Backward Walking Benefits For Runners

If you are familiar with Blue Zones, you may already know backward walking has been an accepted practice in Asia for hundreds of years. It’s part of the culture throughout the region, but not so much outside of it.

You may feel uncomfortable at first, but you’ll get over that quickly as you realize its many accessible benefits. In this episode we focus on three key benefits. 

#1. Enhanced Balance and Coordination

You immediately notice something when you begin walking backward. You feel strange at first, but soon your body becomes more aware of how it moves and its relationship with the space around it.

Our coordination, body balance and space awareness enable us to safely move and adapt in the moment. This proprioceptive awareness is a skill all elite runners share, and backward walking will help you enhance yours.

#2. More Efficient Warmup and Recovery   

Every runner knows the most common running injuries are plantar fasciitis, Runner’s Knee, and Achilles tendonitis. Backward walking greatly reduces the risk of these injuries, and helps you recover if you already have them.

Practicing backward walking for 100 yards or so just before running is enough to realize these benefits. As you do this, be aware of extending your knees over the toes, as it’s from this movement that most of the gains are derived.

3. Increased Power and Mobility

One of the cardinal rules of strength training is that you work opposing muscles to keep everything in balance. Just as a bench press counterbalances with rowing that works the opposing back muscles, backward walking counterbalances with forward walking and running.

You can imagine that after a lifetime of walking and running forward, you have weaknesses in your glutes and hamstrings. If you really want to bulletproof your legs from potential injuries, there’s nothing that mirrors forward walking like backward walking.

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