DeAnza Cove and Walk Form

Met a few of the team members for a midweek workout session at DeAnza Cove. This is a nice beach area/boat launch right off I-5. The session was run by Coach Roger and features a beautiful 5 mile walk along the coast in the early evening and interval training. Coach Roger is a former competitive speed walker and is blazing fast. He was kind enough to give me some pointers on how to improve my walk form, which is going to be important when I'm on say, mile 19 of the Dublin Marathon.

It seems that I've been walking completely wrong all these years. I've recently gotten really into hiking, especially the climbing part. I love to just power up the hills as fast as I can, taking huge strides. This is the exact opposite of what you are supposed to do as a speed walker. The focus of the walk form is to waste no energy. The engineer in me really likes that. Don't lift your feet too high or take too long of a stride. That's all just wasted energy. There's a sweet spot in every walker's stride. I'm still looking for mine, but this is the perfect length of stride where all your effort is focused to move your body forward with no wasted motion. You are also supposed to walk heel to toe and really propel yourself forward with each step. Your arms are supposed to act as sort of pistons, but it seems that they are also there to help you maintain a rhythm. Then there's what I call the butt wiggle, you know the one. The wiggle is a consequence of flexing the hips to lead the legs forward. Not using your hips, is essentially like driving your car, while riding the brakes. You are restricting your full and complete range of motion, thereby reducing your efficiency. Even after you get all the individual parts down, it is a major challenge to get them all going at the same time and keeping the rhythm. I had a couple of instances during the walk where it was all flowing and I could really feel the difference. My calves were getting a bigger workout than normal, but my hips, which are normally very sore after a walk, were feeling great. Still got a lot of work to do to get it all down, but its coming.

One other interesting thing that happened is that Coach Roger hung back with me a bit and walked about 4-feet ahead of me. It really helped me establish and maintain a rhythm. I later realized that he kept slowly speeding up and I subconsciously sped up with him. Sneaky sneaky. Tomorrow is a gym day, 45 minutes of treadmill work with a 15% incline and some light weight work.