Walking While Centered

Last week we worked on taking a centered breath. This week we want to begin to take that centered breath on the move. With all those smart devices encouraging and counting steps for you, let’s make sure those steps are conscious ones.

Normal Gait

Normal walking gait is stepping forward so that your heel strikes the ground first. Then we roll across the arch of the foot and toe off from the big toe. Heel strike. Roll through. Toe off. Into the swing phase. Seems pretty easy right? Unfortunately, walking is fraught with danger. Let’s break it down.

Heel Strike

The word strike is problematic. Strike is a sharp blow or attack. I guarantee that if you strike your heel on the ground over and over again, that you will cause damage somewhere in your body. Remember Newton’s third law of motion, for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. The force generated by striking your heel on the ground must be absorbed in your body. If you’re not centered with perfect alignment that force will be absorbed by your spine.

Aligning your body (centering) changes your center of gravity and helps limit the amount of force you generate when putting your heel on the ground while walking. So instead of striking your heel, it naturally touches the ground and creates a fulcrum to move your foot into the roll through.

Roll Through

A roll through sounds like a “California Stop”. You know, where you slowly glide through the stop sign instead of completely stopping. What they really mean is that we walk over the arch of the foot. Your arches are actually shock absorbers that transfer the force being generated while walking into the body in the safest way possible. If you glide over the arch of the foot, you change how that force gets absorbed into the body and you completely miss the “toe off” phase of the gait.

Toe Off

Your big toe is the last thing that touches the ground when you’re walking. The problem with the description “Toe Off” is that it implies that you’re pushing from your big toe to create forward momentum. What should actually happen is that the big toe stiffens in combination with the arch and creates another fulcrum that helps the leg move into the swing phase of the step.

If you actively push off from your big toe you create a force vector that goes directly through your knee cap. That force vector wreaks havoc on the meniscus and cartilage in the knee.

Swing Phase

This phase is when your foot is off the ground as you’re stepping forward. This should be the least problematic part of the gait cycle. But if you shorten the swing phase as people tend to do when in pain, you hit on the ball of the foot instead of the heel. This can cause severe knee irritation. Swinging the leg too far causes a loss of balance and a sense of falling. The normal reaction to this is to start shuffling to keep the feet as close to the ground as possible.

Propulsion

The power that propels you when walking initiates in the core with the necessary force being generated in the hips. Your feet are simply the contact point for your body against the ground. If you walk with your feet being the focal point you create all sorts of physical problems. The reciprocal force being generated will enter your body incorrectly causing long term problems.

Walking

I know I have given you a lot to think and worry about. Now that you’re aware of the potential problems, just let it go. Center yourself. Take a breath and walk forward naturally. By centering before you walk everything should function normally unless you have some major compensation patterns from previous or current injuries.

The Walking Breath

The breath for walking is simply a centered breath with a slightly different exhale. Align your body and take a couple centered breaths, up through the pelvic floor filling the chest and lungs completely. On the exhale you want to visualize pushing the breath out from your solar plexus. Breathing this way will help regulate your gait and keep you walking with good form.

The Assignment

This week I’d like you to practice walking using the centered breath. The distance doesn’t matter. Keep it comfortable. It would really help to get a video of yourself when you’re walking. It’s the easiest way to analyze what you’re doing wrong, and more importantly right. Play with the concept of making your exhales bigger and more powerful.

See you next week,

Jerry

Coming Next Week: Defining and Creating Flow

P.S.

The human body as designed should live for 120-150 years. Most of us manage to kill it in half that time. Many of our physical problems stem from using our bodies in ways it wasn’t designed for. Often, we are trained to use it incorrectly. Like walking. If you google “proper gait” the information presented teaches, in my opinion, improper form. I’m not saying it’s intentional, but so much of the information out there is inherently incorrect. If you’re moving out of center, you won’t be able to create a sense of flow. If there is no flow, you can’t be consciously in your body. This makes it easy for you to be manipulated and controlled. Staying centered and present allows for us to better understand and react to what is going on around us.