Not all Walking is Created Equal!

As of lately, I've been completely engrossed in the book, Alignment Matters, by Katy Bowman, M.S. Ms. Bowman is a biomechanist whose extensive knowledge of the human movement system and accessible, funny writing style has turned her into something of an alignment guru. Her book increased my awareness of how gait, posture, footwear, and the physical environment affect our health. Her insight into the mechanics of walking on different surfaces also made quite an impression on me.

Seriously, check it out. Photo courtesy of Amazon

Before I explain any further, I highly recommend that you check out the podcasts below. They'll give you a nice introduction to Katy and her work, as well as some changes that you can make immediately to improve your alignment and therefore, your overall health:

From the Balanced Bites podcast

From the Paleo Hacks podcast

After listening to these to interviews, it's plain to see how important walking--albeit with proper alignment--is crucial to our long-term health and well-being. When I say that not all walking is created equal, I am saying that there are ways to walk that encourage health and vitality, and ways to walk that encourage pain and disease. Let's take walking on modern asphalt as an example. Katy would say that while walking on asphalt is not ideal because it's not natural, it is a type of "over ground" walking that creates forces that support our organs and strengthens the pelvic floor musculature.

If asphalt walking is not the ideal, what is? Natural earth (ideally in minimal footwear, to which you've given your feet time to adapt!) is the ideal surface upon which humans should walk. She does preface this by saying that in the modern world, many of us live in urban environments where it may be all but impossible to find natural earth on which to walk. In such cases, asphalt walking in minimalist footwear and with the proper mechanics is a worthy alternative. However, whenever and wherever possible, Katy advocates for natural earth-walking. We are adapted to natural earth-walking, and it generates the proper amount of ground forces to help us maintain healthy pelvic floor musculature.

Natural earth-walking is ideal, and asphalt (or other man-made terrain)-walking is a worthy substitute, so what isn't ideal? That's easy: treadmill-walking! Take it straight from a biomechanist! Treadmill walking is bad for us because the moving belt reverses the natural walking mechanism so our bodies are forced to do everything in reverse in order to maintain balance as the belt moves! Everything is firing in the opposite direction and therefore discourages proper alignment and gait. Our bodies are forced to form unnatural angles which results in an uneven distribution of weight over the joints. Over time, these patterns of loads created sustain themselves and make adopting a proper alignment posture more difficult. Wow, fascinating!