The secret to fast race walking is fast turnover, not stride length. I was looking at reruns of the Olympic 50km walk. The winner was doing 190 strides per minute. I suspect some others were over 200. Now that is really high turnover!
So the equation is S = L x F where S is the speed, L the stride length and F the stride frequency. Clearly the trade off is between L and F. Race walking coaches argue that gains in F are well worth losses in L. Overstriding is a prime mistake for novices.
I tried shorting the stride and increasing frequency the other night. It paid off. I reduced my 3 km time by 6 seconds – that is just the beginning.
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