5 Mistakes People Make When Walking
When I was around 10 years old, I was on vacation with my family in upstate New York. We had recently transitioned from camping in tents near Lake Meacham to vacationing in cabins on Lake Chateauguay.
I should explain that I’m very much a city girl who at an early age was more savvy about navigating the subway system by myself than any sort of wilderness. When it came to outdoor spaces and wildlife, I frankly was (and still am in many ways) a scaredy-cat kid.
This one year I must have been testing my independence a bit. One afternoon I decided to go explore and play by myself in some woods just behind the cabin. The rest of my family was probably reading or napping at the time. I was really hoping to run into the groundskeeper’s dog — a golden retriever whose job it was to wander the property, and visit with the vacationers.
Not too long into my “adventure”, playing by myself in the woods, I started feeling uneasy at being alone. Before I had a chance to decide to head back, I heard a twig snap behind me. Of course I was sure this was a giant bear about to eat me, so naturally I jumped and shrieked, turning around just in time to see that I had scared off the dog that I was hoping to run into.
Still amped up from the scare, I just kept running back to the cabin (which couldn’t have been more than a few yards away!) In the process I twisted my ankle on the uneven forest floor and something smarted but the adrenalin rush kept me running .
I was so embarrassed by my silly overreaction that when I got back I didn’t say anything about it even though my foot must have been hurting. Of course my mother noticed and took a look. I remember seeing her exchange a look with my dad, but she didn’t make a fuss. Ice was applied and I spent the rest of the vacation hobbling around and using a walking stick. She knew I had likely broken something and she was right but the vacation had just started and I seemed mostly fine otherwise. Turns out it was a hairline fracture of my fifth metatarsal and fully healed by the time we got back many weeks later when we finally saw an x-ray.
Why the long-winded story?
I’m sharing this with you to explain why from an early age I was very aware of the consequences of a foot and ankle injury. My experience also gave me an appreciation of what happens when you ignore something like that. It wasn’t until I was well into clinical practice decades later that I realized some of my foot, ankle, hip and lower back issues can be traced back to that foot injury.
The body is very good at mending from minor injuries like my hairline fracture, without intervention, but all injuries no matter how small, do set us up with adaptive behaviors that if left unaddressed, can lead to unintended maladaptive consequences.
The subtle fallout from my foot injury at age 10 continues to give me an understanding of how walking mechanics can be subtly impacted and how subtle intentional shifts while walking can go a long way to re-patterning dysfunctional movement.
There’s another reason that I’ve always been very aware of how I use my feet. I’ll share that story next week.
If you also have twisted one or both of your ankles at some point in your life, you may have noticed that this ankle will more easily twist again. It’s not uncommon at all to have recurring ankle sprains. It’s a good example of how one injury can create neuromechanical vulnerabilities and change how we move.[1]
My childhood foot fracture was one of many reasons that I cannot get away with any of these 5 walking mistakes, but I’ve made all 5 of them myself as well, so don’t feel bad if you notice that you are doing one or all five of these things:
Only 5 Mistakes?
There are far more than 5 mistakes to make but let’s start small. Could you be making any of these mistakes?
1. Are you a Limb-Flinger?
2. Do you use your Bones as Meat Hangers?
3. Are you doing the Fashion Runway Walk?
4. Are you stretching at the wrong time?
5. Do you use your Feet like Hooves?
I have so much to say about each one of these that I’ve decided to dedicate a single post to each one. Until next week I’m just going to leave you with this list. Start imagining what these 5 things might feel and look like.
(Maybe I’ll manage to make a few video clips to accompany these next few posts!)
Until next week,
[1] Mugno AT, Constant D. Recurrent Ankle Sprain. [Updated 2021 Aug 11]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560619/
