So when walking
leaders start talking about technique, it may seem like nothing
but a way to complicate the easiest of activities. Suddenly,
you're thinking so hard about which way your arms and feet are
going that you forget to look around and smell the flowers.
Why bother?
You ask yourself. And you go back to galumphing along, arms
dangling at sides, at whatever pace suits your fancy.
Nothing
wrong with a relaxing little saunter now and then. Certainly,
it does our minds a lot of good. But maybe you ought to reconsider
a dose of technique to turn that walk into a real stand-alone
workout or a letter cross-training tool. The trick is to take
small doses of technique at a time, otherwise you'll indeed
end up concentrating so hard on all the parts that you'll lose
the enjoyment of walking -- and might end up resembling the
grace of Godzilla's gait.
Amazingly
enough, adding a little technique to your stride will help you
feel as if you're floating along, instead of grinding and pushing
yourself forward. You'll get faster, use more muscle, burn more
calories, but it'll feel easier. Honest.
Arms
- Start here. If you don't already bend the arms at the elbow,
try it. There's a good reason for doing it, and it's not just
to look funny. 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.
Stride
- Next.... Usually, people take longer steps when they try to
walk faster, turning their stride into a Groucho-Marx lookalike
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. A friend
of mine recently told me she learned to move her feet faster
by watching her little dog trot along with her. (My German shepherd
galumphs, so not all dogs are great models for faster feet.)
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.
The next
two pieces of walking technique -- pushing off with the rear
toe and letting your hips move with your legs -- will turn you
into a walking pro. We've addressed both of those in Part 2.
Fitness
Walking - A step-by-step guide to getting started safely
in the best and most popular fitness activity around. Includes
60 workouts for you to try.
