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Bonnie Stein, M.Ed.
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Injury Free
Racewalking - Keeping a Safe Sport Even Safer
By Bonnie Stein, M.Ed.
I’ve had plenty of sports related injuries
during my amateur athlete days. I’ve broken a bone in my foot playing
racquetball, pulled my trapezius muscle using hand weights during aerobics, and
torn the meniscus in my right knee during my running days.
After almost 18 years of racewalking,
competitively and for fitness, I have never had to take time off from
racewalking. I’ve yet to have any injuries I can attribute to this sport.
Dr. Peter Francis, a biomechanics professor
at San Diego State University, has researched injuries among competitive
racewalkers. He found that “based on the total number of years of participation
by several hundred racewalkers and the total number of injuries they suffered
collectively, the average competitive racewalker suffers only one serious injury
every 51.7 years.”
If we measure injury level by how much time
is spent recovering we find that runners take significantly more time off from
their training due to injuries. A six month study by Byrnes and McCullagh
compared the injury rate of runners to high intensity walkers—80% maximum heart
rate for both groups. The runners lost an average of 11.1 days of training
while the walkers lost only 1.5 days during the 28 weeks. Runners spent more
than seven times as much time recovering from injuries.
An article in Runner’s World, written by a
medical doctor, informed us that each year 50 percent of all runners, from
recreational athletes to elite, sustain an injury that affects their running.
So what kind of injuries do racewalkers
incur during those infrequent occasions? Dr. Howard Palamarchuck (Sports
Medicine ‘80) found that when racewalkers get injuries, they are the same
type of injuries as runners get. They include hamstring injuries, medial knee
pain, non-specific hip pain, plantar fasciitis, “shin splints”, and groin
strains. Yet the occurance of injuries in racewalkers seems to be significantly
less.
Here are some tips that have worked to keep
me and many other racewalkers injury-free:
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Always warm up
with one half to one mile of “slow” racewalking before any workout.
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Never stretch
cold muscles. Rather, I wait until after my racewalking bout is complete.
Then I spend about 10 minutes stretching the major muscles used in
racewalking. This includes the gastrocnemius and soleus of the calf,
quadriceps, hamstrings, hip flexors, and I.T. Band. For an excellent resource
book see Stretching by Bob Anderson. |
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If you have a
particularly tight area, warm up first for 5-8 minutes with some slow
racewalking (sounds like an oxymoron); then, stop and stretch. Do a more
complete stretching after you’re finished with your workout. |
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Always cool
down after a workout by walking slowly for 5-8 minutes before stopping to
stretch. |
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Never progress
too quickly. If you’ve been comfortable racewalking 5K races, don’t try a
half-marathon next. Even a 10K, at race pace, would be too intense. Instead,
gradually work up to doing four miles, then five miles, then a 10K. Overuse
injuries are most common in racewalkers who do too much too soon. |
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Never increase
more than one component (frequency, intensity, duration) at a time. For
example, if you’ve been racewalking four days a week and you decide to
increase to five days a week, don’t also increase your mileage the same day. |
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Never increase
a weekly workout by more than five percent. For example, if you racewalk
four miles per session, when you increase, you can increase to 4.2 miles (5%
of four miles is 0.2 miles.) |
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A tip from Ian Whatley, an elite racewalker and a former member of our
National 20K Racewalk Team, is to increase your amount of miles by no more
than the amount of days you walk per week. That means if you walk five days
per week, increase your weekly distance by no more than five miles. A
conservative approach is not to make another change for at least three more
weeks. |
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For racewalkers who train for long distances, or racewalkers who are over 50,
training every other day may work best. It gives your muscles a chance to
recover completely and regenerate stronger for the next workout. |
I have found that those racewalkers who
always warm up, always cool down, and always stretch warm muscles are the ones
who rarely get injured. When in doubt, err on the conservative side. Most of
us can live with one injury every 51.7 years.
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