Assuming that one foot is always on the ground, does following the rule about the straight leg lead to the fastest walking speed?
Assuming that one foot is always on the ground, does following the rule about the straight leg lead to the fastest walking speed?
All I know is that I pretend to do it when we take family walks so I can embarrass the wife and then roll laughing with the kids about it.
I do the arm swing and everything.
Then drag my leg and do the zombie walk while moaning and chasing the kids. Another classic way to embarrass your spouse.
Faster than what?
Yes racewalking is faster than walking?
Faster than what?
Yes racewalking is faster than walking?
My question relates to the requirement that the leg remains straight until it is under the body. For race walking that is not judged, what I’m wondering is if that leg motion contributes to more speed or if people just do it because it is a requirement of the sport.
Race walking is a long-distance footrace in which the athletes must walk and not run. In race walking, there is a rule known as the “straight leg rule,†which means the moment the leading foot touches the ground and until the leg passes under the center of the body, the knee is not allowed to bend.
Probaly cus it’s a requirement for it to be considered walking still.
I know that. My question is would walkers do it if not required. I.e. does it confer an advantage
Doesnt that rule actually keep it the athlete walking instead of it then being running? IE it wouldn’t be race walking at that point?
Check this video- it confirms what I thought. The straight leg is the only way to actually “walk” instead of actual running.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4Hs-BDESs&feature=emb_title
Being the cynic that I am, I’m going to guess that it’s slower. Why would they make a rule to force people to do a thing that they would do anyway if it was faster?
So apparently that’s precisely how they distinguish between race walking and actual running. Straight leg forces 1 foot on ground at all times, where as with running there is a split second in your gait where both feet are off the ground.
I always wondered how they distinguished that because you look at some of the speed walking they do and it almost looks as fast as jogging, but apparently that straight leg contact is key.
I didn’t think I’d have ever learned that on ST or even considered looking it up.
I thought they used to say one foot had ground contact all the time and then cameras improved and they realised that didn’t really happen so changed the rules to ‘appear’ to be in contact. I might of misunderstood.
What’s funny to me is that you go to wikipedia about race walking and I swear the 1st guy in the picture in the red singlet doesn’t have 1 foot contacting the ground (even though he’s about to do a straight leg contact). I always thought it blurred the lines whenever I’d see some random highlight, etc.
But apparently athletes’ are allowed 3 fouls before being DQ’d.
I think it is a very blurry line at the top level. They are walking a 3 flat marathon split in a 50k…
Assuming that one foot is always on the ground, does following the rule about the straight leg lead to the fastest walking speed?
No. But assuming the goal is to create the appearance that you are indeed following the rules, while covering ground the fastest, that is the fastest way to do so. Having a very straight leg leads officials to either believe that you are following the rules or to allow you to very slightly break the rules and insert the slightest of flight phases between each step.
The period and comma keys on your keyboard while watching any youtube video of elite racewalking will be informative 
They do seem to cheat a tiny bit with a little flight phase at the elite level.
I’m just curious if I could walk off a 4-Hour Marathon. I think my body is too wrecked to do much running but I enjoy the sport and have always been a little bit intrigued by race walking.
the thing that seems very elusive to me is the 220 steps a minute stride rate that they do.
My guess is that for most people if you power walk with a bent knee as apposed to a legal race walk your power walk will be faster…I have played around with this at the track and found I can power walk a sub 11 min mile pace whereas formal race walking with the restrictions is slower for me (I tried keeping the landing leg straight)…most people could do a “bent knee walking creep” (keeping one foot on the ground at all times) at a fairly fast pace…,
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I don’t have an answer to your question, but am happy to see racewalking get some air time here, as I think it’s a really useful skill to have and doesn’t get a whole lot of respect in general.
It’s gotten me to the finish in more than one 1/2 & full IM’s when things suddenly started going pear shaped (injury, hyponatremia, etc.), as I found it much easier on the body physically and more focusing an uplifting mentally. It also served as a bridge between walking and running for over a year of reconditioning after catastrophic injuries.
Personally, I’d love to see a racewalking thread here (unless there is one already and I just haven’t tripped over it yet…).
I don’t see a ton of information about it online but it seems like the people who do coaching and clinics are very happy to share their knowledge and offer clinics that are quite affordable and look interesting. Once life returns to some semblance of normal am I explore a clinic and see how difficult it is to learn.
I was a pretty good runner when I was younger but don’t seem to be having much luck at returning to the sport so it would be fun to be able to still jump in a race from time to time. Also I think with doing just cycling for exercise you end up not bearing a lot of weight on your skeleton.
I don’t have an answer for you but was happy to see someone else bring this up. I’ve been fighting IT band issues for 5 years and walked the marathon portion of my last IM in 2017. I’m not always the brightest crayon in the box and went ahead and signed up for Tulsa next year, despite spending most of the last year or two on the couch. I knew running was going to be an issue so I started researching racewalking and it turns out one of the top ranked guys in the US is friends with a PT I saw a few years back. I reached out and he was kind enough to get together with me on Wednesday as I plan on using racewalking technique for Tulsa. My big take away after going over technique was that it definitely uses different muscles than running and my limiter, at least to start, will be my shins. Holy crap, if I do it right they start burning within a quarter to a half mile!
Feel free to reach out with any questions… I’m far from an expert but am getting to know a few people I. The community, and as someone else said, they are all eager to help newcomers.
How are there enough people doing this in the world for it to be an olympic sport?
Ok, here’s a question, how to increase stride rate?