I like to use long distance + moderate-to-high intensity walking for fat loss, recovery, conditioning, and even as a tool for strength gain (legs/hips/postural strength gains).
As for myself, I walk outside using “normal form”; no special speed walking form. I like to get in sessions around 2-3 hours or so. I try to push the pace harder when I can, and maintain a decent pace throughout. When i’m feeling good, I can stay under 14 min/mi. When i’m very sore, I can barely get under 18 min/mi. When i’m just drained or my CNS is jacked, staying under 16 min/mi is difficult. So, I can also use these numbers to judge where i’m at from an autoregulatory perspective - insight into the state of my system.
One of my goals is to get my avg walking pace to around 5 mph when i’m feeling good. This would indicate some significant performance gains IMHO. For example, when i’m just getting back into walking, my paces really suffer. As I improve, I definitely feel improvements in my stride frequency, hip extension, toe off, posture, etc. FWIW, I feel like there’s definitely some transfer to running and sprinting.
My best walking mile is 12:11, still haven’t cracked sub 12. Here’s an example session where I hit 12:26 (4.86 mph). Sustained 5mph seems like a pretty lofty goal TBH, that’s really moving with normal walking form (no fancy hip stuff etc). But i’d like to get there & see how I feel with that “extra power” and/or sustained frequency.
So for me:
Height: 6’1
Weight: ~155 lb.
Fastest walking mile: 12:11
I’m actually going to put on my foot pod & chest strap to see my stride freq / HR. Need more data to take this more seriously & achieve an average of 5 mph.
So, anyone else know how fast they walk?
Feel free to include treadmill and/or speed walking numbers as well. For some reason I doubt there are speed walkers on T-Nation, but who knows.
peace