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How fast to walk for exercise?

This is an excerpt from Walk Your Way Fit by Sarah Zahab.

Speed

It may seem ­simple: We want to walk faster, so we walk faster. However, the way in which we walk faster ­will keep our bodies feeling comfortable. Ideally, we want to increase speed by taking short, quick steps. It may seem counterintuitive. We think of the beautiful distance runners who run like gazelles with long strides. “But they have natu­ral talent and often years of training. Watch them carefully and you ­will see that they are actually landing with their feet directly under­neath them. That’s what makes their strides efficient. They are long, but not too long,” says Roger Burrows, race walking coach and ­founder of the Bytown Walkers. As we increase speed, keeping our center of gravity over our center of mass ­will help us to modulate and absorb ground forces more effectively. In other words, landing with our foot under­neath us ­will keep us stable and allow us to use our muscles more efficiently.

Overstriding is one of the most common errors I see in walking form, especially in ­people who experience low back pain. Taking a larger step puts more strain on our low backs and can slow us down. When we take too big of a stride, we land with our foot essentially in front of us, not ­under us. The back, legs, and hips take the brunt of the load. Try it: Walk around with overexaggerated large strides and pay attention to how your back feels. Then, take smaller steps and reassess. The smaller strides allow us to walk more efficiently, landing with our center over our base and giving our core muscles the chance to support us well. Burrows shares, “From a standing position, move your foot as if you ­were pushing on the brake pedal in a car. You can actually feel the braking action through the leg and into the body. We ­don’t want to have to haul ourselves over a leg stretched forward. We want the feet to be moving backward when we contact the ground.” Smaller strides ­will also help us move into a speedy rhythm. Quick steps and a fast turnover give us opportunities to push away from the ground more frequently. Our first step in increasing walking speed is taking quicker, faster, shorter steps.

Another strategy to increase walking speed is to use the arms. We learned in the gait chapter to hold our arms in a comfortably bent position—­similar to ­running arms. While maintaining this fixed position, drive the elbows back with a ­little more emphasis. The backward arm drive ­will help to create forward momentum. Similar to a slingshot, the focus is on creating backward recoil to propel an object forward. We ­don’t want to punch the arms forward in front of us to help us walk faster. It’s the backward elbow drive that gives us that added push. When holding the arms in the bent position—­aim to keep the palms facing inward and the forearms moving back and forth generally parallel to the ground. This ensures the shoulders remain in a fairly neutral position and in a less internally rotated forward setup. This allows us to use our posterior shoulder, rotator cuff, and back a bit more effectively.

We can also think of pushing down into the ground with the feet with a slightly stronger emphasis. ­After the foot hits the ground and moves closer to being directly under­neath us, think of pushing the foot down into the ground. This ­will help to prime the hip extension pattern, create more awareness around the hip extensors such as the glutes and hamstrings, and propel us forward faster. ­Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. “When we push against the ground, the ground pushes back, therefore moving us forward. Essentially the only time we move ourselves forward is as a result of our contact with the ground,” shares Burrows. The downward push does not have to be aggressively strong. A light push off ­will work well so as not to lose forward momentum but help with a stronger, quicker drive.

Practice some of ­these ele­ments outdoors or indoors on stable surfaces, then explore using a treadmill (if accessible) to help increase walking speed. Although walking mechanics are dif­fer­ent on a treadmill versus stable surfaces, it can be a tool to help our bodies feel what it’s like to walk faster. ­After warming up on a treadmill, aim to slowly increase walking speed. Pause at a comfortable pace that feels similar to your outdoor walking pace. Once ­you’ve held that for a few minutes, try walking a ­little faster. What do you notice? What has to happen to help your body walk faster? Make note of the arms, legs, feet, and overall pace and rhythm. Incorporating ­those changes and ele­ments into your next outdoor walk may help you to explore a faster walking pace.

Although we are referring to speed in a more general sense of walking at a quick pace, we ­really should refer to it in more specific terms. When increasing our walking pace, many ele­ments must fall into place to allow us to maintain our alignment, position, mechanics, muscle contractions, and positioning with good form and ease. Our speed may not be simply walking as fast as we can but rather “as quick as we know we can comfortably maintain for the duration of our walk. In walking terms, that concept is impor­tant enough to have its own specific word: rhythm,” explains Burrows.

Walking faster essentially entails having the ability to have good strength and stamina to maintain our desired walking rhythm over time. With good cardiovascular and muscular endurance and strength, ­we’re able to maintain our desired walking rhythm for longer periods. Walking faster means the heart and muscles have good strength and endurance. That foundation of strength and endurance ­will over time help us increase our walking speed for a short distance—­and, more impor­tant, our rhythm for as long as we decide to walk!

More Excerpts From Walk Your Way Fit

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