Walk First, Stretch Later

Forget stretching to limber up before your fitness walking. Instead, walk at an easy pace for five or ten minutes until you´re warm before kicking into high gear walking for exercise.

When you finish your walking session, do at least three static, not bouncing stretches for 30 seconds on each leg.

Sore Shins

As a beginning racewalker, you will probably experience sore shins. This is probably not shin splints or other injury, but the result of using the muscles in the front of the lower leg, especially the tibialis anterior, which usually isn´t worked much, especially during walking for exercise.

You can treat the soreness with ice and rest, and be ready to go out again in a day or two. The muscles will get stronger with use, but you can help that by walking around on your heels and stretching by pulling your toes down gently.

Set Your Frequency

In this hectic world, you even have to jot down walking in your day planner. You should do walking exercise three to five times a week, with a heart rate in your target zone for 15 to 60 minutes. If you can't do more than 15 minutes at a time, try to work in two or three 15-minute sessions. Schedule walking for exercise in advance, and keep the appointment.

Places to Walk

Here's another reason Americans are fatter than Europeans. American cities, in general, are less walking-friendly than European cities. Distances, lack of sidewalks, and traffic make it harder to find good walking areas.

Don't be discouraged from your fitness walking regimen. Look for high school tracks, paths in parks, industrial parks which often have lots of flat streets with sidewalks, shopping malls, golf courses, or playing fields where you can walk around the periphery, or any nearby open area. In the mall, walking for exercise is more fun when you're window shopping!

Ankle Weights

Never use ankle weights when walking for exercise. Your ankles have enough work to do in fitness walking. Wrist or hand weights are not as likely to cause injury as ankle weights, but can still stress your joints. If you want to burn more calories during walking exercise, walk farther or faster. If you want to get stronger, lift weights.

Measure Your Intensity

When people say, "You're too intense about your fitness walking," take it as a compliment. You need to measure your intensity.

The recommendation for a walking exercise "training heart rate" is 60 to 80 percent of the fastest your heart can beat in a minute. Figure your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age in years from 220. Multiply the result by 0.6 and 0.8 to get the bottom and top of your target zone for aerobic training through walking for exercise. You can also check how long it takes you to walk a mile, then check again periodically to see your improvement.

General Walking Technique

Stand up straight, swing your arms naturally, and let your hips move when you're out for a walk. Serious walkers can benefit from incorporating some racewalking technique to make their stride more efficient. Walk in a way that's natural and comfortable for you so you will not get tired too soon.

Walking Hills

It's all uphill from here--and that's a good thing. Don´t avoid walking up hills; they make you stronger. If a hill is too steep for comfort, zigzag up or down. Hill walking for exercise builds leg muscles, and you can enjoy the view while walking.

Posture

Stick out your chest when walking for exercise. It looks better and you breathe easier. Racewalking posture is head up, chest up, and a slight forward lean from the ankles. While walking fast, do not lean forward at the waist or thrust your head forward.

Rules

There are two rules for racewalking. Official races are judged and you must obey these rules.

(1) Your knee must be straight when your foot strikes the ground and remain straight until your body passes over that foot.
(2) One foot must be on the ground at all times when walking.

Violating the 1st rule is called "creeping" and violating the 2nd is called "lifting." Don't break the rules unless you want to go walking home in defeat.

Measure Several Courses

Your car can actually help you in walking for exercise. Use your car´s odometer or the rule of ten city blocks to a mile to measure different walking routes. After all, you don´t want to walk the same route every day. Two miles per fitness walking course is a good start, or you can work with just one mile if you are a beginner, and do it more times as you progress.

Walking Faster

Get a move on and pump, pump, pump it up! If you want to walk faster, pump your arms faster. Your arms and legs move in sync when walking for exercise. Keep your arms bent at the elbow to shorten the lever and make it easier to speed up your fitness walking.

Walking for Greater Fitness

Fitness walking can be as good for building fitness as running, if you work as hard. It´s not the kind of exercise, but how it´s performed that matters. Yes, it really is all about how you play the game.

Unfit people may be able to get their heart rate into a training zone by walking faster than usual, but as you get more fit you may have trouble walking fast enough so you will have to go uphill when walking for exercise, or learn racewalking technique.

All the Walking Equipment You Really Need

All you really need for walking exercise is a good pair of walking shoes. Choose a pair with a firm heel cup for stability and plenty of room for toes so they can spread out as they push off when you're walking for exercise. Wear loose, comfortable clothes. In cool weather, dress in layers as you will warm up some if you walk a good distance.

Higher Intensity

You don´t have to walk any particular way, but there comes a point when walking refinements offer definite benefits.

Health Magazine suggests that the correct walking posture, arm swing, and fitness walking stride add up to higher intensity walking exercise and lower risk of injury.

Speeding Up Your Walks

Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer, er, Walker, er, Racewalker.

Walking speed is a function of stride length and turnover (how fast you move your legs.) There is a limit to how much you can lengthen your stride, so when fitness walking and racewalking, concentrate on increasing turnover. Artificially increasing your stride, overstriding, can actually slow you down as your heel comes down too far in front, causing a braking action.

And there's good news for shorter people Long legs take longer to bring around, and some of the best racewalkers are of less than average height (think Speedy Gonzales.)

Total Body Stretching

Clearly, it's important to stretch lower body muscles after walking. It's also a good idea to stretch upper body, especially the shoulders. Your arm swing actually drives your leg stride when you are walking briskly. Keeping your upper body flexible and moving easily, both sides, keeps your body in balance.

Just Go

Remember the old children's story about the caterpillar who got confused over which leg to use first? The proper walking technique is not as important as getting out there and walking for exercise. Keep in mind that healthy people are well overall. Their activities boost energy and help fend off heart disease and circulatory problems. The key is to stay active, and fitness walking is the best way.

Technique

Good racewalking technique includes an arm swing that takes your fist from your hip to mid-chest, with your elbow bent 90 degrees. Remember swinging your arms when walking as a kid?

Lift your toe as high as you can when your heel strikes the ground, and stride during walking exercise so your feet are almost one in front of the other. The high toe allows you to roll forward off your heel when power walking and racewalking, so you get a better push with your toes. Rotating your hips inward so your foot comes down in front of the other lengthens your walking stride.