| Everybody knows how to walk, don't they? After all, we've been at it for years. |
Arms - Start here. If you don't already bend the arms at the elbow, try it. A bent arm becomes a shorter lever and therefore completes the forward and backward swing faster. When your arms swing faster, your feet will automatically move faster because arms and feet have to move in unison.
Try this: Standing in place, swing your arms as fast as you can while they hang straight. Now bend them at the elbow, and do the same. That's the feeling. |
The next two pieces -- pushoff and hip roll -- are perhaps the most difficult to understand and to incorporate into your walking. With practice, however, they will allow you to use the muscles you want to strengthen, as well as power you up and down hills when you go off-road. |
| Pushoff - The pushoff actually starts at the front of the stride when you strike on your heel with toes lifted high. That allows the ankle to move through its full range of motion as it comes underneath you, then moves behind you in the stride. At that point, the foot doesn't just pick up and whiz forward again, though. The leg lengthens behind you. You should feel as if your toes are the last thing to leave the ground. You should feel the ball of your foot pushing into the ground, causing a reaction that helps propel you forward. |
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| Try this: Stand in a lunge facing a wall, with one leg (knee straight) extended behind you. Toes are pointed straight ahead. Leaving your rear leg straight, roll up onto the ball of that foot and push into the ground with it. Feel as if you're trying to move the wall that's supporting you. That's basically how every stride should feel.
Use this pushoff when rolling along flats or hiking hills, and be guaranteed your buttocks and hamstrings will know it the next day. |
Hips - The hip movement is next. For basic power walking, think of walking from your waist, allowing each hip bone to extend forward with its respective leg. You'll feel a slight rotation in your lower back. This allows the leg to swing more freely, while each stride can cover more ground. The more ground you cover, the quicker you go. Simple. |
| Arms, stride length, pushoff and hips - four things that will take your walking beyond what you've dreamed possible. Try one or two separately. Then combine them until you can manage all four at once without so much grim concentration that you forget to watch the flowers and birds. |
Stride - Usually, people take longer steps when they try to walk faster, turning their stride into a silly walk like John Cleese with bouncing head and body. Think about it: Going up and down means you can't move forward as efficiently since you're wasting energy on the bob. |
| Think gliding, fashion-model grace as you move forward, which will probably mean shorter steps than you're used to. Head, hair, scarves and hats shouldn't flop.
Feet - Now that you've eliminated bouncing steps, you'll have to move your feet faster to keep up with your arms. Just watch a small dog try to keep up with its owner and you'll get the picture.
Don't try to conquer both the arms and the stride in one 45-minute walk. Concentrate just on the arms one day, then just on the legs one day. Once you're comfortable with the two separately, add them together. |
How to Walk Faster: Overstriding is taking longer steps in front of your body in an attempt to increase speed. This is potentially harmful and is inefficient.
Work first on eliminating the overstriding.
Keep your natural stride length, but learn to use it powerfully.
Your stride should be longer behind your body, where your toe is pushing off, rather than out in front of your body. |
Think of keeping your back foot on the ground the maximum amount of time, to really roll through the step and give a good push off with the toes. The back foot then passes under your body, knee flexing and driving forward but not up. |
| After the foot passes by the other leg, the ankle then flexes and knee straightens (still think of driving forward, not up with the knee) to present the heel to the ground.
The heel should strike the ground close to the front of the body, as it strikes the rear leg is rolling through the step and preparing to toe off powerfully and come forward. |
Take more, smaller steps.
Fast walkers train themselves to increase the number of steps they take per second and to get full use out of the back part of the stride.
Open up your stride behind your body by concentrating on getting a full roll through the rear foot and good push off with the rear toes.
If you find your feet slapping the ground in front, you may have too stiff shoes and/or weak shins. The shins will build with practice. But you will want to look into getting some more flexible shoes. |
| Hips: Your hips should rotate with each stride front to back, not side-to-side. Do not concentrate on adding hip motion at first, it should come naturally as part of a good stride and push off. |
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