Justification for speedwork
Speedwork is the forgotten component of many an endurance walker’s training schedule. You may think the omission is justifiable because endurance events are by definition not sprints. However, doing speedwork can improve your performance in three ways:
- It usually increases your average speed for the event.
- It increase the average speed of your training walks. This means you can complete your training in less time, something that can be important for people fitting long walks into a busy schedule. Alternatively, you can train longer distances in the same time, but this is a double-edged sword because you might over-train.
- Speedwork develops different muscle than does distance work and these muscle can be used to advantage at the end of a race when you are tiring.
General ways to improving your speed
- Incorporate more features of racewalking into your walking style. You are probably walking with bent arms. You could try shortening the length of your stride and using a faster stride rate.
- Get coaching from a racewalking coach.
- Reduce your weight.
- Do some training sessions on a treadmill at a fast speed
- Do repetitions down a slight incline
- Increase you flexibility
- Do strengthwork
- Do speed drills