14 ms·

Improve your walking technique

222 points by privong 6y ago

oh_sigh 6y ago
They claim the second one where she is just shimmying is "freeing the pelvis", but all of the motion is in her upper thoracic spine.
starpilot 6y ago
>Roll the feet: First place the centre of the heel, then roll the outside edge of the foot down before placing the outer toes, and rolling down the inner toes. Do we know if this is better? I mostly wear barefoot/minimalist shoes and have switched to mid/forefoot strike, from a heel strike.
- bcassedy 6y ago
  You mid-foot strike while walking? When I wore barefoot shoes, I could mid-foot strike while running but doing so while walking always felt extremely unnatural and I couldn't adopt it.
  - Swizec 6y ago
    As a kid I was obsessed with cowboys and indians. Indians were the good guys in my book so I learned to walk like them to reduce noise - mid-foot first. 20 years later and the shriek my girlfriend lets out when she turns around and I’m right there materializing behind her back like a ghost. It’s amazing. Took about a week of conscious practice in middle school and now that’s just how I walk. Heel first when barefoot or in slippers makes my feet hurt.
    - cagenut 6y ago
      yea I don't know if I adopted this because my hamstrings are stunted or if my hamstrings are stunted because I adopted this but its just been how I walk since I was a teenager. and like your anecdote, I've had to be mindful of things like neighbors or coworkers in a hallway, going out of my way to scuff my feet or something while I'm still 10+ft out. people really don't like it when you register as instantaneously in their personal space.
    - hnick 6y ago
      I read this too and I am apparently accidentally sneaky for the same reasons. I'm not sure if I've gone too far though, I got bursitis last year and my hip can feel a little tight when walking briskly for a while. Something is rolling around all wrong in there.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - fatnoah 6y ago
      >As a kid I was obsessed with cowboys and indians. Indians were the good guys in my book so I learned to walk like them to reduce noise - mid-foot first. I've never really thought about it, but I also walk like that. When I lived in apartments, my downstairs neighbors probably loved me for that.
- hnick 6y ago
  I've read before that striking the ball of the foot first is more natural without shoes, especially when running. I think the article was in context to ultra-marathon runners. Heel first was said to be an adjustment to shoes and can cause issues. Edit: Can't find the original but this is similar. They say walking heel first is natural but you want a rolling gait, not a stomp like a lot of us do with shoes. That sounds like this article. They say running should be similar but with an even softer heel drop which is different to the other article that I remember, which I think looked at tribal south americans who didn't wear modern shoes. "But (you might say) if you walk or run with no padding, it’s murder on your heels—which is precisely the point. Your heels hurt when you walk that way because you’re not supposed to walk that way. Wrapping your heels in padding so they don’t hurt is like stuffing a gag in someone’s mouth so they’ll stop screaming—you’re basically telling your heels to shut up." https://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ https://nymag.com/health/features/46213/
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    > striking the ball of the foot first is more natural without shoes, especially when running. It absolutely is for sprinting, even with shoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH-3cHxXAK0&start=46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH-3cHxXAK0&start=46
tlb 6y ago
> It’s worth the effort because there’s usually a huge leak of energy when our gait is unbalanced or restricted. Why do I want my walk to leak less energy / be more efficient? A fast walk is nowhere near my aerobic limit, so what would be the benefit of using less energy? Having a sedentary job, I generally need more exercise, not less. A better thing to optimize for would be less impact on knees and back.
- snewk 6y ago
  you could always crawl
- dbtc 6y ago
  I think efficiency and impact are generally inversely proportional, so you're good either way. If walking isn't near your aerobic limit then you'd be much better off doing something else for exercise than making your stride less efficient. Walking as a kind of meditation or just to relax might be quite valuable. Then, the more efficient (relaxed) the better.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  I wonder this sometimes about bicycling— I'm fortunate enough to be able to commute by bike year-round, and to have a separate winter bike to ride in the snowy months. But the winter bike is a lot heavier and therefore more work to ride, so I'm sure I get more exercise riding it. On the other hand, I also have more fun riding my summer bike and therefore ride it further and farther (eg, choosing it for errands above and beyond my commute). So I think the performance gain is still a win for my exercise regimen.
  - bluntfang 6y ago
    I would consider the geometry and body posture of your winter bike vs summer bike. It's possible that one (or both!) of them aren't fitted properly for exercising in a way that is good for your body and posture, although they are probably just fine for riding about town. Bike fit is one of those things where once you get it right, you'll wonder how you survived any other way.
scubbo 6y ago
"The head adds six to eight kilograms of weight, but by tilting the head forward it increases to something like twenty kilograms" Astonishing. My head's mass (or is it weight?) can be increased simply by moving it slightly it? Someone alert the physicists!
- gonzo 6y ago
  > Someone alert the physicists! Physicists already know about relativistic mass. /s
- hnick 6y ago
  Mass is static [in this context], but weight is a force and will apply differently based on angles. I'm no physicist but they might have got it right here.
  - pjscott 6y ago
    Weight doesn't vary like that. What varies based on angle are the counterbalancing forces applied by your various body parts to keep it in place. That's vaguely similar to what the article said, so they may be basing this on an original claim that isn't nonsensical -- but if so it got badly garbled.
    - hnick 6y ago
      Well we all know holding you arm straight up or holding it out perpendicular to your body for 30 seconds are very different in terms of effort, perceived force, and pain. I think that's what they were going for.
      - KMag 6y ago
        Okay, but where did they get 20 kg / 200 Newtons / 44bs? I can see the assertion that there's zero transverse force across the neck when the head is held strait up, but how do they come up with a force greater than the weight of the head and neck? A.x cos(x) <= 1.0. Holding your neck out horizontally, the full weight of your head and neck is exerted transversely across your neck, but that's nowhere near 200 Newtons, and that's the worst case. Giving an exact figure implies they've done some calculation, and either their understanding of the physics is way off, or their arithmetic has gone far off the rails.
veed99 6y ago
Just as important is your breathing, focusing on nose instead of mouth breathing, and tongue posture
bobross 6y ago
Any tips for people like me who have flat feet?
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Stop believing that you have a severe deformity and just walk. It's part of the scope of human phenotypes and harmless.
  - mbeex 6y ago
    Yep. Stop watching all sorts of advice from your chair. I have been hiking for many years now at ca. 2000 km per year. The body simply optimizes itself in time for all but very few people. A little adjustment might be necessary for particular cases, but you will figure this out finally yourself. But the highest priority by far remains doing the basic things. Regularly - in any weather in this case - without excuses. That is the core. All other issues are premature optimizations (or to be clear, no optimization at all)
- e19293001 6y ago
  Might help. https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/ba4zii/can_we_talk_about_flat_feet_what_has_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/ba4zii/can_we_talk...
- Cactus2018 6y ago
  Watch a few videos under the search results for "foot arch PT" and "foot arch massage", like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AwRK3js5dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AwRK3js5dg
- kd0amg 6y ago
  If it's causing serious problems, talk to a real doctor, not armchair doctors on HN (or reddit).
xwdv 6y ago
Many years ago at an Apple WWDC event I saw a presenter give a talk about how they used genetic algorithms to find out what the most optimal walk for a dinosaur could be based on its bones and skeletal structure. I wonder if such an optimal gait could also be discovered for humans, perhaps for different heights, and when carrying different loads. Maybe the best way of walking for a person who is very tall is different from someone who is very short for instance. By constructing random human bodies and allowing them to evolve over millions of iterations, we may be able to discover unrealized walking techniques.
klysm 6y ago
I guess you have to be pretty far down the path of self actualization to worry about things like this
- keiferski 6y ago
  I had the opposite reaction. Walking costs no money, is something most of us do everyday, and small changes can dramatically affect quality of life over time. I’d compare it to sleeping or brushing your teeth.
  - klysm 6y ago
    > small changes can dramatically affect quality of life I’m quite skeptical that small changes in my walking will dramatically change the quality of my life. I think it would actual be annoying to think about and I’d rather be thinking about things that interest me while I pace around
    - keiferski 6y ago
      The point is to consciously undo bad habits and build new, healthier ones, so that you don't need to think about it.
- mikekchar 6y ago
  Being good to yourself doesn't have to be a priority list. It can be more like a jigsaw puzzle. It doesn't matter where you start.
01100011 6y ago
This kind of reminds me of Feldenkrais or the Alexander technique.
paulcole 6y ago
Amazing that there are 32 comments and somehow this article avoided tripping the HN This-Is-Just-A-Marketing-Blog-Post silent alarm.
- Woberto 6y ago
  It's quite odd indeed - there's no links to actual research to back up the claims, her statements aren't clarified (saying tilting the head down adds weight - at least specify that it's adding weight to the neck or something.) It's just a piece about what this lady says based off some other odd looking website.
  - paulcole 6y ago
    My theory is that the nutrition and exercise posts get a pass because everybody races to share their similarly unfounded opinion instead of even looking at the post. See the comments for every IF, keto, running is good, running is bad, weightlifting, etc. post on here.
- sk0g 6y ago
  This is more of a tech forum, so we can see through that bullshit. Not as many doctors or physios here, so everything linked is correct :)
  - bluntfang 6y ago
    Should we not consider that this personal is a health professional? While they aren't a M.D., they have studied the body more intensely than most people in other professions. I also don't think you should just blindly believe anyone, even M.D.s, without doing research yourself.
    - sk0g 6y ago
      I wasn't being dismissive of their accomplishments, just was bringing up the fact that since this is out of most of our expertise areas, we will likely be less skeptical of the post from the get go.
goblin89 6y ago
Walking “properly” is a topic of interest for me. I believe it can be reduced to one main constraint: ensure most effort is spent by abdominal muscle in your core, with limbs and the (importantly) neck as relaxed as possible. Other characteristics of “proper” walk naturally emerge as the easiest way of following that constraint[0]. I find that walking “properly” wakes me up, has some positive effects on my well-being, and can be difficult at times. Unevenly paved surfaces (like some cobblestone pavements) seem to complicate walking “lazily”, forcing me into the proper way of walking. [0] IMO articles like TFA tend to focus on those “cosmetic” characteristics, thus entirely missing the point.
- k00b 6y ago
  You should be walking with your hips primarily. Your core is important though.
  - goblin89 6y ago
    That way it’s still possible to fall into other lazy habits, such as walking with stiff neck and shoulders. On the other hand, if one aims to relax all limbs (that includes feet) and localize energy expenditures in the abs area as much as possible, “walking with hips” might well be the only remaining acceptable way to walk.
k00b 6y ago
If you want to learn more about how to walk and move better I can't more highly recommend the content by biomechanist Katy Bowman https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/blog/ https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/blog/ ... She has a blog, a podcast, online classes, books, and a whole gamut of content around restoring basic movement - and talks a ton about walking. So important for all us desk jockeys.
rahimnathwani 6y ago
The Chinese idiom 邯郸学步 is about learning to walk. It's based on a story about someone who hears of a place (Handan) where people have the most gracious way of walking. He wants to learn, so he goes there and tries to imitate the people of Handan. He fails to learn how they walk and, in the process, forgets his original way of walking. Then he runs out of money to fund his travels. Unable to walk, he is forced to crawl all the way back to his home town.
- TheCapeGreek 6y ago
  Seeking perfection leads to ruin?
  - rahimnathwani 6y ago
    IIRC it's about imitating others without understanding the underlying motivation or different context.
- acituan 6y ago
  I can't help to think how this story might reflect many of us who immigrated to the US for the "gracious way", forgot the way we used to "walk" and now find it difficult to return back home. It is saddening.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    Same for my mother. She can't bear her old place now.
    - ckarmann 6y ago
      It's hard to get back to Plato's cave.
throwaway391003 6y ago
You can't improve your walking technique unless you improve your life. Your posture, your gait, your movements are a complete reflection of how you feel. If you feel like you're carrying a load on your shoulders... your shoulders are gonna show that. If you feel like you have to clench and grind through your days, your jaw is going to show that. etc. etc. A really interesting question to reflect on is when someone gains weight, what determines where the weight goes? Their stomach? Their thighs? Everywhere evenly distributed? etc.
- djtriptych 6y ago
  True from a yogic perspective. A really nice realization arising from this basic mind-body connection is that if you have a handle on one, you have a handle on the other. Or, practicing the posture of well-being can help make you well.
  - nelaboras 6y ago
    This is not at all true from a yogic perspective. The original aim of yoga (with all eight parts, not just the asanas but also breathing, healthy eating, right behaviour, internal cleaning, etc) is to make the body so healthy that you don't have to worry about it. Then you can work with your mind to address your samskaras, etc and work towards a deeper understanding of reality and self up to enlightenment.
    - djtriptych 6y ago
      It is true. The eight limbs (of Ashtanga, which is the style I practice) say nothing about the absence of a mind-body connection. You made an account just to post incorrect information about yoga?
- jspash 6y ago
  I agree, for the most part. However there is definitely something to be said for reversing the cycle. That is, when you feel down or frightened, purposely sit/stand/walk as though you are fully in control and on top of things. You'll find with some practice, your mood will improve. I think I heard it first from Tony Robbins years ago, but I'm sure it's well known technique.
hyko 6y ago
Next week: teaching your grandmother to suck eggs!
mongol 6y ago
During my time as conscript in the Swedish army, I got a lot of experience from marching around with fellow soldiers. Eventually I could recognise each one of them (about 25) just on how they moved their legs. I could even close my eyes and go through them on by one in my mind and recall their gait.
- privong 6y ago
  I've had a friend say he could tell it was me approaching, based on my gait (I hadn't seen him in several years and his eyesight was such that he couldn't see my facial features from that far away, but apparently my gait was still the same and he could identify that). There's been work to apply gait analysis in an automated fashion for use as a biometric identifier: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1301521 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1301521 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2011.01793.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1556-4029....
WalterBright 6y ago
For some fun re-learning how to walk, take a latin dance class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7JF4ZZvZ3Y&t=125s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7JF4ZZvZ3Y&t=125s
mr_t 6y ago
Two years ago I bought my first pair of barefoot shoes (no elevated heel, thin and ultra flexibel sole) after listening to an episode of TED Radio Hour, where they featured the talk “Born To Run” and started reading more about the whole idea. I started to learn how to walk forefoot strike and did a running course for how to run forefoot strike properly. This was the start of going down a never ending rabbit hole. Some of the things I learned during the past two years: * Learning a new walking technique is super hard, it takes at least months, if not even years. * Wearing barefoot shoes and walking forefoot strike seemed to significantly decrease my lower back pain (although I’m not a 100% certain if there is a correlation, I just know that my back pain decreased a few months after switching to barefoot shoes) * Got rid of my neck pain completely (I’m extremely certain that there is a correlation here, because my posture changed, more on that in a later point) * I realized that my leg muscles (especially hamstrings and calves) are extremely tight and possibly also shortened. In the beginning I had trouble to get my heel to the ground without feeling tension in the calves. * Just because I adapted my style of walking, my posture increased significantly. I walk and stand way more upright than before (I compared recent pictures to older pictures) * Significantly decreases the number of migraine attacks. I’m also quite sure this is because of the forefoot strike (although not 100% certain) since heel strike puts a lot of pressure in the neck and head. You can easily Test or experience this Stress on the neck and head yourself if you stick your fingers in your ears and walk barefoot with heel strike over firm ground. You should “hear” it. For me it works best when I put in noise cancelling over ear headphones and walk heel strike (no music, just the noise canceling effect). Of course all of this is highly subjective and many/all things I described may not correlate at all. This is just my personal experience.
- FreshAtom 6y ago
  What would your advice be to anyone interested in getting into barefoot walking?
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    Find somewhere where the ground isn't artificial and walk around in bare feet. How you walk changes very much when the ground isn't a firm flat plane with shoes on.
thdrdt 6y ago
For all citywalkers: check how the sidewalk slopes to move rainwater to the street. I was always walking on the right side of the city roads. This resulted in pain in my right leg because most weight was put on that side. The solution was simple: also walk on the left side of the road. I never thought of this before.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  Apparently this is a known problem that can affect people who run/jog on the same side of the street all the time.
johnchristopher 6y ago
The movement in the videos are demonstrated by a woman and one of them focuses on the pelvis. Are there significant differences between how a woman's body and a man's body walk ?
codr7 6y ago
I grew up on a skateboard, went on to martial arts; did a lot of rock climbing, running, hiking, yoga, etc. Then I managed to smash a vertibra in a climbing accident which meant spending the next two months learning how to do all of those things, including walking without putting strain on my spine. There's a good book with the name Born To Run, one of the basic ideas presented is that the human body is a perfect running machine. You don't need to add anything, just stay out of its way and let it do what it was built for. Here's what I would encourage anyone interested to try: Start by balancing the spine sitting on the edge of a chair. Roll shoulders backward, relax the stomach, tilt the hip forward and pull the chin in until you feel your upper body is balancing on the root of the spine in your hip. Do a body scan and release any sign of muscle tension, the idea is to use bone structure and tendons to carry the weight. It should feel effortless, like the upper body is floating mid air. Then repeat the same procedure standing up. Now comes the slightly tricky part, unlearning the funny walk you've most likely been practicing your entire life. I recommend starting barefoot. Keeping the same pose, and making sure not to tense any muscles, including the muscles in the feet; lean slightly forward. If you manage to do it without tensing, your body will start walking by itself and the feet will land exactly where/how they're supposed to. Leaning further increases the speed. Adding muscles will increase the speed further. Just make sure the energy is directed backwards, pushing the body forward; and not straight down into the ground which is what people usually do when running, especially with bouncy shoes.
superpermutat0r 6y ago
I'm in the camp that whatever bodily motions you learn as a young child, your body adapts enough to it that you won't get any kind of damage. I mean, we even had articles here about children having extra bones on the back of the head to counter constant smartphone gaze. It is the weakening of the muscles that creates issues later in life, mostly due to lack of movement, gaining too much weight and similar. My whole spine is straightened (from neck down, I have lost the natural lordosis of spine) because I've been sitting and looking at computer screens ever since I was a child. My spine is fine, I do not have any pain, but did start feeling pain in the upper back when I did not exercise for 3 years. Once I started exercising pain went away (still slouched and sat a lot). Also, there's absolutely no way I could return back to natural lordosis of spine, my spine was straightened since I was 11 years old, my spine shape is the result of adaptation to prolonged sitting.
anonymousDan 6y ago
I would be very careful of any claims made by barefoot shoe manufacturers regarding it being more natural/it's how we evolved, especially if running on roads or other hard surfaces. While I agree they can be beneficial in small doses and/or on natural surfaces, I'm not sure the human foot evolved to run on concrete surfaces.
- karatinversion 6y ago
  Suunto makes sports watches, heart rate monitors and dive computers, not barefoot shoes :)

222 points by privong 6y ago

They claim the second one where she is just shimmying is "freeing the pelvis", but all of the motion is in her upper thoracic spine.

starpilot 6y ago

>Roll the feet: First place the centre of the heel, then roll the outside edge of the foot down before placing the outer toes, and rolling down the inner toes. Do we know if this is better? I mostly wear barefoot/minimalist shoes and have switched to mid/forefoot strike, from a heel strike.

bcassedy 6y ago
You mid-foot strike while walking? When I wore barefoot shoes, I could mid-foot strike while running but doing so while walking always felt extremely unnatural and I couldn't adopt it.
- Swizec 6y ago
  As a kid I was obsessed with cowboys and indians. Indians were the good guys in my book so I learned to walk like them to reduce noise - mid-foot first. 20 years later and the shriek my girlfriend lets out when she turns around and I’m right there materializing behind her back like a ghost. It’s amazing. Took about a week of conscious practice in middle school and now that’s just how I walk. Heel first when barefoot or in slippers makes my feet hurt.
  - cagenut 6y ago
    yea I don't know if I adopted this because my hamstrings are stunted or if my hamstrings are stunted because I adopted this but its just been how I walk since I was a teenager. and like your anecdote, I've had to be mindful of things like neighbors or coworkers in a hallway, going out of my way to scuff my feet or something while I'm still 10+ft out. people really don't like it when you register as instantaneously in their personal space.
  - hnick 6y ago
    I read this too and I am apparently accidentally sneaky for the same reasons. I'm not sure if I've gone too far though, I got bursitis last year and my hip can feel a little tight when walking briskly for a while. Something is rolling around all wrong in there.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - fatnoah 6y ago
    >As a kid I was obsessed with cowboys and indians. Indians were the good guys in my book so I learned to walk like them to reduce noise - mid-foot first. I've never really thought about it, but I also walk like that. When I lived in apartments, my downstairs neighbors probably loved me for that.
hnick 6y ago
I've read before that striking the ball of the foot first is more natural without shoes, especially when running. I think the article was in context to ultra-marathon runners. Heel first was said to be an adjustment to shoes and can cause issues. Edit: Can't find the original but this is similar. They say walking heel first is natural but you want a rolling gait, not a stomp like a lot of us do with shoes. That sounds like this article. They say running should be similar but with an even softer heel drop which is different to the other article that I remember, which I think looked at tribal south americans who didn't wear modern shoes. "But (you might say) if you walk or run with no padding, it’s murder on your heels—which is precisely the point. Your heels hurt when you walk that way because you’re not supposed to walk that way. Wrapping your heels in padding so they don’t hurt is like stuffing a gag in someone’s mouth so they’ll stop screaming—you’re basically telling your heels to shut up." https://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ https://nymag.com/health/features/46213/
- dehrmann 6y ago
  > striking the ball of the foot first is more natural without shoes, especially when running. It absolutely is for sprinting, even with shoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH-3cHxXAK0&start=46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH-3cHxXAK0&start=46

tlb 6y ago

> It’s worth the effort because there’s usually a huge leak of energy when our gait is unbalanced or restricted. Why do I want my walk to leak less energy / be more efficient? A fast walk is nowhere near my aerobic limit, so what would be the benefit of using less energy? Having a sedentary job, I generally need more exercise, not less. A better thing to optimize for would be less impact on knees and back.

snewk 6y ago
you could always crawl
dbtc 6y ago
I think efficiency and impact are generally inversely proportional, so you're good either way. If walking isn't near your aerobic limit then you'd be much better off doing something else for exercise than making your stride less efficient. Walking as a kind of meditation or just to relax might be quite valuable. Then, the more efficient (relaxed) the better.
mikepurvis 6y ago
I wonder this sometimes about bicycling— I'm fortunate enough to be able to commute by bike year-round, and to have a separate winter bike to ride in the snowy months. But the winter bike is a lot heavier and therefore more work to ride, so I'm sure I get more exercise riding it. On the other hand, I also have more fun riding my summer bike and therefore ride it further and farther (eg, choosing it for errands above and beyond my commute). So I think the performance gain is still a win for my exercise regimen.
- bluntfang 6y ago
  I would consider the geometry and body posture of your winter bike vs summer bike. It's possible that one (or both!) of them aren't fitted properly for exercising in a way that is good for your body and posture, although they are probably just fine for riding about town. Bike fit is one of those things where once you get it right, you'll wonder how you survived any other way.

scubbo 6y ago

"The head adds six to eight kilograms of weight, but by tilting the head forward it increases to something like twenty kilograms" Astonishing. My head's mass (or is it weight?) can be increased simply by moving it slightly it? Someone alert the physicists!

gonzo 6y ago
> Someone alert the physicists! Physicists already know about relativistic mass. /s
hnick 6y ago
Mass is static [in this context], but weight is a force and will apply differently based on angles. I'm no physicist but they might have got it right here.
- pjscott 6y ago
  Weight doesn't vary like that. What varies based on angle are the counterbalancing forces applied by your various body parts to keep it in place. That's vaguely similar to what the article said, so they may be basing this on an original claim that isn't nonsensical -- but if so it got badly garbled.
  - hnick 6y ago
    Well we all know holding you arm straight up or holding it out perpendicular to your body for 30 seconds are very different in terms of effort, perceived force, and pain. I think that's what they were going for.
    - KMag 6y ago
      Okay, but where did they get 20 kg / 200 Newtons / 44bs? I can see the assertion that there's zero transverse force across the neck when the head is held strait up, but how do they come up with a force greater than the weight of the head and neck? A.x cos(x) <= 1.0. Holding your neck out horizontally, the full weight of your head and neck is exerted transversely across your neck, but that's nowhere near 200 Newtons, and that's the worst case. Giving an exact figure implies they've done some calculation, and either their understanding of the physics is way off, or their arithmetic has gone far off the rails.

veed99 6y ago

Just as important is your breathing, focusing on nose instead of mouth breathing, and tongue posture

bobross 6y ago

Any tips for people like me who have flat feet?

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Stop believing that you have a severe deformity and just walk. It's part of the scope of human phenotypes and harmless.
- mbeex 6y ago
  Yep. Stop watching all sorts of advice from your chair. I have been hiking for many years now at ca. 2000 km per year. The body simply optimizes itself in time for all but very few people. A little adjustment might be necessary for particular cases, but you will figure this out finally yourself. But the highest priority by far remains doing the basic things. Regularly - in any weather in this case - without excuses. That is the core. All other issues are premature optimizations (or to be clear, no optimization at all)
e19293001 6y ago
Might help. https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/ba4zii/can_we_talk_about_flat_feet_what_has_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/ba4zii/can_we_talk...
Cactus2018 6y ago
Watch a few videos under the search results for "foot arch PT" and "foot arch massage", like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AwRK3js5dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AwRK3js5dg
kd0amg 6y ago
If it's causing serious problems, talk to a real doctor, not armchair doctors on HN (or reddit).

xwdv 6y ago

Many years ago at an Apple WWDC event I saw a presenter give a talk about how they used genetic algorithms to find out what the most optimal walk for a dinosaur could be based on its bones and skeletal structure. I wonder if such an optimal gait could also be discovered for humans, perhaps for different heights, and when carrying different loads. Maybe the best way of walking for a person who is very tall is different from someone who is very short for instance. By constructing random human bodies and allowing them to evolve over millions of iterations, we may be able to discover unrealized walking techniques.

klysm 6y ago

I guess you have to be pretty far down the path of self actualization to worry about things like this

keiferski 6y ago
I had the opposite reaction. Walking costs no money, is something most of us do everyday, and small changes can dramatically affect quality of life over time. I’d compare it to sleeping or brushing your teeth.
- klysm 6y ago
  > small changes can dramatically affect quality of life I’m quite skeptical that small changes in my walking will dramatically change the quality of my life. I think it would actual be annoying to think about and I’d rather be thinking about things that interest me while I pace around
  - keiferski 6y ago
    The point is to consciously undo bad habits and build new, healthier ones, so that you don't need to think about it.
mikekchar 6y ago
Being good to yourself doesn't have to be a priority list. It can be more like a jigsaw puzzle. It doesn't matter where you start.

01100011 6y ago

This kind of reminds me of Feldenkrais or the Alexander technique.

paulcole 6y ago

Amazing that there are 32 comments and somehow this article avoided tripping the HN This-Is-Just-A-Marketing-Blog-Post silent alarm.

Woberto 6y ago
It's quite odd indeed - there's no links to actual research to back up the claims, her statements aren't clarified (saying tilting the head down adds weight - at least specify that it's adding weight to the neck or something.) It's just a piece about what this lady says based off some other odd looking website.
- paulcole 6y ago
  My theory is that the nutrition and exercise posts get a pass because everybody races to share their similarly unfounded opinion instead of even looking at the post. See the comments for every IF, keto, running is good, running is bad, weightlifting, etc. post on here.
sk0g 6y ago
This is more of a tech forum, so we can see through that bullshit. Not as many doctors or physios here, so everything linked is correct :)
- bluntfang 6y ago
  Should we not consider that this personal is a health professional? While they aren't a M.D., they have studied the body more intensely than most people in other professions. I also don't think you should just blindly believe anyone, even M.D.s, without doing research yourself.
  - sk0g 6y ago
    I wasn't being dismissive of their accomplishments, just was bringing up the fact that since this is out of most of our expertise areas, we will likely be less skeptical of the post from the get go.

goblin89 6y ago

Walking “properly” is a topic of interest for me. I believe it can be reduced to one main constraint: ensure most effort is spent by abdominal muscle in your core, with limbs and the (importantly) neck as relaxed as possible. Other characteristics of “proper” walk naturally emerge as the easiest way of following that constraint[0]. I find that walking “properly” wakes me up, has some positive effects on my well-being, and can be difficult at times. Unevenly paved surfaces (like some cobblestone pavements) seem to complicate walking “lazily”, forcing me into the proper way of walking. [0] IMO articles like TFA tend to focus on those “cosmetic” characteristics, thus entirely missing the point.

k00b 6y ago
You should be walking with your hips primarily. Your core is important though.
- goblin89 6y ago
  That way it’s still possible to fall into other lazy habits, such as walking with stiff neck and shoulders. On the other hand, if one aims to relax all limbs (that includes feet) and localize energy expenditures in the abs area as much as possible, “walking with hips” might well be the only remaining acceptable way to walk.

k00b 6y ago

If you want to learn more about how to walk and move better I can't more highly recommend the content by biomechanist Katy Bowman https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/blog/ https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/blog/ ... She has a blog, a podcast, online classes, books, and a whole gamut of content around restoring basic movement - and talks a ton about walking. So important for all us desk jockeys.

rahimnathwani 6y ago

The Chinese idiom 邯郸学步 is about learning to walk. It's based on a story about someone who hears of a place (Handan) where people have the most gracious way of walking. He wants to learn, so he goes there and tries to imitate the people of Handan. He fails to learn how they walk and, in the process, forgets his original way of walking. Then he runs out of money to fund his travels. Unable to walk, he is forced to crawl all the way back to his home town.

TheCapeGreek 6y ago
Seeking perfection leads to ruin?
- rahimnathwani 6y ago
  IIRC it's about imitating others without understanding the underlying motivation or different context.
acituan 6y ago
I can't help to think how this story might reflect many of us who immigrated to the US for the "gracious way", forgot the way we used to "walk" and now find it difficult to return back home. It is saddening.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  Same for my mother. She can't bear her old place now.
  - ckarmann 6y ago
    It's hard to get back to Plato's cave.

throwaway391003 6y ago

You can't improve your walking technique unless you improve your life. Your posture, your gait, your movements are a complete reflection of how you feel. If you feel like you're carrying a load on your shoulders... your shoulders are gonna show that. If you feel like you have to clench and grind through your days, your jaw is going to show that. etc. etc. A really interesting question to reflect on is when someone gains weight, what determines where the weight goes? Their stomach? Their thighs? Everywhere evenly distributed? etc.

djtriptych 6y ago
True from a yogic perspective. A really nice realization arising from this basic mind-body connection is that if you have a handle on one, you have a handle on the other. Or, practicing the posture of well-being can help make you well.
- nelaboras 6y ago
  This is not at all true from a yogic perspective. The original aim of yoga (with all eight parts, not just the asanas but also breathing, healthy eating, right behaviour, internal cleaning, etc) is to make the body so healthy that you don't have to worry about it. Then you can work with your mind to address your samskaras, etc and work towards a deeper understanding of reality and self up to enlightenment.
  - djtriptych 6y ago
    It is true. The eight limbs (of Ashtanga, which is the style I practice) say nothing about the absence of a mind-body connection. You made an account just to post incorrect information about yoga?
jspash 6y ago
I agree, for the most part. However there is definitely something to be said for reversing the cycle. That is, when you feel down or frightened, purposely sit/stand/walk as though you are fully in control and on top of things. You'll find with some practice, your mood will improve. I think I heard it first from Tony Robbins years ago, but I'm sure it's well known technique.

hyko 6y ago

Next week: teaching your grandmother to suck eggs!

mongol 6y ago

During my time as conscript in the Swedish army, I got a lot of experience from marching around with fellow soldiers. Eventually I could recognise each one of them (about 25) just on how they moved their legs. I could even close my eyes and go through them on by one in my mind and recall their gait.

privong 6y ago
I've had a friend say he could tell it was me approaching, based on my gait (I hadn't seen him in several years and his eyesight was such that he couldn't see my facial features from that far away, but apparently my gait was still the same and he could identify that). There's been work to apply gait analysis in an automated fashion for use as a biometric identifier: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1301521 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1301521 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2011.01793.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1556-4029....

WalterBright 6y ago

For some fun re-learning how to walk, take a latin dance class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7JF4ZZvZ3Y&t=125s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7JF4ZZvZ3Y&t=125s

mr_t 6y ago

Two years ago I bought my first pair of barefoot shoes (no elevated heel, thin and ultra flexibel sole) after listening to an episode of TED Radio Hour, where they featured the talk “Born To Run” and started reading more about the whole idea. I started to learn how to walk forefoot strike and did a running course for how to run forefoot strike properly. This was the start of going down a never ending rabbit hole. Some of the things I learned during the past two years: * Learning a new walking technique is super hard, it takes at least months, if not even years. * Wearing barefoot shoes and walking forefoot strike seemed to significantly decrease my lower back pain (although I’m not a 100% certain if there is a correlation, I just know that my back pain decreased a few months after switching to barefoot shoes) * Got rid of my neck pain completely (I’m extremely certain that there is a correlation here, because my posture changed, more on that in a later point) * I realized that my leg muscles (especially hamstrings and calves) are extremely tight and possibly also shortened. In the beginning I had trouble to get my heel to the ground without feeling tension in the calves. * Just because I adapted my style of walking, my posture increased significantly. I walk and stand way more upright than before (I compared recent pictures to older pictures) * Significantly decreases the number of migraine attacks. I’m also quite sure this is because of the forefoot strike (although not 100% certain) since heel strike puts a lot of pressure in the neck and head. You can easily Test or experience this Stress on the neck and head yourself if you stick your fingers in your ears and walk barefoot with heel strike over firm ground. You should “hear” it. For me it works best when I put in noise cancelling over ear headphones and walk heel strike (no music, just the noise canceling effect). Of course all of this is highly subjective and many/all things I described may not correlate at all. This is just my personal experience.

FreshAtom 6y ago
What would your advice be to anyone interested in getting into barefoot walking?
- colechristensen 6y ago
  Find somewhere where the ground isn't artificial and walk around in bare feet. How you walk changes very much when the ground isn't a firm flat plane with shoes on.

thdrdt 6y ago

For all citywalkers: check how the sidewalk slopes to move rainwater to the street. I was always walking on the right side of the city roads. This resulted in pain in my right leg because most weight was put on that side. The solution was simple: also walk on the left side of the road. I never thought of this before.

nerdponx 6y ago
Apparently this is a known problem that can affect people who run/jog on the same side of the street all the time.

johnchristopher 6y ago

The movement in the videos are demonstrated by a woman and one of them focuses on the pelvis. Are there significant differences between how a woman's body and a man's body walk ?

codr7 6y ago

I grew up on a skateboard, went on to martial arts; did a lot of rock climbing, running, hiking, yoga, etc. Then I managed to smash a vertibra in a climbing accident which meant spending the next two months learning how to do all of those things, including walking without putting strain on my spine. There's a good book with the name Born To Run, one of the basic ideas presented is that the human body is a perfect running machine. You don't need to add anything, just stay out of its way and let it do what it was built for. Here's what I would encourage anyone interested to try: Start by balancing the spine sitting on the edge of a chair. Roll shoulders backward, relax the stomach, tilt the hip forward and pull the chin in until you feel your upper body is balancing on the root of the spine in your hip. Do a body scan and release any sign of muscle tension, the idea is to use bone structure and tendons to carry the weight. It should feel effortless, like the upper body is floating mid air. Then repeat the same procedure standing up. Now comes the slightly tricky part, unlearning the funny walk you've most likely been practicing your entire life. I recommend starting barefoot. Keeping the same pose, and making sure not to tense any muscles, including the muscles in the feet; lean slightly forward. If you manage to do it without tensing, your body will start walking by itself and the feet will land exactly where/how they're supposed to. Leaning further increases the speed. Adding muscles will increase the speed further. Just make sure the energy is directed backwards, pushing the body forward; and not straight down into the ground which is what people usually do when running, especially with bouncy shoes.

superpermutat0r 6y ago

I'm in the camp that whatever bodily motions you learn as a young child, your body adapts enough to it that you won't get any kind of damage. I mean, we even had articles here about children having extra bones on the back of the head to counter constant smartphone gaze. It is the weakening of the muscles that creates issues later in life, mostly due to lack of movement, gaining too much weight and similar. My whole spine is straightened (from neck down, I have lost the natural lordosis of spine) because I've been sitting and looking at computer screens ever since I was a child. My spine is fine, I do not have any pain, but did start feeling pain in the upper back when I did not exercise for 3 years. Once I started exercising pain went away (still slouched and sat a lot). Also, there's absolutely no way I could return back to natural lordosis of spine, my spine was straightened since I was 11 years old, my spine shape is the result of adaptation to prolonged sitting.

anonymousDan 6y ago

I would be very careful of any claims made by barefoot shoe manufacturers regarding it being more natural/it's how we evolved, especially if running on roads or other hard surfaces. While I agree they can be beneficial in small doses and/or on natural surfaces, I'm not sure the human foot evolved to run on concrete surfaces.

karatinversion 6y ago
Suunto makes sports watches, heart rate monitors and dive computers, not barefoot shoes :)