How to Walk Better

Walking is something we take for granted, but sedentary living can cause us to adopt walking habits that are less than ideal. This article helps to explain some common pitfalls and strategies to make walking therapeutic instead of harmful.

Good Posture

Good walking begins by understanding good posture while standing. Keep the hips soft and slightly behind so that the large hip bones carry your weight instead of the hip flexor muscles.

Maintain a neutral spine with your ribs stacked over your hips and nose below your ears.

Imagine there's a string at the back of your head pulling up to the sky and try to be as tall as possible.

Follow these posture tips to have a good starting position when walking. Read more about posture here.

Good Shoes

The human body is a miracle of engineering and it has everything it needs to function perfectly if we take care of it. Look at a baby's foot and you'll see it's like an upside down triangle. Then look at an adult's foot and it doesn't look like that at all because our modern shoes have squeezed our toes together so much that they've disformed our feet. This makes it impossible to use our feet as they were intended, which causes countless foot, knee, hip, and back problems.

Shoe inserts can help to reduce the discomfort of required walking, but they're an external support that weaken your internal foot structure and they do not teach the body to move better. Avoid them or use them as sparingly as possible.

Looking at how your shoes are wearing provides insight into your current walking habits. Do you notice if your shoes wear unevenly? If so, this is an insight that you can correct how you're distributing your weight. Keep a neutral ankle by distributing your weight well.

One tool that has been very helpful for teaching clients to better distribute their weight is the SoleSteps. I explain what these are and how to use them in the below video.

If you want to walk better, get better shoes - minimalist wide toe box shoes - or be barefoot as often as possible. Here are the top-6 pairs of shoes I use and recommend.

Good Walking Technique

To re-learn how to walk, be barefoot because shoes allow us to walk in an unnatural way.

Keep the feet pointing forward and under you. Don't allow the feet to drift out or away from your center of gravity. As you push-off, make sure you're pushing over your toes or slightly inward, but not outward. No duck walking!

The force of a foot strike initiates from the outer part of the foot (1 - cuboid bone), then moves to the outer ball of the foot and then the inner ball of the foot as you push-off for the next step directly over the toes.

The heel can touch, but only lightly at first. Don't apply any force to the arch of your foot.

Land on the outer part of your foot and then transferring weight to your toe pads as soon as possible.

Avoid heavy heel striking and think about keeping the knees and hips soft and landing lightly.

Fascia Lines, Coordination, & Integration

The body moves in spirals and waves, just like everything else in this universe. This is why good walking involves rotation and swaying side to side, in the same way a fish, lion, and amoeba move. A good way to practice this is to exaggerate the movement of your arms as you walk. Feel how your entire body is connected through walking.

Focus on extending both arms and legs behind you.

Another way to improve how your upper body moves is to practice rope flow like the video below. This helps you to restore movement to the thoracic spine and shoulders, which is a commonly stiff part of the body.

Lastly, sit into the hips and use your glutes as the primary muscle propelling your forward as you walk. The drop-in exercise can help to connect the foot to the glute while moving.

Conclusion

Walking is one of the most complicated things that we all do, but many never stop to consider how they're doing it or if each step is helping or hurting them. Applying the tips I've shared in this article will help to ensure that walking is therapeutic and beneficial in keeping you healthy and pain-free.

If you want one-on-one attention to improve your posture and how you move, schedule a fitness consultation to get started working with me today.

Hope this helps! -Tom