Hand carriage during race walking is quite simple. Simply keep a straight wrist with the hand in a loose fist. As your hands pass by your hips, the fingertips face the hips. However, many race walkers’ hands flop all over the place (Figures 18-1 & 18-2), drawing a judge’s watchful eye as well as wasting energy. There are really no exercises to help; it’s primarily an issue of focus.
Think about closing your hands, but do not make a fist, while you are walking.
Either imagine or actually place a small stick inside your fist. Focus on keeping your hand and fingers from swaying up, down, or side to side. Coach Peña used this little trick on Andrew Hermann and it helped him walk his way onto the 2000 Sydney Olympic team.
Too tight a fist wastes energy and leads to a tense body. Imagine that you are carrying a potato chip between your thumb and your index finger. By imagining the chip there and that you must not break it, you’ll relax your hand position without letting the hand flop about.