Take a walk with me…

Happy Summer Everyone!!

In the last month I took two longer walks… One down the length of the west side of Manhattan which ended up being 14 miles; and the other was a two day hiking trip along the Ramapo Dunderberg (RD) trail in Harriman State park for a total of 25 miles! 

… both walks were done entirely barefoot… 

Today we’ll talk about the city walk. Stay tuned next week for the forrest hike!

Walk the West Side: 



Starting from Inwood Hill Park at the Northern end of Manhattan and walking all the way down to Battery Park where you look over the bay to see the Statue of Liberty, I organized this event with Hanuman Health Club as a way to get our fitness community together for an outside adventure. 

We had 6 people participating and kept our pace leisurely, stopping around mid-way for some lunch at the hip “Pier i” cafe along the Hudson river. A couple of us talked about having run or planning to run that whole distance and thought this walk would be pretty easy… 

Lesson 1: Walking is different than running.

Walking is not just a slower version of running, but a whole different activity! The mechanics are different, and the slower pace changes it from an activity you can push through with athletic force to an endurance activity that requires different strategies. Whereas running may have taken us 2 or 3 hours at a light pace, walking this distance took us 6 hours! So that equates to more hours with potential for sore feet and sore backs, etc.  

As we walked, I offered some tips and suggestions for changing our walking gait to better utilize our hips, and to discover the difference between a posterior driven walking gait (using your hips, glutes, hamstrings) to move forward versus a gait where you are essentially in a controlled falling forward motion. But no matter how we were walking, many of us had to change things up as our feet, legs, and backs got tired. Some even brought a change of shoes with them, and that seemed to give them some extra endurance. 

Lesson 2: Variety of movement is the key to Endurance:

When we use one set of muscles in one way for a long period of time it’s logical those muscles will get fatigued. Over longer periods of time (weeks? years?) this may lead to imbalances or repetitive use injuries (think shin splints, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc). So the obvious fix to the problem of fatigue and the prevention of longer term injuries is to use different muscle groups more often. Fortunately, our bodies have the potential to move in a myriad different ways! Unfortunately, our modern culture tends to create environments that require minimal movement of our bodies (think chairs, cars, escalators, food delivery, etc) and the movement required in our daily life tends to be very repetitive (think how all our walking surfaces tend to be flat and level, and how our feet inside our shoes are feeling one surface shape, and how those shoes limit the motion of our ankles, arches, and toes). Thus, it actually takes extra mindfulness and awareness in modern life to get the full range and types of motion that our bodies require. 

So, on our Manhattan walk, I found it useful to periodically focus on changing my gait in small ways: shorter or longer strides, wider or narrower stance, feet turned out, in or neutral, consciously using hips or using more knees and quads, looking for different surfaces to walk on from the sidewalk to gravel to grass… the possibilities are endless. 

Walking this way not only gave me more endurance, but it added a sense of body mindfulness that lended a meditative quality to the event.

Lesson 3: Alignment isn’t about holding your body in one “correct” position.

It’s learning the relationship between the parts of our bodies and understanding a neutral anatomical position that allows for more movement in all directions. Katy Bowman has used the following example to illustrate this point: 

“Tennis is made up of the following shots: the serve, forehand, backhand, volley, slice, smash, and lob. For every one of these shots, the objective is to get the ball over the net. But in order to do this, the tennis player must stand in a way that makes each of these shots an equally viable option. What would happen if a smash was the only shot that could get the ball over the net, but the tennis player was standing in the unique stance for the backhand? The player, pre-organized in one position (racquet across the body), would not have enough time to reorganize into a different one (racquet overhead) and would fail the task. In order to stay ready for whatever type of shot is necessary, the tennis player must stay in a ready position—a position that allows the tennis player to hit all possible shots equally well. Resetting to neutral between shots ensures a player can respond most appropriately over the period of the entire game, and win.” - Move Your DNA

So think of your feet and at what angle they point while you walk and stand. It’s not necessary to have your feet aligned perfectly straight forward all the time, but if they are already always turned out, they are not in a position to respond well when they need to adjust to different walking surfaces, and the outward position is having an affect on all the tissues and joints up the body that may be limiting those parts from adapting appropriately to your present circumstances as well. 

Lesson 4: Movement is great for community and community helps inspire movement. 

This walk was a great lesson for me that getting together with friends doesn’t need to mean getting together to sit. It was fun to get to know each other with an inspired movement goal. And we all encouraged each other to get more movement into our lives!

A Big Thank you to all who took that walk together! 

This is the American Merchant Mariners Memorial- with the Statue of Liberty in the distance. Can you spot the man being saved from the water?

We’re planning to do this event again in September! Stay tuned with events from both Hanuman Health Club and also in the Natural Movement NYC Meetup group!