Last week we heard from physical therapist Julie Barnett about the importance of good form. She provided this summary:

PROPER RUNNING FORM

Julie Barnett, doctor of physical therapy, has treated runners in the San Antonio area since 1987.  She may be contacted for questions at JBBarnettPT@msn.com or office # 210-616-0646.

HEAD/NECK

• Imagine a string pulling your head towards the sky
• "Think tall"
• Avoid running with your head tilted up, rather tilt your chin slightly down

SHOULDERS/ARMS

• Swing your arms with elbows bent and a mild criss-cross in front of the body
• Pull your elbows back by using your shoulder blade muscles
• Do not run holding dumbbell weights in your hands

RIB CAGE

• Lift your chest up and keep it there
• "Think Tall" again.  Allows for maximal breath capacity.
• Avoid slumping or leaning forward unless climbing a steep hill or pushing into a stiff wind

LOW BACK

• Pull your lower stomach muscles in with the posterior pelvic tilt motion
• Decrease the arch in your back with the pelvic tilt

HIPS

• Keep hips level right and level by keeping strong gluteal muscles
• The hip alignment controls the foot position in the swing phase, so practice keeping your hip/knee/foot in a straight line in the swing phase

KNEES

• Keep knees in line with the 2^nd toe on same side of leg
• Avoid letting the knee fall towards midline with fatigue

FEET/ANKLES

• Heel to toe is correct for jogging.  Land as softly as you can.  Listen to the impact.
• Toe running is for sprinting only not distance running
• Avoid over-pronation by conscious control, better shoes &/or inserts
• Swing phase should have the foot, knee, and hip in a straight line when viewed from the back.  This control comes from the hip muscles.  Practice in front of a mirror.

BIG TOES

• Roll off all 5 toes evenly and not just off the outer edge.  Focus on rolling off the big toe, especially.

Julie's seminar was recorded and will be in the next podcast. Check the season archive for newsletter archives and new podcast every month.

Whether you are a runner or a walker or somewhere in between, you will most likely have at least a few occassions during your training or racing that will required you to WALK. Whether it is at a water stop or a planned (or unplanned) walking break, it's important to keep good form for your walking, just like good form is important for your running.

Here is a reprint from ChiWalking.com which gives some great tips on arm swing during your walking. A poor arm swing is the observation I hear most from our walking coaches when they see the runners taking a walk-break. It is also one of the form tips that can have the greatest impact on beginning walkers. We will also hear from race walking coach Bert Pickell on Saturday, who can walk faster than many of us can run!

Arm Swing: Maximize Your Upper Body and Reduce Your Legwork

What a good arm swing can do for you:

An important aspect of arm swing is that the movement of your upper body helps to balance out the work done by your lower body. If you only used your pelvis and legs to walk, and your upper body was motionless, you would experience a lot more effort and work. This is because the lack of movement "upstairs" creates inertia (a slowing-down movement) for the motion of the lower body.

Having a relaxed and efficient armswing can have a huge effect on the smoothness of your gait which translates into increasing your economy of motion which will reduce the workload of your legs. When I talk about efficiency, it means that you can either walk faster, or farther, or require less recovery time -- with a lower perceived effort level during your walks. And, you can feel all this with a more effective arm swing.

How to make the best use of your arms:

Here are some tips on how to make the best use of your arms and hands and what to watch out for.

Create Balance

ChiWalking is based on the movement principles in T'ai Chi which requires that all of your movement be balanced in six directions: front to back, side to side and top to bottom. In the ChiWalking technique, it is important to tilt slightly forward from your hips in order to engage the assistance of gravity for your forward propulsion. But being able to comfortably maintain balance with your body falling forward requires you to create a counterbalance in the opposite direction so that you're not "holding" yourself in a forward position with your muscles. That's where your arms come into the picture. In ChiWalking we have you swinging your arms to the rear as you walk -- not forward. This creates the right amount of counterbalance to your forward tilt.

Note of caution: Swinging your arms forward can cause you to over-stride which will create a harder heel strike, increase your impact and reduce your efficiency.

Begin each armswing with your elbows at your ribs and pull your hands back towards your ribs. Don't let your elbows swing in front of your ribs as they come forward.

Relax your shoulders

Early on in my walking career I used to come home from my long walks with more soreness in my shoulders than in my legs. Sound familiar? If it does, here's what you can do about it. Stand in front of a mirror with your feet hip width apart and staggered, with one foot in front of the other. Shift your weight more to your front leg and start swinging your arms. Now watch to see if you're lifting your shoulders with each swing. If you are, you're a candidate for sore shoulders like I was. With a little practice you can learn to swing your arms without moving your shoulders at all. Here's how. Place one of your hands on your opposite shoulder and swing the arm of the shoulder that is being held down. This will help you feel what it's like to swing your arm without moving your shoulder. Practice this on both sides for a few minutes. Relaxation doesn't come naturally to some of us, so we have to train ourselves to relax. For those of you who work at a keyboard all day, you'll learn to relieve all that stored up shoulder tension on your walks.

Try to always keep your shoulders low and just let your arms swing freely like pendulums. Don't hold your arms away from your sides or you'll be unnecessarily engaging some of your shoulder and neck muscles. I've found that it helps me to relax my shoulders if I place my attention on the tips of my elbows when I'm swinging them. This places my attention on the bottom of my pendulums instead of at the top and allows me to take all emphasis away from my shoulders.

Bend your arms

As I have already mentioned, your arms are two pendulums. And, the law of the pendulum says that if you want a pendulum to swing faster it needs to be shorter. When you want to walk at a slower pace, walk with your arms swinging low at your sides. In this way you'll be slowing down your cadence. When walking at a medium pace hold your arms in a "half-bent," like you're just about to put your hands into your pockets. And for a fast paced walk keep your arms bent at 90º which will give you a much faster cadence. Don't pump your arms or you'll be using more energy than you need to.

Don't cross your centerline

One of the basic rules of good energy-efficient walking is to not have any side-to-side motion in your body. If you swing your arms across your midline it can distract from your forward momentum and also possibly add more stress to your IT bands, hips and lower back.

To find the right angle of armswing, pretend you're holding a volleyball in your hands and let your arms swing at that angle.

Relax your hands

I see many people clenching their fists when they walk. This falls into the category of unnecessary muscle usage. Any tension held in your body will restrict your movement and block your chi from flowing easily through your arms. Hold your hands with your fingers curled in slightly, like you've just caught a butterfly and you don't want to crush it. Be sure to hold your hands with your thumbs on top, not with your palms facing down. Holding your hands facing down will engage the entire muscle chain from your elbow to your ear. Again, it's unnecessary muscle usage that doesn't contribute to your walk.

Walking uphill

There are exceptions to every rule and ChiWalking has its exceptions. Walking uphill requires your legs to work harder and one way to increase your efficiency on the uphills is to swing your arms forward as you head up so that your arms can take some of that extra workload off the legs.

When walking uphill, swing your arms with your hands held closer into your chest. This gives your armswing a more upward motion and will help you to lift your legs more easily.

Your upper body is just as important to your walking as your lower body. And, as you can see, there's a lot more to having a good armswing than you probably imagined. With a little practice and consistency you'll find yourself walking more smoothly and efficiently across the ground, and you'll come back from your walks energized and relaxed.

"In the long run, you only hit what you aim at."

- Henry Thoreau

Each weekly newsletter will include comments and information from each of our head coaches.

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"I like running because it's a challenge.  If you run hard, there's the pain - and you've got to work your way through the pain.  You know, lately it seems all you hear is? Don't overdo it' and? Don't push yourself.' Well, I think that's a lot of bull.  If you push the human body, it will respond."
          - Bob Clarke, Philadelphia Flyers general manager, NHL Hall of Fame

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Hello Purple,

I hope that everyone had a great work out week.  All your coaches are so proud of you. Our walks are getting tougher so keep up the good work and believe in yourself.


The number one question I am asked is how to get and STAY motivated. We are all motivated by different things. You have to find out what motivates you. My main motivation ... wanting to be healthy and proving to myself I can do this. Another motivation is that this program keeps me in shape to be able to do things I enjoy. Aka find me a husband. LOL. But seriously..Think of all the benefits of this training program.  Choose the things that matter to you and focus on them. You can do this!!!!

The second biggest question asked is how can I improve my speed and endurance. Here are a few suggestions taken from Dave McGovern's racewalk clinic and articles. They are for every kind of walker, including fitness walkers and racewalkers. You can mix and match the workouts below. Dave McGovern, 31, is a member of the U.S. National Racewalking Team, the fourth fastest American of all time in the 20K.

You're an athlete so train like one. The key to maximum aerobic fitness lies in training all of the body's physiological systems. "To get better, you have to do different workouts during a typical week that use each of these systems," explains McGovern.

McGovern's Building Blocks

1. Build Endurance with one long walk a week, at an easy, conversational pace to promote capillary growth and oxygen delivery to your working muscles. You should accumulate about a third of your total weekly mileage on this day.

2. Build Speed. McGovern approaches tin these three ways:
·  Economy days feature a series of short, fast intervals. Focus on perfect technique to accustom your neuromuscular system to walking fast.
·  Speed days feature longer fast intervals to strengthen your cardiovascular system and to teach your muscles to maintain energy production even when stressed.
·  Tempo days consist of an easy warm-up followed by a sustained period of faster walking to get accustomed to maintaining speed.

3. Rest to let your muscles fully rebuild. Some rest days you should take completely off, and on others you can either do short, easy distance or do an alternative activity at an easy pace. McGovern generally alternates rest days with intense workouts.

Basic Program

Build two of McGovern's three intense workouts into your weekly schedule. If the recommendations are too tough for your fitness level, do what you can while staying within the training paramaters.

·  Distance workout: one per week. Go for a long walk that's about one-third of your total weekly mileage.
·  Intense workouts: two of the following per week

    Economy. Warm up. Walk 30 seconds at your fastest pace, then 2 minutes easy. Repeat 12 times, then cool down and stretch.

    Speed. After warming up, walk for 8 minutes very fast, then 2 minutes easy. Repeat three times, then cool down and stretch. Here, fast means slightly faster than on a tempo day--think race pace.

     Tempo. Walk 10 minutes at an easy pace, followed by 20 to 30 minutes of fast (slightly slower than your fastest) walking, then 10 minutes of easy walking (or 5-10-5 if you're not that fit yet).

This variety of workouts will ensure you get slow fat-burning workouts, aerobic carbo-burning workouts that also build and feed your muscles, and avoid overtraining and anaerobic workouts. Lastly please make sure you are carrying enough water for your Saturday distance walks.
 

Hydration is important in this Texas heat.You should drink: a cup of water each mile or every 30 minutes. If you are walking for more than an hour or losing lots of sweat, you should consider drinking an electrolyte (salt) replacement sports drink. You should "drink when thirsty" rather than forcing fluids. Please beware of too much caffeine. Caffeine can dehydrate you by making you have to urinate more, and it can also act as a laxative. Here's a  link to some tips on when to drink:

  http://walking.about.com/od/fluids/a/drinking2006.htm

Have fun this week and remember. To be something different you have to do something different.

Walk on Walk Strong

Be sure to click on the link below to see the names, faces & email addresses of your group coaches! We have added several new assistant coaches to the roster, so take a look!

The Alamo Series is a collaboration of the San Antonio running community, providing a progression of high-quality races to prepare local athletes for the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in November. The series is comprised of nine races between April and October, each with varying distances, providing an ideal dovetail for individual and group training schedules. Participation is tracked for all races in the series, and athletes who complete seven or more are eligible for awards at the series conclusion.

This coming Saturday is our next Bagel Break & Medical Q&A. After the workout we will all have a chance to carb up on some yummy bagels, visit with each other, and have some informal talks with various medical professionals.

Medical sponsors planning to attend:

• Texas MedClinic Sports Medicine
• Dr. Annette Zaharoff, Sports Medicine & Julie Barnett, PT

We will host Bagel Breaks the first Saturday of every month for the rest of our training.