are you Walking Properly?

What is the proper way to walk and how should your foot be striking the ground? A majority of people have been taught that the proper way to walk is heel to toe. This is completely false. 

To understand how the foot should impact the ground lets think about a large mountain made up of mostly one large boulder. Now let's send an earth quake shock up through that boulder. As many of us have lived through earthquakes we know that when there is no distribution of shock that whatever is sitting on the top of that mountain is likely to be split in half! Now let's imagine a mountain made up of many boulders and let's send the same earthquake shock up through that mountain. The difference is that now that shock is beginning to ping off and between each boulder as it works it's way up to the top of the mountain and the structure sitting on that mountain has just danced with the mountain as the shock has been disbursed as it made it's way up to the top.

Now let's look at the calcaneus bone (Heel Bone). This bone is one large "boulder" held in place with a few ligaments, it is NOT designed to distribute shock, in fact it doesn't distribute evenly. 

Have you ever noticed in the gym how a man with a very well developed set of quadriceps can have a larger outer quad and a smaller inner quad (frowning face) over the knee? This is likely because this person is a heel striker. 

When we heel strike it can cause the heel to press up into the tarsal bones and the shock to distribute directly up the outer portion of the leg. Many times this is why the inner calf muscles, quads and hamstrings develop smaller than the outer and why it can be difficult to build up the glutes as well. It can also cause an imbalance and weakness in the pelvic floor and deep abdominal muscles. In addition, this can also cause the arch to fall or an excessively high arch because of the heel being pressed up into the tarsals and the bones having no where else to go, so they either fall to the inside or the outside. This can also call plantar fasciitis which can be extremely painful. 

So how do we walk properly? The proper way to walk is pad of foot to heel and to power off the big toe as you push off your planted foot. The majority of the bones within the foot exist in the pad of the foot, these are all the small "boulders" and are our shock distributers. The pad of the foot is meant to strike the ground first. Sometimes in order to accomplish this it might require taking shorter strides. It is also helpful to take a few steps backward and 'feel' what it feels like to strike the ground properly. It is anatomically impossible to walk backward incorrectly because if you hit the ground with your heel first you will likely fall over, but somehow our body and brain have allowed us to do this walking forward. It can take some time to retrain your brain and body to resink up so you can walk properly without thinking about it.