KATRIENS VERSION
Your Body is essentially a Giant Spring that absorbs the Force of Gravity and reproduces it to give You Rebound.
This same Mechanical Structure is what creates Stability in Your Body through Rotational Relationships at each Joint.
When You lose Stablitity repetitively = Adehsions
Adhesions = Lose Mobility, Torque (Rotation) and Strength
Adhesions also create Compensation Patterns which leads to more adhesions.
Adhesions turn Your Walk into a Controlled Fall. This creates a Jarring effect with every step that creates more adhesions.To reverse the Cycle You need to begin removing adhesions first.
A evolutionary week has a Forefoot strike, a point of contact under the hips and a "Stop" that starts with a Heel Strike and ends with knees over toes.
The Steps to Fixing Your Walk:
- Get acquainted with a Lacrosse Ball to melt Your adhesions.
- Get into Neutral Position
- Use Neutral Position to locate adhesions and restrictions
On yop of walking with a Forefoot Strike, stay Dorsiflexed at the ankle, strike the ground with Force and maintaon a Forward lean (slightly).
If You can't stop without Pain, make sure to incorporate some sort of Strength via Length work.
THE ARTICLE
I have a Confession. I have a lot of Imbalances. Starting at the age of 5 my Dad would get Me out of Bed on a weekly basis and insist on stretching My Achilles. In My attempt to avoid what I deemed a Mundane, Mid-Morning Medieval “torture” session I bitterly fought back against the idea of stretching my ankles.
Eventually winning out against My reluctant Father, I proceeded to walk around with stiff ankles, hips, knees, shoulders, and basically every other joint You can think of in the Human Body. Steppig into middle school my hip flexors and lower back were so tight it would physically slow Me down when I ran. I would drive as hard as my muscles would go, have loads left in the tank, but go nowhere.
I was slow as cold molasses.
Not only that but My agility was even worse. Given my speed my ability to stop and go was mediocre at best.
Not only was I in pain, but I was immobile. (Which essentially, as you’ll learn), is the same thing.
Looking for an answer, I heard about the fore-foot strike and when Vibram came out with their toe shoes I tried them right away.
I ditched the heel strike, reduced the pain, got a little spring in my step and surprisingly kicked my speed up a couple notches. Even though I was still as stiff as a 2x4 plank.
However, this didn’t translate over to my agility. I was getting great at running straight lines, fast off the mark and delivering some pretty crushing hits on the rugby pitch but stopping or changing direction? - I’d sooner fall on My face.
What’s more is that my stiffness never really changed. I still had tight ankles, hips, low back pain and a tight neck. I managed pain with rolling, self-massage, chiro, physio, stretching but every time I would walk it would seem like things got worse instead of better.
This led Me to a deep dive into walking.
Why is walking so important? Beyond just getting You from Point A to Point B, walking has a host of benefits that You will soon learn about. And in the Human Library of Biomechanical Motion there is no other Movement that integrates and activates Your Fascia, and every other piece of You, like gait does. Not only does walking keep Your Fascia healthy and functioning like it’s supposed to, but Fascia keeps You walking and exploring other avenues of gait like You were designed to. It’s a wonderful, self-sustaining loop that keeps Your Vital force perpetually high. Because walking is so influential it’s important to get it right. In this way walking can either become a super-exercise that boosts Your Success, or a speed bump that builds up to become an impenetrable wall.
Walk into anySenior's home and You'll see what I mean.
Leaving no stone unturned I’ve delved into everything associated with the Gait Cycle, set it on the stove to boil and simmered it down to the central concepts for You to feast on.
I know what you're thinking, boiled feet, sounds delicious.
To whet Your appetite, I’m not only going to tell You how You can begin walking the way You were designed to walk, but also create more mobility and less pain in the rest of your life while doing so.
In this article I’m going to tell You how the Human Body was evolutionarily designed to walk, the difference between a walk and a controlled fall, why learning how to stop walking is 50% of the Gait equation and what You can do to start fixing Your walk.
But before I do that I’m going to give You the skinny on Gravity and why You need to be aware of it.
HOW TO WALK INSTEAD OF FALL
Walking is a full body movement. Through the biotensegrity model everything is tied within the body through Your Fascial system. Fascia wraps every single structure in your body from your skin down to the contours of Your Brain. Nothing integrates the Fascial system, and everything in between, as fully as gait. When walking there is a sequential, interconnected pattern that radiates from your toes, up through your lower joints, synchronizes with rotation in the torso, links with an inverted brachiation sling motion in your shoulders that spiderwebs down to your fingertips. This works in tandem with your visual system, vestibular system and the vestibular-ocular reflex. The tension stretched across your dermal (skin) surface will either inhibit or support your movement, and the expansion of your diaphragm during breath changes the pressure placed upon your organs to ensure fresh fluids are exchanged.
And this is just the surface, literally everything gets included. It is the primary movement You were designed for, nothing comes secondary to it.
Walking is designed to enhance nutrient acquisition, aid digestion, rehydrate tissues, boost lymphatic drainage, amplify detoxification pathways and support immune function. In this concise article by Paul Chek he briefly explains how the inner unit works in tandem with the rhythmic contractions of the musculoskeletal system to create periods of relaxation and contraction. This creates differential patterns of pressure within the body cavities resulting in the organs and viscera receiving a gentle massage promoting circulation and the movement of other bodily fluids (synovial, spinal, lymphatic, etc) into the organs themselves and other tissues within
With all these factors at play the importance of walking and gait gets thrown into the spotlight, given it governs the health and fitness of Your entirety it becomes all the more important to walk correctly. With this strong of an influence on all Your body’s systems faulty gait patterns can lead to all sorts of imbalances that snowball into giant compensatory cascades that radiate out to digestion, cognition, hormone function, mood, metabolism etc. And You can insert any other function that the body performs onto the list.
In this context the way You walk can either Empower You or Hinder You, and it all starts with a warm cozy blanket called gravity. (You can pick them up at Wal-Mart for $15.99).
GRAVITY AS A WEIGHTED BLANKET
Think of gravity as an invisible force.
Because that’s what it is.
While a crude model, the way gravity acts on the body is synonymous to draping a weighted blanket over your head. The weight of the blanket is going to cause Your body to compress in a manner that will accommodate the weight.
The way Your body accommodates this weight is individual to You. The body has 3 planes of motion,
- Forward and back (Sagittal)
- Side - to - Side (Frontal)
- Rotation (Transverse)
And every Junction point or Joint is capable of each of these motions to a certain degree. So when You get a weighted blanket thrown on You, (Gravity) Your body is going to adjust. While your friend's hips may shift to the left and bend their neck closer to their chest, You might twist in your ribs, drop your right shoulder and round your upper back. The possibilities are literally endless, knowing which ones are specific to You is key to your success. This is where getting a Coach can really speed up the process.
However, fortunately for You the glass is more than half full and Society has structured itself to give rise to a pattern of problems that make for a great launchpad for Your Progress.
LONGITUDINAL COMPRESSION
This Launchpad comes as a combination of sitting and losing what is called postural rebound. Globally-Communicated by Naudi Aguilar, a Heavyweight Contender and Pioneer in the Holistic Movement Practice and CEO of Functional Patterns Postural Rebound is the bounce back employed by the body after absorbing the force of gravity.
In any other position besides supine the body is experiencing a degree of compression. Because of the Comfort and Convenience Concept that has structured the Industrial Society much of Modern living carries the repercussions of excessive sitting and faulty recruitment patterns created by non-native and unfamiliar, (in the evolutionary sense) equipment, think cushioned, structured or rigid shoes.
The combination of these repercussions and compressive forces of gravity has created compensations within the Human form. Instead of supporting and developing postural rebound the body has reverted to stabilizing the instability that is created from poor movement patterns. This results in the body developing fascial adhesion or crosslinking. These adhesions then prevent rebound and create a cycle that slowly spins itself into a downward spiral.
This compression usually manifests itself in one pattern with varying degrees at the hips, torso and neck which then radiates out to every other point in the body.
This pattern is an Anterior Pelvic Shift, Kyphosis in the Upper Torso and Hyper extension in the neck, by addressing these points (skip to Fixing Your Walk), You can start to unwind Your Fascial Adhesions and reinstate Postural Rebound.
POSTURAL REBOUND
To create this Rebound the body has a built in Spring System that works synchronously with gravity. It is the fascial system (You can read more about here). that allow the body to absorb this force, store the energy and create rebound. In the book Anatomy Trains by Thomas Myers, a long-standing Rolfer, Body worker, Pioneer of the Biotensegrity Model and who I consider to be one of the Greatest Wealths of Knowledge on the Structural Composition and Properties of Fascia, he's shown that All Functional Lines appear as Spirals within the body, either acting in partnership with the Spiral Line or as an extension of the Spiral Line, i.e. the Functional Arm Lines. This Spiral structure is what allows the body to absorb the compressive forces of gravity, store them like a spring and reproduce them for Postural Rebound.
However, unlike the spring You might see on a trampoline or a tensioner, the springs within Your body are symmetrical and double-helical. To paint the imagery in Your Mind picture holding a spring in one hand and the mirror version of that spring in another. Now if you stretch the springs enough to get a gap in between the coils and You slot them together to act as one spring, this would be a model for the Functional Fascial Spring and Sling System in Your Beautifully Bodacious Body.
This model accommodates not only the compressive forces of gravity through flexion and extension in the Sagittal Plane, (Up & Down) but also the rotational, (aka twisting) forces in the transverse plane that occur in the body during all forms of human movement. This divine structure not only gives You the ability to bounce, move efficiently and generate unfathomable amounts of Practical Power and Strength but it also creates a natural rotational torque System that radiates from top to tip.
In Kelly Starrett's book “How to Be a Supple Leopard” the unlocking of this torque system to access its full power is what allows us to create stability that rivals the grip of a Silverback Gorilla. When we lose the ability to mobilize the rotational range of our Fascia, we shrink our window of rotational access, minimizing our ability to access torque alongside it, creating what Kelly Starrett creatively calls “Torque Dumps”. In this way Mobility creates Stability and the reciprocal relationship allows stability to create more Mobility. When You are balanced it is always a Win-Win Situation.
In a nutshell You were designed to Win. You will see this carries over into all the ways You were designed and in a more Spiritual Sense, as You continue to design Yourself.
As we'll delve deeper a little later, when we lose stability we create adhesions.
When we create Adhesions we lose mobility.
When we lose mobility we lose torque.
When we lose torque we lose Strength
Cool, so how's this all relate to walking?
WHEN THE RECOIL SYSTEM “BRAKES” - THE BIG PICTURE
The Industrial Society was structured in a way that amplified the Compressive forces of Gravity, (think sitting in your car, desk or at your table and Cloud shoes that absorb the force of gravity so your body doesn’t have to.) To adapt, Your Body has cross-linked and melded these compressed fascial tissues much the same way You would melt a rubber spatula to a hot cast-iron pan. And because of the Industrial Society’s “Bent-over” nature of operating these adhesions show up primarily in our Hips, Core, Upper Torso and 90% of the time in our ankles and neck as well.
When your Body “Melds” Your Fascia and creates adhesions in a shorter Range of Motion, (Bent over) Your ability to extend when You stand up gets compromised. This bends Your Spring. When your spring is bent the compressive forces of gravity can’t be properly absorbed so the body creates a Movement Compensation and carries the force on to the next point.
Because Your Spring is bent the next point of absorption will not be aligned with the line of force resulting in instability in the upstream or downstream joint. Instability in the joint disrupts movement mechanics and creates more adhesions in an attempt to create further stability.
More Adhesion = shorter fascia and less ability to extend.
Less ability to extend means a bent Spring.
A bent spring leads to more adhesions.
And soon You end up looking like this guy. Barely able to make it 10 steps before You need a couch to collapse on.
Last time I checked, that's not an efficient, nor comfortable way of walking.
WHEN THE RECOIL SYSTEM “BRAKES” - THE SMALL PICTURE
So that’s the Big Picture. Carry that out over a couple years and You’ll start to see changes. The more exacerbated your adhesions become the further You get from keeping Your Fascia in Alignment. This carries out an exponential rate until You are no longer able to move. That’s why once You start noticing pain it tends to just snowball to pain in other areas as your body falls into a downward spiral of Movement Compensations and Adhesion Formation.
Fortunately this is Scalable. All the way down to fractions of a second. The fascial system, like the rest of the Body is in a consistent state of readjustment and fine tuning in order to maintain maximal efficiency. The position and movements You are most commonly repeating are the positions and movements that the body adapts to. So as You become aware of Your movement patterns You’re keeping your finger on the pulse and retain the power to adjust on the fly.
However, everyone has to start somewhere and if you haven’t been accommodating for cross-linking already then You are most likely going to fall somewhere on the spectrum of imbalances and adhesions. On a larger window of a couple years the accumulations of adhesions will turn Your Walk into a Controlled Fall. Rather than absorbing gravitational forces, storing them and then reproducing them through rebound. The imbalance created by the cross-linking causes the force to be redirected out the side or through a joint creating a jarring effect in every step. Without the bounce back all You're doing is asking Your muscles to Push You forward and then slam the brakes when Your foot hits the ground. This creates a micro-cycle of stop-go’s that further supports the development of adhesions rather than the development of Rebound.
In contrast, when the body is able to engage with postural rebound, the kinetic energy from the compressive forces of gravity on the “down step” get stored as potential energy in the Fascia, only to be released like a spring on the “Up-Step”. This allows for a bouncy, efficient walking motion that allows You to move with such elegance and ease it feels like You’re a duck gliding in for a landing at the local pond.
This mechanism is described by Robert Schleip in his book Fascial Fitness. Termed as the Catapult Effect, fascia’s collagen fibers have the structure of wavy hair or noodle curls. This structure gives the collagen fibers the biomechanical capacity to store energy as a result of being stretched during compression and then rapidly retract to original shape to release that energy and propel You forward. This is what gives the Antelope the capacity to outrun a cheetah across the African Plains all the while having the grace to rock a tutu as it bounds across the Savannah.
So in short, if You don’t have a bounce in Your step, i.e. no Postural Rebound, that’s a cue that You have adhesions.
So the first thing to do is work through them. You’ll then be able to give the body the slack it needs to be able to get into good, balanced position. Something we will get into in the “How to Fix Your Walk section” When You actively employ these strategies the body begins to reinstate its natural spring system allowing it to absorb the forces of gravity rather then direct them elsewhere. Turning Your Controlled Fall into a Walk.
THE 2 FUNDAMENTAL PREMISES OF GAIT → GOING AND STOPPING
If You break down a walk there’s really only 2 actions going on. Stopping; the change of direction or halting your walk. And Going, which is moving, or walking in a straight line.
If you're looking to rival Einstein in abstract thought You won’t find it here.
Technically there’s a third component which is walking in curves and requires a balancing of forces and taking eversion and inversion into consideration. But if You nail down stopping and going in good form, without adhesions, you’re more than 90% of the way there to “gaiting” in curves.
GOING - HOW WALKING CORRECTLY WILL TURN YOU INTO AN ELITE LEVEL SPRINTER
A walk can be broken down into multiple stages depending on whether it’s in the Swing Phase or Stance Phase of the walk. I've attached a photo below courtesy of Protokinetics for your reading pleasure.
Albeit a model there is one thing that throws off the entire mechanics of the walk in the above photo. And that is the heel strike.
If we look at elite sprinters and isolated Human Populations like the Raramuri Running Tribe in the Deep Canyons of Mexico (46 sec mark), You can see that all of them land with a forefoot strike. In doing so You’ll also notice that their planting foot lands directly underneath their Center of Mass. This is the primary difference between creating adhesions from walking and walking efficiently in a manner that supports Your Health.
Let Me Explain.
During a Heel Strike the foot extends in front of the body during the Initial Contact stage of the Stance Phase. This does three things:
- A Heel Strike increases Stride Length acting as a braking mechanism to Forward Propulsion.
When You heel strike the point of contact is further ahead than the body due to an increase in your stride length When Your first point of contact is ahead of Your Center of Mass it’s acting as a stopping mechanism against forward motion.
This is why Elite Sprint Coaches like Ken Harnden, A Man who has coached over 160 All-Americans, 25 NCAA Champions and guided 14 Athletes to the Olympic Games and Division 1 Coach Karim Abdel-Wahab of CSU, who has taken his athletes to 4 World Championships and trained 2 Olympians, reinforce the pattern of striking the ground directly under the hip.
This maintains the momentum You generated from the previous step while also allowing Your Body to maintain a greater amount of “Air Time”. When the foot lands underneath the body it adds to the propulsion of forward motion rather than working against it as a heel strike would. In contrast the increased stride length from a heel strike causes the lead leg to make ground contact too soon. Without anywhere else to go it has to remain on the ground “pulling” the rest of the body through the movement. This makes your gait cycle inefficient and slow while simultaneously creating a jolt with every step rather than a bounce.
- A Heel Strike increases the impact force into the next joint upstream; which happens to be the knee.
A study by Liebeman in 2010 which was further expanded by Harvard found that a heel strike increases the impact force by as much as 3x your body weight when compared to a fore-foot or even a mid-foot strike.
Because of the increased stride length during a heel strike the foot and lower leg come to a dead stop during initial contact while the rest of the body continues to compress over the knee. Because the combination of the lower leg and foot is approximately 4X the Mass of the Forefoot this leads to a significant increase in the impact force that is generated on the upstream joint.
In the case of the Forefoot Strike, the ball of the foot is the only portion of the body that stops. Because the stopping point is before the ankle the small amount of impact force, (considered negligible), goes into the ankle joint. And because You're striking the ground under Your center of Mass the Impact force carries up and through the rest of Your body spreading a small force over a wide Surface Area.
For the heel strike the stopping point is just below the knee so the impact force, which depending on how fast you're moving can be up to triple your body weight, goes straight to Your knee with every step and that’s where it stops.
Short version:
Heel Strike = Knee Damage and Pain
Forefoot Strike = No Knee Damage and Pain
- A Heel Strike Prevents proper loading of the Superficial Back Line, (SBL for short).
The Superficial Back Line is a fascial line that runs from the underside of the toes, through the back and wraps the entirety of the head. Its main function is to prevent the body from curling into into a flexed state like Fetal Position and promote and support extension and Hyperextension. The Superficial Back Line is specially adapted to hold the body in extension by doubling-down on the thickness of it’s fascial sheets. This is especially seen in areas that take a large portion of the extension load like the Achilles, Hamstrings, Thoracolumbar and the Erector Spinae. This ingenious design works hand-in-hand with your walking mechanics.
Unlike a heel strike, when You adopt a Forefoot Strike pattern the SBL loads the Achilles, which potentiates the Hamstrings, activates the Thoracolumbar fascia and lenthens the Erector Spinae in one intricately Delightful, God-given, Heavenly Expression of Motion that sends You to dance along the Clouds in a Fulfilled State of Extension.
This Beautiful design is what allows You to walk easily, efficiently and pain-free all the while supporting Your Breathing Patterns, Tissue Hydration, Fluid Exchange, Cellular Oxygenation, and Assimilation and Detoxification Pathways.
When You trade that for a heel strike You mix up the Order of Operation. First You get the Jarring Effect so the body’s response is to stabilize whatever is taking the impact; usually Your knee or Your hip. Then your upper Leg is activated, goes back down to Your calf, then back up again. It’s a complete mess that leaves Your body juggling all the variables trying to do the best that it can with what it’s being given.
As icing on the cake a recent study published by Nature found the forefoot strike supported loading of larger muscle groups and longer fibers. During a forefoot strike the fibers associated with the Gastrocnemius, the muscle higher up in the calf, was activated and lengthened, while the heel-strike activated and lengthened fibers associated with the Soleus, the muscle lower down in the calf. Both muscles tie into the Achilles Tendon. By activating the Achilles Tendon over a longer Range of Motion more potential Energy can be stored into the spring network of the fascia and ca be reproduced with every step.
The higher potential to store a Greater amount of energy in combination with a proper sequencing of operations puts the Fore-foot strike out on top.
HOW TO GO PROPERLY - THE 3 POINTS
In summary there are 3 points to keep in mind:
- ForeFoot Strike
Your initial contact should be around the Ball of Your foot, even close to your mid-foot works. Avoid initial contact with Your toes and with Your Heel.
- Maintain good Posture
Picturing a string attached to the top of your head that it’s pulling You straight up will keep You aware of maintaining a lengthened, stacked posture. It should be a relaxed form of extension with approximately 20% muscle engagement. You should also maintain a slight forward lean from toe to head. Avoid breaking at the waist.
- Strike the ground underneath Your hips.
Maintain postural stacking so that when Your foot contacts the ground your mid-foot is under your knee, which is under your hip, which is under Your shoulders which is under Your ears.
Put all these 3 together and You’ll maintain a self-propelling gait cycle that will make every step more energetic than the last and will rival the rhythmicity of an elite level sprinter.
As a siden ote, slowly progress Your way down to a smaller heel on Your shoe. The higher the heel the harder the fore foot strike becomes. Remember to take Baby Steps, both figuratively and literally.
And of You feel like You're walking like a Rooster or an Ostrich You're doing it right. These points carry over into all manners of gait, be it walking, jogging, or sprinting. It will feel silly at first but over time it will become normal. Soon You’ll find Yourself barely putting any effort into Your walk and Your runs will carry themselves. With practice You will feel more like you’re floating instead of trudging through the mud.
Until of course You have to change direction.
STOPPING
Stopping is a whole different Ball Game. Have You ever wondered how football players like Tyreek Hill are able to cut angles sharper than your Dad’s prized filet knife or how Michael Jordan was able to stop on a dime to nail down a jump shot and leave defense tripping over their own ankles?
Probably not.
But I bet You have wondered why your knees hurt or your ankles roll when you're trying to stop Yourself from a fast jog, a light run or a sprint.
When it comes to stopping the Heel Strike is King. More accurately initial contact with the heel is King, the strike comes from bringing the rest of Your foot down and allowing Your ankles, knees and hips to take on the rest of the load in one synchronized, fluent recipe of absorption mixed with the perfect ratios of compression, expansion and force generation.
Ben Patrick, Founder and CEO of the Athletic Truth Group, known as the world’s most sought after Coach for Knee Ability and Banishing Knee Pain, with over 2200 Success Stories and counting, brings attention and awareness to one of the most influential group of muscles on Stopping your gait; the Tibialis.
During gait there’s going to be some point when You have to stop or change direction. The force that is carried through Your step and into the stopping motion has to be directed somewhere, and that somewhere is Your Tibialis. Ben Patrick’s book “Knee Ability Zero - THE PICTURE BOOK” highlights the importance of training the tibialiis to ensure it has the capacity to absorb the thousands of pounds of force that are generated from your gait to your sudden stop. Whatever force is not absorbed by the tibialis goes up to the knee in the same manner as You would experience in the heel strike.
The difference is it’s not repetitively cycled over and over again and that Your body has to be mechanically able in order to stop properly.
BECOMING MECHANICALLY ABLE
Stopping is the ability to absorb force. If You can absorb force You can temporarily store it, if You can store it You can reproduce it. This is why effectively being able to stop Your gait cycle is the cornerstone to changing direction.
In order to effectively absorb force You have to have long connective tissue. This is the Claim to Fame in Ben Patrick’s ATG System and Jay Schroeder’s IsoExtremes and in part EVO Ultrafit program. Having long muscles coupled with long connective tissue in the ankles, knees, hips and lesser so in the shoulder, elbows and wrists turn You into the exceptionally, exquisite Ancestral Athlete that You are. Not only does it increase surface area for maximal force absorption but it also places the body in a mechanically favorable position to reproduce that force.
When properly stopping "mechanically favorable" looks like this: The arch engages, the knee comes over the ankle and the hips flex down towards the ground, all culminating in a huge amount of body compression and myofascial expansion. The longer your connective tissue, the greater Range of Motion You can compress across. The more your body compresses, the greater degree to which your myofascial system can expand to absorb the force.
This same concept is used by Heavyweight Speed and Agility Coach, Author and Owner of Overtime Athletes Chris Barnard who has set a personal 44 inch vertical jump and has taken over 200,000 athletes to elite levels in athletic performance. By setting the prerequisite of length in connective tissue, the capacity to absorb force becomes that much greater, creating a platform for force output.
To add on to the pile of success stories Jay Schroeder has used the same methodology of Strength through Length not only to produce consistent, lasting results in world-class athletes, everyday Average Joes, Toddlers, Elderly, Men and Women, but also to get himself back to full function after a motorcycle accident that paralyzed him from the chest down with little prognosis for recovery.
To summarize, while contrary to the status quo, avoiding injury, proper biomechanics and an efficient stop in your gait cycle does require You to get Your knees over your toes, (alongside a dorsiflexed ankle and Ass-to-Grass hip flexion). This is also the space where the heel strike reigns supreme as long as You can remain mechanically able, which is simply a matter of creating longer tissues, so that You can get into good position.
In short:
Long tissues = Good Position
Good Position = Force Absorption
Force absorption = You becoming an Evolutionary, Athletic Walking Machine.
HOW TO FIX YOUR WALK
So Know that You’ve learned how Your body was designed to walk with a forefoot strike, how to prevent cross-linking to turn Your controlled fall into a walk, and that stopping effectively and efficiently means being able to absorb all the force You’ve created through your gait cycle Your probably chomping at the bit to know how to become the Biomechanically Superior Version of Yourself to Harness all the Life-giving, Immune-Supporting, Strength Building, Mobility-maintaining, Harmoniously-Hydrating, Vital Values of Walking.
So here it is.
I’m sure You can hear the harps playing in the background.
THE ORDER OF OPERATIONS
Every process has an order of operations. In simplified terms it goes like this:
HEALING → FUNCTION → EXPRESSION
In this case we are covering the first two stages.
HEALING AND ADHESIONS
The first thing to do is identify and address Fascial Adhesions, Cross-linkages and Scar Tissue.
The lowest hanging fruit to pick is to get acquainted with a lacrosse ball and to look for some pain points.
What You’re looking for is tight or bundled tissue that can range in thickness from a guitar string to a walking stick. Once You found one You can take 2 Avenues:
- Myofascial Release (MFR)
Stay on the corded tissue, moving no more than a coupe millimiter’s per minute for anywhere between 2-8 minutes without rolling off it and maintaining pressure. If You roll off just try to get back on.
- Shearing
Get on the corded tissue using your body weight to pin it between the ball and Your bone. Slowly, using your body in a controlled fashion, roll over the edge of the cord so it slowly shears. Picture it like a bunch of hay fibers all densely packed together and You're rolling perpendicular to the fibers to shear them apart.
You may feel a “Clunk” as You roll over the cord, try to turn the “Clunk” into a “Squish”
In both cases You want to maintain good posture regardless of position and feel as safe and relaxed as possible. A good measure is to tip-toe the edge of the pain-cave but don’t walk into it. A pain-face means you’ve gone too far. Simultaneously maintain a breath cycle with an exhale twice as long as Your inhale. This will activate your parasympathetic response walking You down the ANS Ladder and putting You in a Physiologically favorable state.
As You Heal Your adhesions you're providing Yourself the opportunity to begin removing Positional Inhibition. This is where the Ability to get into balanced position or access a Range of Motion is inhibited by the adhesions that have formed within the Fascia. The key is to stay consistent. I’ve seen My best results with 15-20 mins/day minimum. A daily average I first learned about from New York Times Best Selling Author, Speaker, PhD and Crossfit Coach Kelly Starrett.
Of course the Sky is the limit to addressing these adhesions. For starters You can look in the mirror and compare Yourself to the reference photo below. Wherever You shift off the plumb line, start searching the areas around those points. You're looking for the “Good Pain”, like a consistent, intense pressure. It also helps to get a Coach in this case because they can do the work for You and point You in the direction You need to go along with the tools to take on the challenge.
If You want to get started right off the gun, but still want a little guidance, another good place to start is Functional Patterns 10 week Online Course. The course is jam-packed with educational and practical videos that melt your adhesions, fire on proper recruitment patterns and systematically correct your posture using MFR and Corrective exercises. With thousands of success stories it’s nicely laid out in a week by week format so that You can stay consistent and actually see some progression.
Another course which I trust though have not tried is Elisha Celeste’s Pelvic Instability course through Mobility Mastery . Elisha has a custom method which she’s fine-tuned over the years to produce consistent and reliable results. She uses a combination of MFR, Shearing, Corrective Exercise and Fascial Mapping to enhance Interoception, dissolve your cross-linkages and engage the right muscles at the right times to address the root issue of your pain and immobility.
This is however just the tip of the iceberg and techniques range from Resistant Stretching and Isometric Yoga to Swedish Deep Tissue Massage, Chiropractic Adjustments and Alexander Techniques. But the real key is starting and staying consistent.
REWIRING FOR FUNCTION AND ADDRESSING POSTURE
As You address Your adhesions You're rebuilding the layers of Your cake. Now what You want to do is sprinkle on the Icing and prepare the Fondant so it not only looks good but tastes like it was meant to taste. This is where You address Your Posture. There’s 3 things that You need to be aware of to get into good posture. (1) Knowing how Your body is supposed to Stack, (2) knowing how to cue your body to begin stacking and (3) knowing how to maintain good Posture once You have it.
STACKING
If we look back at Skeleton Steve we can see the orange line stacks the joints of the ankle, (though the midfoot is more appropriate), knee, hip, elbow, shoulders and ears or auditory canal. This is considered good stacking and is the reference of good neutral posture. Even though the body is held in place by balancing lines of tension within the fascial network, stacking the joints like this maintains the capacity for the body to absorb, reproduce and generate force.
As with the lateral view the same can be said from the anterior and posterior views. The midfoot should fall under the knee, which should fall under the ASIS, (anterior bony projection at the front of the hip). And the thumbs should face forward falling under the elbows which should fall under the shoulders.
The three pink lines maintain a stability triangle, connecting your thoracic spine, to the front of your core and back down to your lumbo-pelvic complex. You want to maintain a symmetrical equilateral triangle at all times in order to maintain a neutral spine and a stable pelvis.
CUEING FOR GOOD POSITION
While Skeleton Steve offers a great reference point to move towards, every individual has a unique starting point and the complexity of your beginning can create a limitless amount of combinations. That being said there’s only one neutral position and every Human has a built in compass to find it and I’ve broken down the steps to pair You up with a Map.
- Surrender Yourself to become a Marionette Doll. Let Your body structurally collapse into a relaxed state.
- Picture a string at the top of Your Head pulling You straight up with all Your Joints stacking neatly underneath each other like Skeleton Steve.
You should feel light on the balls of Your feet.
- The simplest way to get into good neutral position from here is to initiate Kelly Starrett’s Bracing Sequence.
- Keeping Your toes forward squeeze Your Butt as hard as You can.
- Bring Your lower rib cage down by balancing it over your pelvis.
A nice analogy is to imagine both Your Rib Cage and Pelvis are full of water to the brim and You don’t want any to spill out over the top.
- Take in a belly breath, exhale and shrink wrap your core by stiffening the tissues as your belly naturally draws back from the out breath.
You can now release your glutes.
- Rotate your elbows towards your back, letting your shoulder blade tips reach for your pelvis as Your Collarbone spread wide open and allows the back of your neck to extend and gently pull Your chin down.
You should finish with Your thumbs facing forward.
And Voila! You are in Neutral Position!
MAINTAINING GOOD POSTURE
Once you’ve achieved neutral position You want to be able to train your body to maintain that position as often as possible until it becomes automatic. One of the ways we go about doing that is activating the Fascia in the Spiral Line by cueing the body to produce torque.
As neutral position becomes familiar we can cue the body to snap into neutral position by “Screwing” our feet into the floor. By driving your big toe down and forward, keeping your foot in place and externally rotating as if your feet were spinning discs underfoot let your body guide itself into neutral as You did in the Bracing exercise.
You’ll notice your quads flex, your glutes fire, your pelvis neutralizes, your abs brace, your rib cage centers, collarbone widens, your shoulders open and the back of your neck extends as your chin comes down.
You’ve just engaged the Spiral Line.
And to pack the whole cycle up with a ribbon and a bow, You can become aware of the tension in your posture as You hold this position and later return to the adhesions section so that You always have Your finger on the pulse of where Your Fascial System needs to receive some more slack.
It’s a Positive Feedback Loop, evolutionarily designed for You to Win.
Welcome to the New World Young Grasshopper.
WALKING
Now to walk, or better yet gait
Now that you’ve nailed down Your posture You get to put it into action to become and turn every one of Your steps into a Step of Power, Drive and Force that self-propels You to Excellence, even if that excellence happens to be from Your car to the Grocery store.
DORSIFLEXION VS. PLANTARFLEXION
As you graduate from heel strike to forefoot strike it’s important to start recognizing the position of the ankle. This is because the action of the ankle determines which way the foot is flexed; Plantar flexion, which is pointing down, or Dorsiflexion, which the toes pointing up.
During Dorsiflexion We’re pulling the Superficial Back Line and expanding the Fascial tissue allowing You to potentiate the Posterior Chain. Simultaneously, this ankle position allows You to maintain upright, neutral posture while still being able to create ground contact underneath the hip as the hip carries over the foot during stride and allows for triple extension at the ankle, knee and pelvis, propelling You forward.
This is why World-Class Sprint Coach and Two-Time Olympian Ken Harnden puts so much focus into a dorsiflexed ankle. It completely streamlines the gait cycle. In plantarflexion, the foot reaches out in front, has a tendency to hike the hip, (Hello adhesions), and loads the Quads and Hip Flexors. Not only is this inefficient but it also puts You right back at the starting block in terms of fixing Your walk.
Of course, sometimes You may be walking barefoot on a pebbled beach, a gravel driveway or be feeling blindly in a dark kitchen for that leftover piece of apple pie and You don’t want to stub Your toe, where a slow, plantar flexed walk is probably more appropriate. But for Your everyday movement mechanics a dorsiflexed ankle will move You forward with far more efficiency and rebound.
GROUND CONTACT
Learning how to walk with a dorsiflexed ankle on a forefoot strike can be awkward and feel silly the first time You do it. You may feel like You're in a Marching Band everywhere You go and feel at odds if Your not carrying a trumpet.
So to avoid the Eyes of curiosity and awe you’ll want to make sure You have power in your step.
When You make ground contact not only do You want to land under hip, You want to strike it. Every step should “punch” the ground, with triple extension occurring as the body passes over the foot. This makes every step one of Force Production coming full circle to the idea of generating more “Air Time”.
For obvious reasons you’ll want to keep your finger on the intensity dial, but you’ll find the harder You drive down the further and faster you’ll go, from a brisk walk to a full-on sprint.
FORWARD LEAN
You’ll also want to make sure You have a little bit of forward lean. Without the need to get into the nitty-gritty this keeps You propulsion forward, facilitating all the principles described above in a state of harmonized perfection that would rival a swiss-made watch.
STOPPING
Last but not least You’ll want to make sure You can stop, quickly and without pain. This means your knees will have to be able to get over Your toes and You’ll have to be able to drive off the ball of your foot.
If you can’t stop efficiently or you're running into pain, or heck maybe you're even falling on your face after a race for shotgun during Your annual trip to Disneyland; You’ll need to start targetting Strength through Length which I will be bringing out in a later article.
SUMMARY
Learning how You to harness the power of Your Fascial System to turn You into the Ancestral Athlete You were designed to be, why walking is the key to your Health, vitality and longevity, how to find, target and banish any pain in your stride, how to become a powerhouse with every step, why running with a forefoot strike will turn You into an elite sprinter and how to effectively change direction on the fly, probably has You licking your chops to give this all a go.
When You get started, remember to stay patient, consistent and maybe even find a partner who wants to join You for the ride. It’s easier to laugh when your friend is walking like an Ostrich too.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about how to address your adhesions, empower your posture or waltz your way into a new walk, send an email by entering Your email below!
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Anatomy Trains by Thomas Myers
Fascial Fitness by Robert Schleip
Knee Ability Zero - THE PICTURE BOOK by Ben Patrick
Jay Schroeder’s EVO Ultrafit program
Overtime Athletes Programs by Chris Barnard
Functional Patterns 10 week Online Course
Elisha Celeste’s Pelvic Instability
