What is normal walking?

My friend said, “Kevin, you don’t walk like normal people!”

To master normal walking, walk frequently without shoes. But don’t heel strike, think!

We weren’t born with shoes for a reason!

Why?

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Because walking with bare feet tends to prevent heel striking – you are almost forced to use your whole body. Or you jar your spine. It’s all in Jack Heggie’s lovely little, Feldenkrais-based, book.

Using your spine will cause your feet to impact the ground from the outer edge. Pressure of landing then flows in a healthy spiral, into the ball of the foot. The way your body evolved to move, over eons.

Birds in flight, forming a ‘V’ shape, are benefiting from the power of drafting. Much like the peloton, in the Tour de France.

Healthy walking (or running), recruits spinal elasticity. It employs the power of coupled oscillation. You store energy in your spinal machinery, and then take it back as elastic recoil. This spares your hip flexors (iliacus and psoas) a great deal of work. AND it prevents heel strike, and thus saves your knees.

Basic physics, really. Just think about it.

The body is nothing, if not efficient. Recruiting the whole body to walk is most certainly the way to go.

I was meeting a friend, whose opinion I respect. We were having our monthly lunch chat, which I enjoy a great deal. He was there before me. As I arrived, he mentioned that I he could only see my profile as I entered the restaurant. The sun was behind me. However, he knew it was me, by the way I walked.

He said I don’t walk like normal people. My friend kindly demonstrated normal people, and then demonstrated how I swing my shoulders as I walk.

I prefer to walk like an athlete, thanks!

It’s more effective and better for your joints!

It’s all in Jack’s book!