RACEWALK

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History
Racewalking is a rapidly growing sport, both on track and on road courses. With roots in renaissance ‘footmen’ in Europe, it is over 300 years old. In the 1800’s, racewalking was the starting point for modern track and field, which later adopted additional events from the Ancient Greek Olympic games.

Opportunities
Today, racewalking is an event with competitive opportunities for all age groups within USATF, or in high schools with USATF qualified officials. Mile, 1500m and 3000m races are part of USATF Junior Olympic competitions, USATF National Youth Championships and High school events. At USATF National Junior championships (under 20 years of age) and in trials for US Junior National Teams to compete at the World Cup and other major events, the competition distance is 10,000m. Seniors and masters have race opportunities from 1500m up to 24 hour races. The current senior international distances are 20,000m and 35,000m with a two person mixed marathon relay under development for future championships, including the Olympics which has included the racewalk for more than a century.

What is racewalking? It is an endurance event using a cyclic motor skill: a simple pattern of movement repeated about 3 times per second and governed by two rules. This is similar to swimming and cross-country skiing events. These are also cyclical skills controlled by rules of movement.

Rules
** For more information on the rules, please see the section on officiating the racewalk event group. If you want to learn to racewalk, do NOT start by reading the rules. Instructions for how to learn are listed below. Years of coaching have shown that learning correct technique is easier if you are not focused on a list of rules.

How do running and racewalking differ?
Anyone can learn to racewalk for fitness or competition at any age, and it’s easier on the joints. If you are injured or just starting a fitness routine (as always, check with your doctor first) you may find racewalking a great alternative to running.

Runners have flight times over 300 milliseconds whereas racewalkers cannot exceed 40 milliseconds. As a result, impact forces at heel strike are less than half as great in racewalking as they are in running. Racewalking requires a higher cadence (steps per minute) but is about 75% as fast as running at maximum speeds. Racewalking and running produce exactly the same maximum oxygen uptake, energy expenditure, and heart rate.

Running uses the quadriceps and hip flexors as the primary drivers while racewalking uses the hamstrings and glutes. For this reason, racewalking is a useful skill for ultra runners so they can ‘rest’ key muscle groups in very long races without stopping. Racewalking requires greater core strength development for top level competition, to avoid wasting energy at each heel strike.

What makes a good racewalker?
If you are a club coach with an incoming group of new athletes, select potential racewalkers based on speed endurance and the ability to learn new motor skills. It is also useful if they have some endurance training background and an analytical mindset. Racewalkers often have a more muscular physique than endurance runners; however, athletes from all sorts of backgrounds with very varied physiques have excelled as racewalkers over the years.

How do you learn to racewalk?
Do not distract the athlete by telling them rules in the first few weeks of learning the technique.

Examples:
First show the athletes what they are trying to achieve. Especially useful are videos of young but skilled racewalkers. The slower speed makes it easier to see their action and young athletes reacted positively to viewing athletes of a similar age. Watching movements activates similar parts of the brain to those that are involved in those performing movements.

Good videos for beginners:

https://youtu.be/KXFIuprNbcM

Example first lesson:

https://youtu.be/jOzvn6NpeMU