Many of us face a problem of being slow. The thing that irritates the most is your friends or other people calling you slack.
Some people tag you as a lazy person and whenever you meet some new person, they introduce you as slack or lazy person before them. This ruins your repute and personality impression over them.
Brisk walking is something that can help you increase your speed. Brisk walking is a moderate-intensity exercise and has more benefits for fitness and heath reducing risks than walking at an easy pace.
How fast you must walk for it to be considered a brisk pace depends on your fitness level.
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a brisk pace is 3.0 miles/hour or about 20 min/mile which is about 5 kilometers/hour or 12 min/km.
Described below are some ways to increase your speed to simply attain brisk paces.
- Walking Posture
- Shorter Strides
- Increase frequency of your legs
- Increase the length of your legs (keeping the natural length)
Walking Posture
Walking posture is an important element for brisk walking. Maintain your posture. Stand up straight without arching your back. Don’t lean forward or backward. A look up straight making your chin parallel to the ground reduces strain on your neck and back.
Feel relaxed and confident. Shrug once and let your shoulders fall and relax, with your shoulders slightly back. Relax your jaw to tension in your neck.
Tuck in your behind by rotating your hips forward slightly. This will keep you from arching your back.
Your head should remain level as you walk. All motion should take place from the shoulders down.
Shorter Strides
Open your legs up to the natural length while walking. Take shorter strides.
If you want to walk faster, you should take shorter strides. Longer strides will slow down your walking speed.
This is because your foot lands in an over-stretched position when you take longer strides. This will act as a brake to your faster walking. Therefore, try taking shorter and quicker strides.
Increase frequency of your legs
Increase the pace of your steps making sure to push with your toes. This kind of movement is useful for your leg muscles.
Make sure to walk up like a foreman. Walk for few minutes like this and then walk on your feet for few meters. Yes, of course, this kind of exercise sounds funny but for the sake of not being called a slack, this is actually something important.
Use a Pengulian movement in your arms to move forward keeping them bent. Do not let your hands swing any higher than your chest.
Make sure that the movement of your arms and legs is synchronized; that is, the frequency of your arms swings should match with the paces of your steps.
Increase the length of your steps
Increase the length of your legs helps in enhancing your walking speed. Move your legs further forward in order to increase length. This will increase the rotation in your hips which would help in faster movement.
Feel free to roll through the steps from heel to toe. Also extend your arms when swinging to prepare yourself further forward.
While walking, when your arm reaches backwards, slightly unfold it by reaching far behind it with your hand. When your arm comes forward, fold it at some angle of approximately up to 93o and try not to bring your hand higher than your chest or shoulder level.
This exercise will surely make you feel breathless. If you are too breathless, better access the pace that suits you best.
This will help you increase your speed, stamina and strengthen your muscles.
Practice your stride!
Practice a correct walking stride by consciously keeping your rear foot on the ground longer with each step and giving a good push-off. You will naturally place your forward foot closer to your body if you do this.
It may feel funny at first, but in the end you will get the reward. Note the steps daily or whenever you practice or keep some record for further improvements.
