeats of 220-440 yards to practice going very fast while keeping form. Start with 3-4 repeats and work your way up. To build endurance, keep recovery between hard repeats to an easy walk of the same distance of the repeat. To build speed, rest a little longer between repeats. A mix of both is good over the course of the summer. Also do longer surges of 1/2 to 3 miles to work on endurance WITH speed. These longer intervals will be slower than race pace at these distances because you will not be as rested as when you taper down for a race. Concentrate on being smooth and legal. Two workouts per week should get you to prime racing shape.​

Fall. You should now be as fast as you will be for the year and should ease back on mileage and harder workouts and enjoy racing your fastest. You can race during the other seasons but you will not be as sharp until the summer and fall. Use the other races as training and to meet your fellow walkers. Continue about one speed session a week to feel sharp but more will probably get you stale and down from your peak. So, ease back.​

Pattern.

You should see the pattern above. Start with longer slower walking to build strength. Move to hills and longer fast walking for continued strength and beginnings of speed. Sharpen with shorter workouts to top off the speed and be ready to race. This pattern can be compressed into two six month seasons if that meets your racing goals better. The object is to decide in which part of the year it is most important to be fastest, then plan a schedule so the sharpening work coincides with your racing peaks.​

Breaks. It's easy to get stale and tired when training so it's good to schedule a break of an easy few weeks, especially at the end of the racing or fall season. Cut back to about half of your normal level and just walk easy. Take a few days off and do something else you enjoy. You'll feel refreshed and ready to come back to the long, slower miles of the winter season.

Racing​

At some point you will want to test yourself in a race. There are many opportunities considering walkers are welcome at most running events as well as the more limited walking only events. For your first race, pick a flat course and short distance. Hilly courses are very tough on the knees as walkers straighten the leg rather than flexing on the downhills. It is also very difficult to walk legally downhill. A short distance is good if you don't have racing experience because there is a natural tendency to start way too fast. In a short race your can usually get through it even if you start too quickly.​

After a few shorter races you will learn pacing and can tackle longer challenges. It has been shown that fairly even pacing is the most efficient use of effort and makes for the fastest times. Starting too fast usually results in a big slowdown and starting too slowly can leave you feeling good at the finish but not doing your best time. Even pacing is more important in walking than in running because of the form requirement. If you get too tired, it will be difficult to walk legally in the important latter stages of the race. The top walkers gradually accelerate throughout a race.​

The main top level racing distances in walking are the distances of 20 Kilometers and 50 KM. Recently the Olympics has implemented the distance walk as 35 K for men and women. Most races are, however, held at shorter distances. One mile, 3KM (1.86 miles) and 5 KM (3.1 miles) and 10K are also very popular and don't require quite the training commitment. Walking is intended to be a distance sport however and I've found that the short distances require such intense effort that longer distances with lesser intensity are more fun to race. It will all depend on your own mental and physical makeup and abilities. If your talent is speed, the shorter events may well be your strong point. For those like me with more endurance muscles, the longer distances are more enjoyable.​

Top competitive distances are longer because it is difficult to judge legal form at the high speeds world class walkers travel. The women's world record pace for 10Km is well under 7 minutes per mile and the world record for the men's 50KM race is under 7 minutes per mile! Training distances will depend on your racing goals. 50 KM walkers at top levels walk 125-150 miles a week. Obviously this is all most of them do. Your own schedule and demands will determine what is possible for you. To race well at 10KM requires a minimum of 30-40 miles a week, with speed sessions and some longer walks of 2 or more hours. During the base season, some 50-60 miles a week should be done to build up the needed strength.​

20 KM walkers should do 50-60 miles a week with a good mix of speed sessions and distances up to 3 hours. To race 50KM, a minimum of 70-80 miles a week is necessary with walks of 4-5 hours or more common. You can finish these distances on less mileage, but you cannot expect to reach top level times or your own top potential on much less. You can somewhat get around the total training needed if you can at least do the high mileage every other or every third week.​

You want to vary your workouts in the hard-easy system anyway. So, if it's impossible to walk 70-90 miles every week, go for high and low weeks where you at least hit the high every few weeks. Work your high weeks in when your work or family schedules are lighter and go easier on busier weeks.

Now, one last piece of advice. Get out and do it!

Here I am close to a violation. My right heel must touch the ground before my left toe leaves it.

NWRacewalking

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