by Therese Iknoian

Walking is indeed simplicity at its zenith. No need to carry a trunk full of supplies, lubricate wheels and chains, strap gear to the car roof and to our bodies, or fill knapsacks with tools.

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 better 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.

© 1999 Therese Iknoian; All Rights Reserved