walking

Signs of good sleep include taking less time to fall asleep and not waking up often or for long periods. And although the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society (SRS) recommend adults sleep at least seven hours a night,¹ over one-quarter of us fall short of this recommendation.² There are many factors contributing to this lack of sleep, and back pain is certainly one of them. 

When I had herniated my disc, it was the most sleep-deprived time of my life. I recall regularly walking around the block during the night, just to ease my back spasms enough to catch a few more hours of sleep. That was long before I knew the measures the Gokhale Method® now teaches to reduce such pain, accelerate healing, and prevent recurrence. For anyone in that situation, techniques like stretchlying and inner corset are no-brainers! 

But the most common—and most under-recognized—reason for our tossing and turning and sleep deprivation is less dramatic than a herniation, or even pulling a muscle. The numerous microaggressions that our bodies suffer during the day due to poor posture, predispose you to a nighttime beset by jangled nerves, tense muscles, and areas of inflammation. This is disruptive to both mind and body, especially in the hours when you want to rest and rejuvenate.

Poor use of our body during the day can unwittingly store up nighttime aches and agitation. Image by Andrea Placquadlo, 2017

Will the right mattress help me sleep?

In much of the world people sleep on the floor, often on just a throw or thin bedroll. In hot countries the floor is often the coolest place to be, and if your culture generally enjoys healthy posture and a low prevalence of back pain, lying on the floor can be perfectly comfortable. Most people in industrialized and postindustrial societies, however, have not preserved natural length, shape, and health in their spines, and therefore require more support and cushioning from their bed. 

A lengthened, supple spine can tolerate even an unforgiving surface, such as this log.

The most important thing to avoid is a sagging mattress or bed springs that let your spine fall into a compressive curve. As a general rule, the greater the number of springs/coils a mattress has, or the better quality the memory foam (some mattresses have both springs and a foam topper), the better the support you get for your weight and contours. However, I have known many people pay handsomely for mattresses that promise a lot but deliver little, so I recommend taking advantage of “try before you buy” deals.

I have also heard from many of our students over the years that their existing mattresses have, to their joy, become comfortable. In other words, as their posture has improved, more naturally aligned bones, relaxed muscles, and appropriately spaced discs and nerves, are happy at last. Their body is now comfortable, and their brain is no longer waking them to tell them something is hurting—insomnia resolved. One student reported that having learned the Gokhale Method she even said goodbye to a lifelong recurring nightmare!

There are many delicate and vital structures within the spine, as shown here in the neck. They require healthy alignment and length, rather than compression, to be happy (front view). Wikipedia

What is the best sleeping position?

In addition to healthy posture and moving as you are meant to during your daily activities, there is a lot you can do at night to arrange yourself well, encouraging muscle relaxation and improved circulation for healing. Comfortable sleep is sometimes the first place that you can break a pain cycle and start to mend. 

The Gokhale Method offers two main techniques for transforming your sleep: stretchlying on the back, and stretchlying on the side. These are taught in detail in our in-person Foundations course, and online Elements course. You can also learn all the steps involved from my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, or DVD, Back Pain: The Primal Posture Solution. You can get started with our free Gokhale® Moment video (below) for stretchlying on the back.  

No special equipment is required for stretchlying—just learn the principles and moves involved, and how to arrange your pillows accordingly.

One breakthrough for many people is to use a pillow under the knees when lying on their back. This accommodates a tight, shortened psoas muscle, rather than let it pull on the lumbar spine. Though this pulling sometimes goes unrecognized at night, it can result in a back so stiff the following morning, it can be hard to move or dress yourself. 

Placing a pillow under your knees when lying down accommodates tightness in the psoas and avoids pulling on the vertebrae and surrounding tissues to which it is attached.

Snoring and sleep apnea

Snoring elicits reactions ranging from hilarity to fury. It can be transitory, due to a cold, for example, but persistent snoring can be embarrassing for the snorer and disruptive for others. Snoring may also be a precursor to other breathing and health problems; if you snore, you might benefit from working with a health professional. 

From a postural viewpoint, some overly tight muscles, including the psoas and the erector spinae, will contribute to arching your lower back or pulling your head back. The resulting additional weight from your throat and tongue on your airways could give rise to mouth breathing, thus aggravating both snoring and sleep apnea. 

The gentle sloping arrangement of the pillows in stretchlying, combined with lengthening of the neck, helps to keep the airway clear and well aligned downward, reducing symptoms. This is helpful both when the condition is mild, and also when a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine is used. Our techniques can also be adapted with extra pillow elevation, and the side-lying position is of particular help with breathing difficulties.

Antique tomb sculpture shows how people positioned their pillows in earlier times—without sway in the back or neck. (Öhringen church, Germany.)

Best next action steps 

If you would like help with your sleeping positions, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. Sweet dreams!

With the right help, we can all relax to sleep—like a baby!

References:

¹ Watson, Nathaniel F., M. Safwan Badr, Gregory Belenky, Donald L. Bliwise, Orfeu M. Buxton, Daniel Buysse, David F. Dinges, et al. 2015. “Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: A Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society.” Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 11 (6). https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.4758.

² “QuickStats: Percentage* of Adults Aged ≥18 Years Who Sleep <7 Hours on Average in a 24-Hour Period,† by Sex and Age Group — National Health Interview Survey,§ United States, 2020.” 2022. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 71 (10): 393. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7110a6.‌

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

In surveys of what people find physically attractive in a partner, a shapely butt is often highly rated. Perhaps it’s no surprise, but if you want, there are even apps to help! So, are good-looking glutes all about sex appeal and filling out our clothing in a flattering fashion? While these concerns may be valid, it is also true that well-toned glutes have many other, profound, but less widely recognized attributes. 

This blog post takes a look at the bigger picture of glute function. You may be surprised to find out just how much your glutes can contribute to healthy posture and a pain-free body.  

Glorious glutes—not just a “nice to have”

Your glutes potentially form the largest muscle group and have the largest impact. Most of us realize at some point in our lives, perhaps due to overdone squats or steep hill climbing, that the glutes are major players in sports and exercise. But if we don’t need them for competitive sports or challenging hiking, is it still worth investing in them for better returns? Let’s take a look at the dividends.

Reduce stress on your lower back

Glutes have a crucial role in offloading stress from the lower back and sacroiliac joints. When the glutes are weak, the lower back muscles work harder to try and stabilize the pelvis and trunk, leading to overuse and pain. When the glutes are strong, along with the inner corset, they steady the pelvis and lower back. This reduces the risk of wear and tear to discs and bones, nerve pain, and muscle spasm in the area.

Vigorous and/or repetitive movement, without the gluteal strength and pelvic stability shown here, leaves the back and spine more vulnerable to damage. (Photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, 1872–​​1885)

Avoid sciatica and piriformis syndrome 

True sciatica occurs when there is pressure on the sciatic nerve, usually from a herniated disc or degenerative changes in the spinal joints. The symptoms may be numbness, tingling, burning and/or electrical shock-like pain. It usually extends from the buttock down the leg, and sometimes the foot, on one side. The Gokhale Method helps by restoring the anteverted position of the pelvis, and decompressing the lumbar spine where the sciatic nerve roots exit. We call the resulting natural alignment a J-spine.

Piriformis Syndrome is a condition characterized by pain, tingling, or numbness in the buttocks and often down the leg. It occurs when the piriformis muscle compresses or irritates the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve passes under (or, in some individuals, through) the piriformis muscle, and is particularly prone to overwork and disturb the sciatic nerve if its neighbor, gluteus medius, is not doing its duty. The Gokhale Method encourages healthy pelvic positioning and gluteal function to allow the sciatic nerve free passage through the area. 

The profile view (right) shows swayed, leaning back posture, which causes problematic tightening in the posterior chain muscles and compresses the lower spine, including its discs and nerves. 

Make your movement strong, flexible, and stable

Your glutes are the powerhouse muscles that propel you in climbing, squatting, running, jumping, and more. They also work to control those movements, and are key to maintaining your balance. But glutes are not just for vigorous exercise…

In walking, it is your glutes that enable you to correctly achieve forward motion, rather than relying overly on your psoas and quads, shuffling, or falling forward. Glute activation brings a natural smoothness and grace to walking that we call glidewalking. Glidewalking allows your front foot to meet the ground deliberately but lightly, which is gentle on your joints; it also stretches your psoas with every step. 

Long jumper Khaddi Sagnia of Sweden uses her glutes to power the run up and propel her amazing jumping…and also to glidewalk away.

Muscles support a healthy metabolism 

The muscular system plays an integral role in our body’s metabolism. Well-used muscles will be larger, helping to burn calories rather than store them. This can help to keep insulin levels low in the blood and can contribute to a healthy metabolism and weight range. 

Well-toned glutes contribute to a healthy muscular and metabolic system. Man at His Bath by Gustave Caillebotte, 1884.

The foremost antiaging strategy—beautiful buttocks!

Never mind face yoga, cosmetic lifts, or surgical implants. Rather than costly interventions that do nothing to stop you losing your balance, strength, and mobility, embrace the art and science of how to rejuvenate your body by learning to move as you are meant to. Healthy posture can greatly improve your body’s architecture, self-confidence, health span—and your appearance as a bonus!

 
As infants (left) we instinctively align ourselves well, making good use of our muscles. In our society, adopting poor postural habits as we go through life results in lack of healthy muscle tone, like “glute amnesia”—flat, wasted muscles that have forgotten how to work (right).

Best next action steps

We invite you to join us for a themed Free Online Workshop: Wake Up Your Glutes, They Snooze, You Lose, on Friday, September 6 at 12:30 pm PST, in which you will learn how to make every step a rep! A replay will be available over the weekend if you cannot join live. So sign up, and you will also receive a special offer.

This workshop launches our 21-day Strong Glutes, Strong Body Gokhale Fitness challenge, which will run from Sept 9–29, to help you continue to build strength and improve your posture.

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.

Today, those of us in the U.S. celebrate our nationhood. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence announced colonial freedom from Great Britain; our history has included the winning of many more freedoms since. In various and sometimes contradictory ways, our society continues to defend much cherished freedoms, and also to aspire to new levels of freedom.

Abraham Lincoln is remembered for preserving the union of the U.S.. This 1864 photograph of Lincoln with his son, Tad, shows the upright posture characteristic of our ancestors. You can find it alongside many such examples in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.

One freedom that everyone wishes for is to live and move free from aches and pains. I feel privileged that all day, every day, I get to support people in this basic endeavor. Our team of teachers is delighted to pass on to others how best to be in our bodies. We all want our bodies to be a source of true support, good health, and enjoyment for us, rather than a source of misery and a hindrance.

For too many of us, freedom in our body and delight in our physicality was left behind in childhood. We want to regain that pleasure! Image from Pexels

Your body is your primary instrument for existing in the world; it either supports or undermines each of your endeavors. Our intellectual, emotional, and physical selves can be severely challenged by musculoskeletal pain. A body that works well for us is more useful, more productive, gives us more scope to interact positively with others, and brings us more joy.

Enjoyable physical activity should be with us through all stages of life. Image from Pexels

Yet sadly there continue to be many ways in which our natural joyful physicality is undermined by our thinking, and the dominant paradigms around it. We are almost always born into this world highly functional, yet we get molded by misguided conventions and ill-conceived furniture into structures that systematically wear us down. A second whammy comes from not recognizing the red flags, and instead, normalizing them and lowering our expectations. Examples include “It’s normal to have disc degeneration by middle age”, or “We haven’t yet fully evolved to be upright”. The interventions we are offered to relieve pain symptoms, such as anti-inflammatory shots, while having a role to play, do not tackle the underlying causes of musculoskeletal pain, or offer solutions. We need freedom from this complex and catastrophic construction.

Poorly designed chairs such as these are a root cause of unhealthy posture and “ordinary” mechanical back pain. Learning to position our pelvis and spines well, in chairs that encourage healthy sitting, is an important part of the solution.

Could we use this Independence Day to awaken to the fact that we are actually very well designed? To realize that what is actually normal for us is to move and live mostly pain-free, and that our pain signals are an understandably unwelcome yet helpful nudge to move us in the right direction. To whatever extent you may need help in interpreting discomfort and understanding your particular posture puzzle, we are here to support you.

While the Gokhale Method® is sometimes thought to be about static posture, our method is equally about how to move well. Healthy posture is one frame in a motion picture. Collectively, these frames give you better balance, coordination, and flow. Everyday movements like bending and walking are a pleasure and are liberating, instead of being painful and restrictive..

Alumna Anissa Morgan tells the story of freeing herself from her “decade of darkness”. Anissa continues to enjoy improvement and to recommend the Gokhale Method.

The techniques and principles that restore our bodies’ freedom are taught in logical sequence and detail in our in-person Foundations course, one-day Pop-up course, our online Elements course, plus our Gokhale Exercise program. These offerings enable you to “move like you are meant to.”

Join us for a special online free workshop, Move Like You are Meant To, on Sunday July 7, 11 a.m. PST, where you can ask questions about how the Gokhale Method can help you to find and enjoy greater body freedom.

Best next action steps 

If you would like to find greater freedom in your posture and movement, 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…

Next time you are in the dentist chair, spare a thought for your dentist’s posture and the postural demands of their job. Doing dental procedures shares many challenges with other surgical procedures, such as having to maintain a steady position for long periods, maintain a clear line of vision, and hold and manipulate tools with precision. Working in the oral cavity of a conscious patient is a pretty significant challenge. 

Dental professionals place many physical demands on their structure. They can be regarded as “occupational athletes.” Image from Pexels

Dental personnel and health

Unfortunately, these demands take a toll. Of adults in the U.S. general population, 13.8% experience significant neck pain; among dentists, that figure is a staggering 67%. Dentists and other oral health practitioners (OHPs), including dental nurses and hygienists, also report suffering from above average incidences of lower back pain, headaches, shoulder problems, and work-related tendonitis, bursitis, and carpal tunnel syndrome. Such problems can make life miserable, both in and out of the dental office. Some OHPs are forced to abandon a career they have spent up to eight years training for. Of dentists taking ill health retirement, 55% cited musculoskeletal disorders as the cause.

The Gokhale Method for Dentists and Oral Health Practitioners

Since 2008, well over 100 dental workers have sought out the Gokhale Method® to help them solve their posture puzzle and get out of pain. They are both welcome and in need of what our courses (in-person Foundations, one-day Pop-up, and online Elements) offer. Given their particular professional needs, we are now working with some of our dentist and hygienist alumni to develop a special Gokhale Method offering for oral health practitioners. 

This will be a tailored training delivered at dental offices, clinics, and teaching hospitals. The goal is  that oral health practitioners learn the posture tools they need to future-proof their careers.

An introductory workshop for oral health practitioners with Gokhale Method teacher Julie Johnson was recently received with great enthusiasm at a dental practice near Stuttgart, Germany. 

Dental practice team members, Bridget, Amy, and Julie, practice seated hip-hinging with teacher Julie Johnson. The Gokhale PostureTracker™ wearable gives biofeedback—and they’re having fun!

From a dentist’s perspective

One of Julie’s recent Gokhale Foundations students is Warren Blair, an American dentist living and working in Germany who, though counting himself fortunate to have had relatively few serious musculoskeletal aches and pains over his four decades of practice, understands the value of the Gokhale Method. 

Warren Blair, D.D.S., M.S.D., is a specialist in periodontology, implantology, microsurgery, and endodontics—and a student of posture!

Warren shared many things about the ergonomics of dentistry with us, both from the dentist’s and patient’s perspective:

The physical aspect is a problem—all dentists have problems. Some are in their mid-thirties and they're walking around crooked because they have a charley horse (muscle spasm). I periodically stretch the muscles around my back and shoulders, or pull away from my microscope eyepieces to reset. Doing the Gokhale Foundations I have learned that posture is key to the solution; having healthy posture early on in the profession will prevent future problems, but if problems with your musculoskeletal system do crop up then you can do something about it by changing your habits and adopting the principles of healthy posture.

Warren confirmed that dentists are taught not to round over their patients, and to work with their knees wide, but admitted that these positions are not always easy to maintain on the job. Learning and preserving healthy postural habits is especially difficult given that many dental workers, like most people in our culture, will, unfortunately, be approaching their training from a poor posture baseline. 

Healthy posture is an ecosystem

The basic instruction that trainees receive is not nearly as nuanced or integrated as the movement patterns taught in the Gokhale Method. In typical modern western fashion, we are all given stand-alone instructions, e.g., “don’t round when you bend.” The hip-hinging bend taught as part of the Gokhale Method is part of a whole movement pattern, involving nestling an anteverted pelvis, getting the femurs out of the way of the pelvis, anchoring the rib cage, engaging the inner corset, keeping the shoulders posterior, and maintaining a healthy neck position. Altogether, these elements give dentists the resilience needed for sustained bending, even with some variety of twist.

This practitioner is maintaining her J-spine, with her behind behind and her back tall and relaxed. This is a healthy baseline for sitting and forward bending. Image from Pexels

Posture instructions given in isolation don't translate very effectively into practice. However, as part of a holistic education that pays attention to the way we do everyday life activities, posture training becomes transformative. For example, walking well, both in and out of the office, is a natural reset for a tight psoas muscle. Learning to stacksit allows your breath to mobilize your back. Sleeping positions, done well, can enable you to heal damage and inflammation. 

Learning the Gokhale Method at work means you immediately put posture into practice in your profession, and sets up many opportunities for colleagues to support one another. If you are a dental or medical professional and would like to know more about how the Gokhale Method can help you and your team, please email: [email protected].

If you would like to support your dentist, send them this invitation to one of our free online workshops. 

Best next action steps 

If you would like to improve your posture, for work or leisure, 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…

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. . .

Before I settle in to recount my back pain story, let me fetch my Gokhale Pain-Free™Chair. This is the chair I now use for all my writing, and that’s important, as I am an author of mystery short stories, and spend many hours composing at my desk. Pain-free, I’m now glad to say.

Since retiring from over four decades as a trial lawyer, I write about The Sleuthing Silvers, Barb and Bernie. This image is from my website, sporting my detective shades. www.thesleuthingsilvers.com

I’ve had back problems for many years and coped with it by going to any number of orthopedists, chiropractors, physical therapists, and neurologists. In my experience, doctors (general physicians) can’t do much for ordinary mechanical back pain, other than advise on painkillers.

That management worked for some 25 years, and then I started having chronic pain that wouldn’t respond to my usual formula and go away. I was becoming somewhat desperate as it affected my whole life. I was grumpy enough by nature before the pain started, but became much more grumpy after! 

My rheumatologist, who I’d seen many times, said, “Well, you might want to read this book.” I had never read a self-help book for my health—I just generally don’t believe in them—but I was so desperate that I went ahead and bought Esther’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. 

I actually liked the subtitle, “Remember When It Didn’t Hurt.”  You do remember how when you were younger, even if you had back pain, it would be a little bit better each day. You could count on it being better tomorrow, and then soon you would be fine. That certainly wasn’t happening.

Esther’s Book was the only self-help book I ever bought—reluctantly.

I was cynical going into this work, and admit I had a very negative attitude. I had already made some of the arguments against working with my posture that were anticipated in the book—you’re too old for this, it’s too far gone…Yet I have come around to endorsing all the amazing testimonials I read in the book. Because I live in the same location as Esther, I actually know many of the doctors and patients quoted in the book who experienced transformational results with the Gokhale Method.

So I read the introduction. That’s what really did it for me—it’s so persuasive, and it’s so simple—it’s something you then want to do. So I started to antevert my pelvis. After months of pain, I woke up the next day and felt noticeably better. I thought, well, this must be a mistake. The following day I was substantially better, and the next day after that I was pain-free and have been ever since. 

I was just blown away by this, and so read the whole book that explains the Gokhale Method. Esther focuses on her subject like a laser beam. I got the impression she knows the spine as well as anyone on earth. I wanted to meet Esther Gokhale, and as we both live in Palo Alto, I was able to do that and take the six Gokhale Method Foundation's Course lessons. 

The in-person  Gokhale Method Foundations' Course originated in Palo Alto and is now taught by teachers in many parts of the globe. Our online Elements course makes the Gokhale Method accessible to students the world over. www.maps.google.com

When we met, even Esther was surprised by my body’s rapid positive response to the Gokhale Method. She explained to me that I had actually been lucky to have gotten positive results having immediately anteverted my pelvis. Attempting to antevert the pelvis to start with is not recommended as most people have some stiffness at the L5-S1 joint and are therefore likely to sway higher in their lumbar spine as they try to get their behinds behind them, creating even more compression in that area. Alternative techniques, designed to first bring healthy length into the lower spine, are advised as an initial phase. It seems I was lucky—one of a small percentage of people with sufficient protective stiffness in my lumbar area to avoid any sway and additional damage.

(a.)                                           (b.)

Most people will inadvertently sway their backs when trying to stand or sit upright with their behinds behind them (a.). This tightens lower back muscles and compresses the lumbar vertebrae and discs. To avoid this, the Gokhale Method first teaches techniques to elongate and stabilize the spine (b.). 

Anteverting my pelvis made a huge difference to me. I had been doing all the wrong things to my spine, such as sleeping in a fetal position, but soon I learned how to sleep, sit, stand, and walk without compressing my spine. In fact, I could now decompress my problematic area around L5-S1. I came to understand how much of our modern furniture puts us into compressive shapes that tuck the pelvis under, pinching the L5-S1 disc and causing it to bulge back toward the nerves. 

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

When I first showed up for the lessons, I explained that I thought the introductory chapters said it all, and that the rest of it was somewhat repetitive. But I was wrong. Every chapter will give you a little something that may look inconsequential, but the magic is in the detail! And even though I was doing very well with the book, the precision adjustments and personal coaching I got from having the lessons made a huge difference.

These things were so simple, made such sense, and worked. Even while I was so thrilled to have found this work, I also felt very angry that nobody else had been able to tell me these things. I have seen umpteen specialists over the years, and no one ever mentioned the Gokhale Method. The upcoming Randomized Control Trial that has apparently been funded entirely by satisfied students will hopefully put the Gokhale Method on their radar. I would like to see the Gokhale Method become a prominent part of every doctor’s prescription for back pain.

It makes sense that changing your posture can make a huge difference to structures as sensitive as your spinal nerves. Just a millimeter either way can determine whether you get agony, or relief from back pain. I also appreciate the wider health benefits of making these posture shifts. I’ve noticed that my organs work better, and my breathing is better. 

I now realize it’s not sitting that’s the problem. The issue is the furniture you choose and how you sit. The Gokhale Pain-Free Chair helps me to stretchsit, decompressing my lower spine.

My understanding of the relationship between breathing and the inner corset is much clearer from having had the lessons. Reading the book did not make it clear to me how muscle tone in the abdominal wall would act to resist any ballooning outward when breathing, and translate into healthy movement in my back with every breath. What Esther calls our “inner massage therapist.” Lessons enabled me to get that. 

I used to get tired and sore standing in line for just a few minutes. More recently, after about 10 minutes in that situation I thought, “Hey, something’s different, I should be tired by now,” and I realized that standing with my weight in my heels, my body aligned as I learned from the Gokhale Method, I felt fine! Cumulatively these details really work. 

Enjoying pain-free time with my granddaughter and her American Girl Tea Party puzzle.

When I first read the chapter on glidewalking, I thought I needed a PhD in mechanical engineering to understand it! But in the lessons, you get it bit by bit, and the teacher gives exactly what the student is ready for. When I was younger, before I had had so much back pain, I loved to walk—I would walk 40 minutes every day. Then I had a hip replacement in 2018, and since then I have had problems. Esther showed me how my left gluteus medius was weak, and had likely caused my piriformis (a deeper external hip rotator) to overwork and cause other problems. 

I’ve been keen to improve my walking. Here I am hiking in the Tahoe National Forest, California.

This is a quote I can relate to: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” Anglo-American philosopher of law and social reformer Jeremy Bentham, 1748–1832. Portrait by Henry William Pickersgill (d. 1875). Wikipedia

I’m in the early days of my journey and I’ve only finished the course recently. I’m tempted to declare myself “cured” and move on—I can bike ride, swim, and ski without any pain. I’m hopeful that I’ve mastered and internalized what I need to know and keep doing to get on with my life. But I will stay in communication—I can set up an appointment anytime if I need to—all I want is to remain pain-free. I’m so grateful to the Gokhale Method and all who are associated with it. It has changed my life. 

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. . .