Speeding Up Your Walks

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.)