gait

We have long ago ditched any Victorian shyness around showing our ankles, thank goodness. In fact, they have become a fashionable part of the body to celebrate with short pants and an ornamental tattoo. But unfortunately for our ankles, the picture is often not so rosy as the years go by…

Healthy ankles can serve both fashion and function! Image from Pickpik.com

You might be surprised to learn that some of the fastest growing orthopedic surgeries are for ankle fusions, and partial and full ankle replacements. Though still less common than the 790,000 knee replacements and 544,000 hip replacements¹ done every year in the U.S., the number of total ankle replacement surgeries has grown to over 10,000² per year, and these are expected to overtake fusion surgeries.

Surgeries have pros and cons

When ankle damage is beyond the reach of physical therapy, ankle surgery is an option. Various procedures are used for treating post-traumatic, osteoarthritic, and inflammatory arthritic ankle conditions. While we recognize that continual improvement is being made in these surgeries, and welcome the mobility life-line they offer to many, ankle surgery can also leave patients with a relatively small range of motion in the joint, wound complications, and residual pain.

Maintaining quality of Life

Good ankle function is clearly important for enjoying life’s pleasures, such as dance, sports, and being in nature—but it is also about being pain-free, being able to keep a job, avoiding fall injuries, and maintaining independence. 

       
Being able to walk with ease and pain free ankles (left) makes life more doable and enjoyable. Image from Pexels(left img, right img)

What causes ankle pain and degeneration?

Ankles become problematic for a number of reasons. Some of our students trace their issues back to old injuries, such as broken bones or “rolling the ankle” and tearing ligaments. And it is true that less than optimal healing or poor rehab can have ongoing consequences, or issues that surface in later years. 

The muscle spindles within and the bands of ligamentous tissue that bind the ankle are especially rich in sensory organs called proprioceptors. These are important for sensing our balance and how we perceive the location and movement of our body parts. Thus, incomplete recovery from ankle injuries can leave us more prone to poor coordination and falls.  The long tendons running from the various lower leg muscles through the ankle to move the bones of the feet want to be strong, as do the connective tissues, giving our legs power and stability. 

The tendons of long muscles such as the tibialis anterior (shown in red) cross the ankle, inserting to work the toes and forefoot. The ankle is bound by strong ligaments. Wikimedia

People sometimes tell me that they have inherently weak ankles, like one of their parents. While our DNA clearly shapes our structural inheritance, a more likely cause for the actual manifestation of ankle problems is poor use of the joint due to problematic posture. A poor gait pattern is often learned from our parents, or role models, influencers, or well-intentioned but misguided coaches. 

Motion is lotion—plus strength and flexibility

From a Gokhale Method® perspective, the root cause of ankle problems in our society is varying combinations of poor posture and insufficient use. Even on flat terrain, walking as we were designed to involves a considerable range of motion—the back of the ankle and Achilles tendon gets stretched as the back heel stays toward the ground, and then the front of the ankle is opened wide as we push off using the toes.  

As we came to work ever more sedentary jobs, walking shorter distances along flatter surfaces in our offices and malls, our ankles do less and less. In centuries past our feet would work hard to grab the textured surfaces of rough earth or cobblestoned streets on which we walked barefoot, or in lighter-soled shoes. Going uphill and downhill makes even more demands on our ankle structure, as do naturally challenging surfaces such as tussock grasses and scree-covered hills. 

Traditional dance forms as diverse as the Indian Bharata Natyam, classical ballet, Irish dancing, and Samburu tribal dance from Kenya, all employ considerable ankle strength and flexibility. Image from Pixabay and Wikimedia

Let’s strengthen our ankles 

Consider your starting point. Don’t go straight into a new or strenuous activity if your ankles have been used to taking things easy! At best you could feel very sore, at worst you risk an injury—the very opposite of what you want. If you are recovering from injury or surgery, we advise you to check with your preferred health practitioner.

If we are lucky, we will gain healthy ankle strength and flexibility as we grow, and maintain it throughout life. But many of us in our society need help to do that. Image from Pexels

Rather than rotating your ankles, which is a commonly given exercise, we recommend you take a look at our free Inchworm and Toe Tap videos (below). Start each exercise gently with a minute’s work on each foot daily, and build up from there.

These are highly functional exercises that can immediately benefit your walking. Although you focus on moving your feet, you will feel your ankles and lower leg muscles working hard as well.

In time, these movements, and others we teach on our in-person Foundations course, one-day Pop-up course, online Elements course, and Gokhale Exercise program, will help to make your walking more balanced, smooth, and powerful. After all, walking well is nature’s way of maintaining your foot and ankle health, giving you the thousands of reps per day that your feet were designed for. 

For our Alumni, we are pleased to announce the return of our popular Advanced Glidewalking course, starting Monday, October 7, 12 p.m. (PST).  You can book your place here.

Best next action steps 

If you would like to improve your ankle function and comfort, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. 

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

References:

¹ “Joint Replacement Surgery.” n.d. Rheumatology.org. https://rheumatology.org/patients/joint-replacement-surgery#.

² Penner, Murray J., Gregory C. Berlet, Ricardo Calvo, Eric Molina, David Reynolds, Paul Stemniski, and W. Hodges Davis. 2020. “The Demographics of Total Ankle Replacement the USA: A Study of 21,222 Cases Undergoing Pre- Operative CT Scan-Based Planning.” Foot & Ankle Orthopaedics 5 (4): 2473011420S0038. https://doi.org/10.1177/2473011420s00381.

The best art often communicates on many levels. The Walking Men 99™ exhibit is a great example. It consisted of a frieze of pedestrian crossing icons, photographed and assembled from around the world. At human scale, they mingled with passersby on the sidewalk. 

Walking Men Worldwide™ is a series of public art installations by artist Maya Barkai, which was launched in Lower Manhattan in 2010-2013 (Walking Men 99™), and was followed by a series of installations around the globe. www.walking-men.com

From a posture perspective, signage featuring pedestrians offers us an overview of how modern urban people perceive, represent, and execute walking. Some lean back in line with the front leg, others lean forward in line with the back leg; some land with a bent front knee, others land with a straight knee; some have a straight back leg as the front leg lands, others do not. No other mammal on earth shows such variation in its locomotion!

Does variation in gait matter?

In traditional rural villages across Africa, India, and South America, when I study walking, I see a more uniform walking pattern. This holds true across different cultures, ages, and occupations. Intriguingly, this gait is also shared by our young children, and can be seen in antique photographs, paintings, and sculptures of our ancestors. It results in a uniquely smooth, elegant, powerful walk that is rare enough, it merits a special name, glidewalking. 

Glidewalking describes the healthy and efficient human gait pattern shared across different generations and cultures.

Glidewalking is very different from the various stomps, shuffles, totters, bounces, and other strategies that people in modern urban societies bring to their walking. Any type of walk can get us from A to B, but anything short of what our bodies are designed for is likely to be inefficient and, over time, destructive. Twisting, swaying, slumping, or jerking the spine with every step causes compression, inflammation, damage, and degenerative processes. Suboptimal gait biomechanics are also largely responsible for our epidemic of knee, hip, and foot problems, which include cartilage wear and tear, joint arthritis, and plantar fasciitis.

Take a closer look at walking

In the Glidewalking chapter of my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, I included a variety of pedestrian traffic signs to show how they can reflect and promote different gait patterns:

Taking a fresh look at pedestrian crossing signs—from a posture perspective. (Page 170, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back)

Most public signage reflects our confusion about walking. Signs often depict walking with either both legs bent, or both legs straight at the same time, or some other compromised configuration.

These airport signs show weight aligned on the front leg and little effective propulsion from behind.

Straighten out your walking

A good first step (literally!) is to learn to straighten your back leg fully. This has numerous benefits: 

• pushes the ground back strongly to propel you forward
• encourages you to lean a little forward rather than backward 
• encourages glute contraction 
• encourages healthy pelvic anteversion
• encourages your back heel to stay down and your foot to be active for longer
• stretches your calves
• is nature’s stretch for the psoas

We recommend you start practicing by walking uphill, or pushing a rolling chair or shopping cart, which makes all of the above benefits easier to find in your body. 

This sign in the Philippines shows healthy walking form, with the torso angled slightly forward and the leg behind straight. Image from Bonifacio Global City

Unfortunately, this guy is not doing such a good job… Image from Angela Bayona(Toggear.com

Notice how these animated walking figures differ…but both have a straight back leg.

Take a step in the right direction 

Over the decades we have worked out how best to guide students through the process of improving their gait. Deeply ingrained poor walking habits can be replaced using tried and tested techniques in a step-by-step process.  This is covered in all of our beginning courses: our in-person Foundations course, one-day Pop-up course, and our online Elements course. 

Alumni can sign up here for our next Advanced Glidewalking Course, starting Monday, June 03, 12:00 p.m. PST and give your walk the green light!

Best next action steps 

If you would like to improve your walking, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. 

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

When students first meet with a Gokhale Method® teacher they are sometimes surprised to learn that one of the reasons for their back pain is a tight psoas muscle. What does this little-known muscle, embedded deep within our bodies, have to do with back pain? And what do we need to do to have it recede in the background and leave our backs alone?

Get to know your psoas muscle 

Psoas major (pronounced so-as) is a deep-lying muscle with a downwards trajectory through the abdomen. There can be some individual variation, but it usually originates from T12-L4, and it inserts at the lesser trochanter of the femur. Its main job is to contract and pull the thigh up—as in walking, running, and climbing, for example. 

The psoas muscle lifts your thigh—or pulls on your lower back, depending on how it’s used.

For those who are not offended by meat analogies, this muscle is the filet mignon, or the tenderloin—it is meant to be lean, juicy, malleable, and stretchy. But in modern industrial populations, the psoas is often somewhat dry, tough, and short. The shortened length and tightness of the muscle can wreak havoc on the spine as it pulls forward on the lumbar spine, causing compression, wear and tear, and pain.

How do I know if I have a tight psoas?

There are various signs and symptoms associated with a tight psoas, including:

• A pronounced sway in the lumbar area
• Pain when going from sitting to standing
• Back pain either caused or eased by walking
• A sore insertion point on the thigh
• Feeling stiff and unable to straighten up, or “vulnerable” in the lower back, especially first thing in the morning  

Why did my psoas get tight?

• Sitting for extended periods without movement breaks is one reason that our psoas adapts to a shorter length because the muscle then spends a long time at the shorter end of the range of what it can do. 
• The shortening effect of sitting is made more likely when we sit poorly with our pelvis tucked. A modern issue with sitting is that we have poorly designed furniture, such as bucket seats and deep sofas, which encourage us to tuck and slouch. 

Most modern furniture is designed for aesthetic appeal rather than to enable us to sit well. Image from: Pexels

• Back pain patients are often recommended to use a chair with built in lumbar support, or to add a lumbar cushion. The extra curvature then reinforces a habit of swaying the lower back, which in turn enables the psoas to remain short and tight.

Most backrests follow the S-shaped spine paradigm and are designed to give “lumbar support.” This creates exaggerated curvature and compression in the lumbar spine. (Google, n.d.)

• A tight psoas can also have a psychosomatic cause, as this muscle is deeply linked to both chronic stress and trauma responses in the body. We see this response even in babies in the Moro or startle reflex.

Restoring length in your psoas 

A common remedy for a tight psoas is a lunge or other psoas stretch. Though effective, the problem with this approach is that it is not possible to do enough stretching to make a sustainable difference to the length of this muscle. The stretch feels good, but the muscle quickly goes back to its short resting length. For some people, if they have been stretching aggressively and the attachments of the muscle are inflamed, stretching can cause additional pain and dysfunction.

Another common approach is to get a gifted practitioner to “release” your psoas. This very intense maneuver can also be effective, but has the same problem as the stretching approach—it provides temporary relief, but does not sustainably reset the resting length of the muscle when poor daily posture is shortening it.  

The only sustainable way I know of resetting a tight psoas is to recruit Nature’s solution for keeping this muscle healthy, which is to learn how to walk naturally/skillfully/effectively. 

Our natural gait pattern is evident in our young children, our ancestors, and villagers in non-industrialized parts of the world. It gives the psoas muscle both the engagement and stretch it needs in a gentle and consistent way.
(central painting: Fisher Girl, Winslow Homer, 1894. Museum at Amherst College, Petegorsky/Gipe.) 

Nature’s built-in solution to stretching your psoas

To describe the action of healthy walking, we use the term glidewalking. With this pattern, every step becomes a psoas stretch. Refinements in walking like learning to contract your glutes with every step and leaving your rear heel down for an extended time, augment the psoas stretch. If, however, you don’t know how to maintain a long, stable lumbar spine, these same improvements in gait can be counterproductive and pull your spine into additional sway.

Our PostureTracker™ wearable enables you to monitor and maintain your rib anchor and a healthy, stable spine as you walk (shown in green), naturally stretching your psoas. Here I am on the Alumni Live Chat in December last year, demonstrating.

PostureTracker™ will tell you (shown in red) if you forget your healthy posture cues! Notice that I have let my back sway severely at the end of my stride.

Advanced Glidewalking Course for Alumni

If you are an alumnus, you are encouraged to join me in our Advanced Glidewalking Course. This course is a comprehensive deep-dive to both revisit the basics of healthy, natural walking, refine its many components, and learn advanced techniques that are not included in our beginner courses. Your psoas will thank you! Six weekly lessons start Wednesday, February 28, 11 a.m. (PST), 8 p.m. (CET). You can sign up here.

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you are new to the Gokhale Method, get started by booking a consultation, online, or in person with one of our teachers to find out how the Gokhale Method can help you.

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . .

Why is it not a routine practice for podiatrists to observe their plantar fasciitis patients’ stance and gait? Let’s consider how a broader approach that considers the way people stand and walk could improve treatment outcomes for plantar fasciitis patients—and also help prevent recurrences.

The main factors in foot health

In my experience, the top three influences on the health and performance of the human foot are the architecture and orientation of the foot and leg, the way a person stands, and the way a person walks. Of course, shoes also play a big role in foot health (you can read more about this here), but while truly healthy posture can do a lot to compensate for poor shoes (extreme styles excepted), the best of shoes cannot make up for poor posture, stance, and gait. 

These African fishermen all show healthy external rotation in their legs and feet. Pexels

Internal leg rotation mechanically disadvantages our structure, and offers poor support to the feet and legs. Pexels

What gives rise to foot problems

We frequently work with people whose foot problems have been created or made worse by poor postural habits. While there can be a genetic predisposition to foot problems, frequently, what appears to be a genetic trait is actually the result of mimicking those closest to us—the person with bunions has replicated their parent’s poor posture or poor shoe choices which, in turn, caused their bunions. 

Let’s consider what can go wrong in the feet when standing. In a common modern stance where the hips are parked forward relative to the feet, the body’s weight lands excessively on the smaller, more delicate structures of the midfoot and forefoot. The ligaments that bind the bones in the feet together may no longer be able to do their job in preserving the shape and healthy function of the foot. 

 
How you stand affects your weight bearing and the forces going through your feet. This man has parked his pelvis forward, shifting his weight off his heels and onto the more delicate forefoot. Pexels

Plantar fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis is one common problem that results from faulty weight distribution overwhelming the foot ligaments. Other problems may include calcium deposits (bone spurs) at points of stress, nerve damage such as in Morton’s neuroma, inflammation such as in sesamoiditis, and stress fractures. 

Plantar fasciitis affects the strong, fibrous attachment that runs from your heel bone to the ball of your foot, supporting the medial and lateral arches. The ligament-like tissue becomes irritated and inflamed, making it painful to bear weight or use the foot, especially on initial standing. 

Plantar fasciitis occurs when the connective tissue on the sole of the foot becomes inflamed. Pexels

Treatment of conditions such as plantar fasciitis is often limited to local solutions. A common treatment for plantar fasciitis is to stretch the plantar fascia with exercise, manual therapy or by wearing night splints. This has some protective merit as it reduces the degree of tearing that can occur under the body's weight. Another measure that can offer relief is foot rolling with iced water bottles. 

After observing the shape of the patient’s foot, a podiatrist might prescribe an orthotic. The most conservative treatment with orthotics simply reflects the shape of the foot and aims to prevent further deterioration of the foot’s structure. Somewhat more sophisticated orthotics are designed to exert corrective forces on the foot, such as lifting a sunken arch. 

A root-cause solution is to learn how to stand and walk well. Instead of band-aid stretching and orthotics to compensate for weak muscles and poor body mechanics, this approach will lead to a strengthening of the foot muscles, an overall shortening of the foot, and appropriate weight-bearing on the foot at all times. When students come to us with orthotics, we encourage them to think of the orthotic as a training device that reminds the foot to practice what it needs to do, as well as being a prop for as long as they need it to do some of the lifting for them. 

Once the foot muscles have learned to grip around the contours of an arch support the foot can go beyond resting passively as shown here.

Learning to activate the feet is especially beneficial for anyone with “flat” feet. It’s also important for women during pregnancy, since both the additional weight of a baby and the hormone relaxin increase any tendency to ligament laxity. 

Key components of Gokhale Method® training in our in-person Foundations course, one-day Pop-up course, and our online Elements course will enable you to make profound and lasting changes for your feet. You can learn how to:

• Place much of your body weight on your heels. These are large, dense bones with a cross-fiber construction that are well suited to load-bearing compared with the comparatively delicate forefoot with its longer, thinner bone structure.
• Kidney-bean shape your foot, keeping its structural integrity. 
• Use your foot muscles to interact with the ground, providing stability and propulsion. 
• Coordinate your foot action with the external rotation of the leg and activation of the glutes.
• Antevert your pelvis, stack your spine, and align your upper body as part of healthy standing and glidewalking.

We pay a lot of attention to the feet in all our courses. Here I am showing a student how to kidney-bean shape their foot.

Is hi-tech the answer to foot problems?

Computer technology has enabled podiatrists to measure foot shape, weight bearing, and biomechanics with a precision that was previously unattainable. There have been exciting advances in clinical 3D scanning and modeling, and the use of sensors to measure real time movement and weight distribution. There is also an increased biomechanical understanding of how gait interacts with foot function. 

However, the medical model of foot and gait health continues to arrive at conclusions based on abstract reasoning instead of tried and true historical and anthropological evidence. It therefore continues to encourage modern distortions like a “straight” foot and “straight ahead” feet. We would love to see a shift in the medical perception of healthy feet and gait that weaves in ancestral wisdom. 

The Gokhale Method has developed two wearables that help refine students’ stance and gait. The five-sensor SpineTracker™ wearable is used by many of our teachers in a classroom setting to allow them and their students to monitor and track real-time changes in spinal shape during gait. The two-sensor PostureTracker™ is a consumer product that enables students to refine their stance and gait at home, work, or leisure. 

  
The PostureTracker setting Piston Walking can tell you if you are successfully straightening your back leg while walking (a) or not (b); this is relevant to the healthy function of your feet. 

Free Online Workshop: “Fix Your Feet”

On Wednesday, May 24, 1pm PT, we will be offering a Free Online Workshop, Fix Your Feet. If you would like to volunteer for a mini-consultation in this workshop, please email teamesther@gokhalemethod with a brief description of your foot condition. If you would like to support friends and family who suffer from foot problems, please feel free to email them.

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like insight on your foot issues and posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

You can sign up below to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . .

Yesterday was midwinter day in the northern hemisphere. For many of us, this time of year means colder, shorter days, and a time when outdoor activities and social get-togethers can be more limited. 

Get out walking 

One thing we can do whatever the season is to get out on foot. Walking, done well, can significantly boost our circulation, burn calories, keep us warm, and assist our digestion—especially useful after rich and large festive meals! A good walk will also fill our lungs with fresh air and can boost our immune system to fight off winter bugs. 

Such exercise, especially in nature, is known to lift our mood. We can enjoy the company of friends and family—or go solo for some peace and introspection, as fits. All these potential benefits and more are summed up in the Latin phrase, Solvitur Ambulando, which translates as “walking solves everything.”¹

Daylight, fresh air, nature, companionship, and good posture all contribute to walking being a healthy and holistic activity. Pixabay

Walking—a primal activity for optimal health

It’s all too easy, especially on busy days, to go without any significant period of walking. We could be at our desk, or “on our feet” all day, without getting into the rhythm that comes with sustained walking. Walking for 30 minutes or more at a time would have been much more familiar to our ancestors—going to school, to the shops, or to work—than it is to many of us today. 

In many parts of the world this is still the case, and women in particular often walk many miles to fetch water, food, and fuel. I don’t want to romanticize hard labor, but I do think that the lack of sustained walking in much of the industrialized world, especially the US, means that we miss out on an activity that has been intrinsic to our evolution and healthy functioning. 

Glidewalking describes the natural gait of our ancestors and many people living in more traditional or nonindustrialized societies—where joint and back pain are rare.

Learning to glidewalk makes walking a pleasure

Walking with the healthy gait pattern that nature intended keeps the feet, legs, and glutes strong, and the joints mobile. The Gokhale Method calls this glidewalking, and it is explained in detail in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. As the term suggests, it results in a smooth action which spares the joints, including the spinal discs and nerves.

The basics of glidewalking can be learned in our Gokhale Method® in-person Foundations and Pop-up courses, and our online Elements course. Students experience the most significant changes during sustained walking, as it takes some time and distance to ease any stiffness in the muscles and joints, find a harmonious rhythm with the breath, and “get into one’s stride.”

Students find that sustained walking embodies the changes they’ve learned to make in class.

Sustained walking also allows students to cycle through the cues they have learned, checking for details such as “back heel down,” and “land on a bent front knee.” By refining these cues with each pass, they become integrated as habits. With healthy biomechanics, students find their new walk becomes smoother, more powerful, and more pleasurable. 

The essence of glidewalking

For Alumni we offer an Essence of Glidewalking course, where you can deep dive to find out what’s possible for your walking by slowing a movement down, tracking the detail, and troubleshooting anything holding you back. You have two expert teachers, one demonstrating and the other watching you, plus the opportunity for Q&A both inside and outside the session. 

Essence of Glidewalking participant Elenore Wieler speaks about her experience of the course.

If you are one of our Alumni and would like to revisit and refine your walking, the Essence of Glidewalking is especially for you! Our next six-part course starts on January 16 at 8:00 a.m. PT time. You can sign up below:

If you would like personalized guidance on any aspect of your posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher. 

Find out more about how the Gokhale Method can help you with our range of upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . .… 

References

¹attributed to the Greek philosopher Diogenes or, alternatively, St. Augustine.

Welcome to the sixth blog post in our series on running. My name is Michelle Ball, and I am a Gokhale Method® teacher living in Tasmania. I am also a lifelong runner and am passionate about sharing the benefits of healthy posture with the running community, be that beginners, seasoned runners, or anyone in between. Even if you walk rather than run, the posture principles outlined in this post can still help you to enjoy an active and pain-free body well into old age.

Running with a well-positioned upper body

In this post we will consider the upper body. Runners are inclined to pay far less attention to the upper half of the body than the lower half, as they focus on gait pattern, cadence, footwork, and propulsion. This is hardly surprising, but the lower body, while super-busy, really is just half the story. 

Healthy posture in the upper body brings the following benefits:

• Protected spinal structures
• Improved biomechanics
• Unimpeded flow and momentum
• Support that makes the body feel lighter
• Athletic appearance

Healthy posture principles are important for the upper body as well as the lower. Implementing them can both protect your spine, and bring mechanical advantage to your running. Unsplash

I have found the upper body principles that we teach in the Gokhale Method® in-person Foundations and Pop-up courses, and our online Elements course, made a world of difference to my running. Let me share some key points with you. . .

Anchoring your ribs

As explained in my previous post, Running: Part 5: Anteverted Pelvis, a forward leaning position when running helps to avoid compression in the lower back. In our culture it is common that people have tight lower back muscles (erector spinae), and weak opposing muscles of the torso (internal obliques). This creates a sway back, which pulls the torso into a backward leaning position. A deliberate forward lean will help counter this. 

Here you can see me keeping a consistent forward angle throughout my torso, neck, and head.

Most people will benefit from some degree of forward rotation of the thorax to fully correct a sway and bring their torso into a straight and healthy alignment. This adjustment can be made and maintained by engagement of the internal oblique muscles, or rib anchor, as we Gokhale Method teachers call it. The rib anchor can be learned with a simple but precise maneuver which you can learn here. 

Overly contracted back and neck muscles can give a misleading feeling and appearance of being upright. In reality, overly muscles are pulling the lumbar and cervical spine into compression, threatening discs and nerves. Pexels

Deeper support and protection for your spine

Running is classed as a “high impact” activity. This is one reason to run with the best posture and technique you can. Even if you are running smoothly with impeccable form, running will generate additional forces that impact the spine on landing. Perhaps that is how “jogging” got its name! 

Using your inner corset while running lends natural protection to the joints, discs, and nerves of the spine in two important ways. Firstly, it creates and maintains length, and secondly, it confers stability, preventing untoward twisting, forward, back, and sideways movement. The trunk and pelvis remain a single unit, with no jiggling from micro-flexing and extension, or bobbing up and down—and the head travels at a continuous level, sparing the neck. In these respects good running form is the same as good walking form. The spine and its tissues are saved from both acute injury and long-term wear and tear. How to find and deploy your inner corset is explained in detail in Esther’s bestselling book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.

These two medical illustrations from 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back show how, in modern times (e.g., 1990), deeper spinal curves have come to be regarded as normal and desirable. The Gokhale Method advocates a return to a straighter, longer spinal shape (e.g., 1911). 

Avoiding neck pain while running

Deep engagement of the inner corset will preserve length in the lumbar spine, and this supportive structure also encourages length in the cervical spine, or neck. In addition, locally, the longus colli muscle, which attaches to the front and side of the neck and upper thoracic vertebrae, needs to be engaged to draw the neck back into a tall, lengthened position in line with your body. 

The longus colli muscle (seen here in red) draws the vertebrae of the neck back into a healthy, tall, and spacious alignment. Wikimedia

Gliding your head up and back, while allowing your chin to rest down, will provide stable and relaxed carriage for your head, and a happier neck. You can learn how to glide your head back here.

Your head and neck want to remain back in line with your body, even as you lean forward. 

You don’t want to jut your chin forward and let your head literally run ahead of you. Pexels

Trunk stability

The trunk stability that protects the spine also enables efficiency when running, as energy is not dissipated into incidental movements that detract from forward motion. It enables all propulsion to be well channeled, rather than just pulling the spine around. As running expert Marc Cucazella reminds us, ‌“You‌ ‌can’t‌ ‌fire‌ ‌a‌ ‌cannon‌ ‌from‌ ‌a‌ ‌canoe.”‌ In the upper body this propulsion comes from the arms.

Arm movements in running

Whereas in glidewalking the arms largely rest, in running the arms actively contribute to propulsion and alternate with the leg action. In sprinting the arms are especially important, moving straight forward and back like pistons on either side of the body. The arms‌ ‌are bent at‌ ‌45 degrees ‌or‌ ‌slightly‌ ‌more,‌ with the hands‌ ‌moved ‌in‌ ‌a‌ ‌circular‌, ‌‌rearward‌ ‌pull motion,‌ ‌‌as‌ ‌if‌ ‌you‌ ‌were‌ ‌chopping‌ ‌wood.‌ The arms‌ ‌then‌ ‌recoil‌ ‌forward,‌ ‌very slightly rotating‌ the shoulders‌.‌ What you don’t want is the arms to be crossing the midline of your body and pulling you off balance. Arm action can be much more relaxed at an easy jogging pace or in distance running. 

The vigorous piston action of the arms in sprinting requires a well-configured shoulder joint. Unsplash

Whatever your running speed, it is extremely important that the shoulders be well positioned, so that the joint—where the bone of the upper arm, shoulder blade, and collarbone meet—can connect well, and the soft tissues, nerves, and circulation can function optimally. You want your shoulders to be happily at home in their natural, posterior position. You can learn how to roll your shoulders back here.

Open, posterior shoulders will also help you to access breathing in your upper chest. If you tend to hunch forward, draw your elbows more together behind you to assist the external rotation of your shoulders.

Relaxed and bouncy shoulders

In gentler jogging and long distance running, the shoulder area can be more relaxed. Healthy alignment within the shoulder joint is still important for the hundreds of to-and-fro arm reps, and to cushion the impacts traveling through the joint with every stride. A healthy postural relationship between the upper back, the shoulder girdle, and the neck will help the shoulders to be responsive rather than held tight, and to bounce a little as you run. 

The trapezius muscle is at the center of healthy upper back, neck, and shoulder posture. It helps the shoulder to lift, lower, and gently bounce through impactful movement. Wikimedia

Stick or twist?

The synchronized alternation of arm and leg movement is vital for momentum and balance during running. This will be integrated by the torso twisting somewhat. There is a counter movement of pelvic rotation backward as the chest moves forward on the opposite side. The key is neither to over stiffen, nor over twist the torso. A stiff body keeps the hips from extending fully, can shorten your stride, and puts more pressure on the knees and leg joints. Over twisting can cause a “sloppy” run and impinge on the spinal joints. This is where staying tall with a strong inner corset is invaluable, as the inner corset allows healthy rotation both through and beyond it.  

In particular, avoid an upper/lower torso separation with twisting happening almost entirely at the T12/L1 junction, where the ribs meet the lumbar area. Twisting here is sometimes misguidedly encouraged to help power the arms, especially in fitness walking classes. However, there is no ball and socket joint at T12/L1 that makes swiveling here a good idea for the spine! 

This runner’s torso shows considerable rotation, but it is distributed along the spine—it does not twist at just one point. South African sprinter Wayde van Niekerk sets a world record at the 2016 Olympics. Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters

Olympic gold medalist Tirunesh Dibaba also shows even rotation of her torso from hip to opposite shoulder. I’ve also noticed that most East African runners have a significantly higher arm carriage, and are among the best runners in the world. Bretta Riches – Run Forefoot

If you would like guidance on any aspect of your posture and/or running, including your head, neck or shoulder position, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher.

Here are previous running posts you might like:

Running P1: Introduction, Esther Gokhale

Running P2: Meet Your Feet, Michelle Ball 

Running P3: How to choose running shoes, Michelle Ball 

Running P4: Taking care of your knees, Michelle Ball

Running P5: Anteverted Pelvis

If you would like to find out more about how the Gokhale Method can help support you, sign up to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops.

Welcome to the fifth blog post in our series on running. My name is Michelle Ball, and I am a Gokhale Method® teacher living in Tasmania. I am also a lifelong runner and am passionate about sharing the benefits of healthy posture with the running community, be that beginners, seasoned runners, or anyone in between. Even if you don’t run, but do want an active and pain-free body well into old age, this blog post is for you!

What is an anteverted pelvis? 

Pelvis refers to the bony pelvis, and means basin, or bowl, in Latin. Anteverted means tipped, turned, or inclined forward, from the Latin ante to go before or in front, and vertere to turn. So we are referring to a pelvis that tips forward. 

The angled belt line of the Ubong tribesman on the left shows that his pelvis is anteverted—mildly tipped forward. Contrary to popular belief, an anteverted pelvis does not cause excessive lumbar lordosis (sway back) when there is a healthy angle at the L5-S1 junction. His back remains surprisingly straight by conventional standards. 

(a.) An anteverted pelvis facilitates heath posture. The commonly advocated “neutral pelvis.” (b.) is actually mildly tucked and does not allow the correct lumbo-sacral angle and stacking of the spine. (c.) A markedly tucked (retroverted) pelvis leads to a tense, compressed lumbar area, or to slumping., 

How an anteverted pelvis benefits the spine:

As you see in the image above, an anteverted pelvis (see example (a.)), is the foundation for a healthy, straighter, more vertical spine, which does not sway or round. It provides the correct orientation for the sacrum to support the L5-S1 disc, which is wedge-shaped, and then for the L5 vertebra and those above to stack well. A tucked pelvis, over time, will likely cause the L5-S1 disc to suffer wear and tear, bulging, or worse, and put pressure on the sciatic nerve roots.

(a.) An anteverted pelvis preserves the wedge-shaped L5-S1 disc. (b.) A tucked pelvis cannot accommodate this and the lower discs will suffer undue pressure and bulging toward the nerve roots.

Like the Ubong tribesmen and people throughout the nonindustrialized world, these elite runners show both an anteverted pelvis and an upright torso. Unsplash

Running leaning forward

Some running coaches teach a forward lean of the torso, which I agree reproduces some of the benefits of a healthy L5-S1 angle for runners who are currently stiff at that joint and therefore slightly tucked if they remain upright. Leaning forward helps compensate for any lack of L5-S1 angle, and harnesses power from the energy of impact when the back leg pushes off. 

Leaning forward is strongly advocated in the ChiRunning technique, which was developed by Danny Dreyer. You can watch Esther in conversation with Danny here, where he explains his approach.

Danny Dreyer advocates a forward lean when running, with shoulders, hips and ankles aligned. This is a useful technique to help orient the pelvis, especially if the L5-S1 angle does not allow for the torso to be upright. It also provides additional momentum.

World-renowned Kenyan runners often run with a good L5-S1 angle that anteverts the pelvis, combined with only a slight forward lean. Flikr

Powerful glutes 

An anteverted pelvis also confers mechanical advantage to the buttock muscles. With the behind behind, they can contract powerfully to pull the legs back and aid propulsion. Under-developed glutes are a common casualty when the pelvis is tucked. 

You can see here that I am running with my pelvis anteverted, and a slight lean forward, both of which put my glutes behind to help power my stride.

It is important that, in an effort to get your behind behind, the anteverted pelvis is not mimicked by simply sticking your bottom back with tension (sway) in the lower back. The pelvis needs to settle into anteversion naturally, with healthy articulation at the L5-S1 joint, relaxed back muscles and hip joints, and healthy alignment throughout the body. Gokhale Method teachers have the techniques and expertise to help you get there without inadvertently creating more postural problems. 

This runner has her behind behind her—but, as the creases in her top confirm, she is tensing her back into a sway and lifting her front ribcage to get there. Pexels

This footballer has his behind behind with an anteverted pelvis that articulates at L5-S1. His torso remains largely straight, which enables him to twist with good length in his spine, rather than compounding compressed discs and nerves. Pixabay

I find it interesting that a forward-leaning stance which aligns the torso with the extended back leg and supports pelvic anteversion is also a key ingredient in learning to glidewalk. Glidewalking is taught in detail in our Gokhale Method® in-person Foundations and Pop-up courses, and our online Elements course. Glidewalking produces a natural, smooth and powerful gait, which in particular strengthens the glutes and the feet. Students who have learned glidewalking find their running improved by the Downtime Training™of simply walking—but walking well. 

Good hip health

The anteverted pelvis is part of nature’s blueprint for healthy human posture and sound biomechanics. It is no surprise therefore that it confers many benefits throughout the body. An anteverted pelvis gives the best fit and function for the hip joints, avoiding the misalignments that occur with tucking. Poorly aligned hips can cause bursitis, labral tears, and osteoarthritis within the joints, and soft tissue issues such as muscle strains, tendonitis, and ITB (iliotibial band) problems further down. 

Jogging or walking with a tucked pelvis encourages tight hip joints, internal rotation of the feet, legs, and hips, rounding of the torso, and forward head carriage. Pexels

Pain in the knees, lower legs, and feet 

When runners get pain in their knees, lower legs, or feet, one of the last places they are likely to look for a remedy is their pelvic position. They are far more likely to blame their shoes! While the right shoes are important, (see Running P3: How to choose running shoes), it is often a revelation for runners to realize how the angle of the pelvis affects their gait. 

One serious problem with tucking the pelvis that hits runners particularly hard is excessive heel strike. While this may also occur in walking with a tucked pelvis, running or even slow jogging will mean that an unduly forward thrusting front leg will suffer more impact. This may result in not only wear and tear, but immediate and painful damage, as the femoral head (top of the thigh bone) is jammed back into the hip socket, and the knee joint of a more forward and likely more straightened leg is jarred.  Sticking the heel forward is like ramming the brakes on while still stepping on the gas! The answer to a thudding heel strike is not to buy excessively padded shoes, but to antevert the pelvis.

A tucked pelvis points the thighs forward, resulting in an excessive heel strike and jarring through the front leg knee and hip. sportssurgeryclinic.com

This runner has her behind behind, but the orientation of her pelvis comes from a
swayed lumbar area, not from L5-S1. The front of her rib cage and chin are pulled up.
She is about to heel strike—bad news for her straightened front leg and hip joint. Unsplash

Doing a much better job, an anteverted pelvis:

• Puts the muscles and soft tissues, especially the glutes, in a position of mechanical advantage, without threatening the lumbar spine
• Enables better weight distribution and therefore bone health 
• Places the thigh in a healthier position to absorb forces in the hip socket 
• Allows landing with a bent front knee, with better shock absorption 
• Facilitates a light heel/midfoot landing, avoids excessive heel strike, is more energy-efficient

This runner has good form. Her behind is behind because of a pronounced angle at L5-S1 (anteverted pelvis). Her back remains largely straight, her shoulders back, her neck tall. She will land without unduly jarring her joints. Unsplash

Support for the pelvic organs 

An important benefit of an anteverted pelvis is that the bones of the pubis are able to play their part in supporting the pelvic organs. Organ prolapse and incontinence can affect everyone, especially as we age, and is also a common problem in our culture for women during or after pregnancy. When the pelvis is tucked the organ support is overly reliant on the soft tissues of the pelvic floor, such as the Kegel muscle.

(a.) With an anteverted pelvis, the pubic bone is positioned to support the pelvic organs. (b.) With a tucked pelvis, the Kegel muscle is obliged to assume this role.

There is nothing worse than getting a run in and having to use the bathroom, especially if there is not one available! Heather A. Dunfee is a physical therapist in the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program, and a certified Pregnancy and Postpartum Corrective Exercise Specialist. She does not refer specifically to the anteverted pelvis, but she is clear that tucking the pelvis is bad news:

For runners, good alignment can help your core to better absorb impact, preventing leaks. For example, a slight forward lean helps to put your deep core "canister" in the best alignment to do its job. Think about stacking your rib cage over your pelvis, something that comes naturally when running uphill. . . Hills are great because they force the body into a position of rib cage over pelvis and untuck the bum.

If you would like guidance on any aspect of your posture and/or running, including pelvic position, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher.

Here are previous running posts you might like:

Running P1: Introduction, Esther Gokhale

Running P2: Meet Your Feet, Michelle Ball 

Running P3: How to choose running shoes, Michelle Ball 

Running P4: Taking care of your knees, Michelle Ball

If you would like to find out more about how the Gokhale Method can help support you, sign up to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops.

When it comes to foot position, feet parallel is often regarded as the ideal in our present-day culture. Standing with the feet apart, pointing straight ahead, is also seen as the starting point of a normal and healthy gait. Walking then proceeds along two parallel lines, like being on railway tracks. 

In our culture today, standing with feet pointing straight ahead is regarded as normal, and the best biomechanical option. Unsplash

From a Gokhale Method® perspective, a healthy baseline position for the feet is angled outward 5–15°, or “externally rotated.” Why is there such divergence of opinion—and angle? 

Most people learn and then teach feet straight ahead

Feet straight ahead is the model learned and perpetuated by most professionals who are trained in anatomy, whether they are fitness coaches, yoga teachers, Pilates instructors, physical therapists, podiatrists, family physicians, or surgeons. Training regimens, gait analysis, shoe design, and equipment such as elliptical trainers and step machines are also based on this belief. 

There’s compelling evidence for feet out at an angle 

The Gokhale Method approach to solving back pain and the many other musculoskeletal problems that beset our society is not based on such current assumptions, but on direct observation of biomechanically healthier populations. The Gokhale Method understanding of healthy posture draws on field research among traditional and tribal populations in many parts of the world, where despite differences in culture, age, gender, and occupation, posture remains remarkably consistent—and includes a 5°–15° foot turnout. This same turnout can also be seen in our infants, historical artifacts, and our ancestral images prior to the early twentieth century. 

You can see that the feet of this woman in Odisha, India, angle outward.

Let’s look at some more examples of evidence for feet out. 

Ancestral and antique photographs

This Victorian photograph decorates a table mat at a country hotel in the UK. The group on the right all clearly show significant external rotation in their legs and feet.

These Scottish soldiers from the mid-twentieth century show degrees of foot turnout that would be uncommon today. Pinterest

Contemporary traditional and tribal culture

These women in tribal Odisha, India, habitually stand and bend with externally rotated legs, which orients the feet outward.

This snippet of video from a market in tribal Odisha, India, shows people walking with feet turned out.

The ancient world

As ancient Greek statuary became ever more naturalistic, it captured the outward angle of the feet, even lifting one foot to suggest walking or a relaxed, “contrapposto” standing position. Marble Statue of Serapis, from Amorgos, 2nd Century BCE, National Archaeological Museum of Greece, Athens. Wikimedia

Children

Children naturally externally rotate their legs from the hip joint, angling the feet out.

Being held in poor positions or sitting in furniture which tucks the pelvis will counter healthy external hip rotation and cause an infant's legs and feet to roll inward.

Extreme outward feet angles

Some dance forms, including those based on traditional posture, have evolved an exaggerated degree of external rotation for artistic effect. Several of the base positions of ballet take natural external rotation to an extreme. Such angles also feature in Indian classical dance. These angles work in people who have been raised with them from early childhood but can be impossible or problematic for modern hips which formed while using Western furniture, including seated toilets. Squatting and sitting cross-legged in childhood encourages healthy hip socket development.

The “first position” in ballet requires considerable external rotation in the hips to turn the feet out at 90 degrees. Wikimedia

There are numerous foot gestures in Bharata Natyam, a traditional Indian dance form, which require 90 degrees of outward angle in both feet. Pinterest

Footprints that follow a central line—not parallel tracks

Soft sand is great for capturing footprints, and those of tribal people will clearly show not only the external angle of the feet, but also how the heels touch either side of a central line. John Carter, one of our teachers in the UK, shares a telling tale: 

It was 2010 and I was staying in a beach hotel near a fishing village in southern India. Checking my well-thumbed copy of Esther Gokhale’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, it was instantly obvious who had left their footprints in the sand. Local fisherman left kidney bean shaped footprints, with strong indents from the heel and big toe, and landed with the inside of each heel on either side of a central line. Tourist footprints were wider in the center, indicating lower foot arches, and were usually placed along two parallel lines.

I was traveling with my yoga teacher friends and colleagues. We all admired the grace and poise of the locals, how beautifully they stood, walked, bent from the hips, etc. However, this was strikingly different from the posture that my yoga companions had been taught, in line with conventional yoga ideas. I was eager to discuss the differences, but my colleagues, confused by their received wisdom, continued to repeat what they had learned in training, which included sticking with parallel feet. 

Two sets of footprints from Brazil, showing both feet out and walking on a central line. Unsplash

In modern Western culture it is much more common that footprints are straight ahead and run along parallel tracks. Unsplash

A workman stepped in paint… the prints that his boots left on the sidewalk show a healthy angle of turnout, and that he walked on a central line—this combination is relatively rare in industrialized cultures (UK).

Why do feet point straight ahead?

From our anthropological perspective, having feet straight ahead is actually an inward turn from a healthy norm of “external rotation.” This has come about for several reasons:

• Weakened arches cause the foot to collapse inward (pronation), also rotating the leg inward.
• Concave “bucket” seating, soft sofas, “sling” style footrests, and other poor furniture all lead to poor posture and a lack of healthy external hip rotation.
• “Ergonomic” design and anatomical teaching are both based on the false paradigm that feet should be straight ahead.
• Fashion role models, footwear, clothing, and mistaken ideas about what is healthy perpetuate parallel or even internally rotated feet.

What are the benefits of feet out?

• Encourages kidney-bean shaped feet with strong arches and healthy function.
• Brings optimal alignment to the ankle, knee, and hip joints.
• Facilitates natural pelvic anteversion and a well-supported spine.
• Facilitates healthy deep bending (hip-hinging) as the pelvis can nestle between the thigh bones.

Feet pointing outward adds stability when maneuvering heavy loads, and, with a wider stance, aligns the legs and hips well for hip-hinging. This man is able to bend deeply to the ground.

If your feet are currently straight ahead, or somewhat internally rotated, and you want to move toward external rotation, we recommend you introduce small degrees of change very gradually to allow the tissues and bones of your feet, legs, and hips time to adjust. We strongly recommend you do this in combination with other postural principles taught in 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, and our Gokhale Method® in-person Foundations and Pop-up courses, and our online Elements course. 

If you would like guidance on any aspect of your posture, including how best to use your feet, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher.
I’ll also be giving a free online workshop on Thursday September 15, 4:00pm PT, Fix your feet with the Gokhale Method. You can sign up here. I look forward to seeing you there.