The Monster Walk is another way to develop your abductor muscles of the leg and gain control of your hip list. Walk sideways! It's a silly walk for sure - but very effective.
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without lifitng your heel from the ground, drag a foot back to assess your ankle flexion and hip extension in your walk. practice walking with your back heel staying on the ground.
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Using the standing leg to pull back drives your body forward and with the hip list we've practiced, we can swing the next leg forward and softly lower the heel to the ground.
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The calf stretch is one of the most important activities you can do to improve your walking gait. It affects the dorsiflexion of the ankle, and can have an effect on the whole body!
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A natural way to get a calf stretch is to keep your back heel on the ground as you walk uphill.
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Finding a neutral pelvis will help us identify if we compensate for tight hip flexors. We may be outsourcing the movement that should be in the hip joint and overusing the extension or rotation of the spine instead. while walking, our pelvis should remain relatively stable (not tilting anteriorly/posteriorly, nor rotating) and our hip should have the mobility to extend the leg behind us. One way to encourage this motion is through the practice of a simple lunge. and another way is to keep your hands on your pelvis to feel how it gets pulled around or how stable it is while walking.
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Relax your ribcage down so that the front of the lower ribs line up vertically over the front outer edge of the pelvis (ASIS). The tendency to lift the chest up and thrust the lower ribs forward (also know as rotating your ribcage backwards) comes from multiple causes. One cause is a cultural teaching that "chest up" is good posture. Another cause is the chronic shortening of the Psoas muscle. However, learning to relax the ribs down will decrease the tension in your lower back, increase the stability of your core, and allow for a more stable torso for walking as your legs extend behind you.
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When you start a pendulum swinging, you pull it in one direction and let it go to swing the other way. Our legs can be thought of as swinging in this way from the hip. But the direction we pull the leg matters. We don't necessarily want to actively pull our legs forward, but rather the action is on pulling the leg backwards and then the forward swing is a passive "release". This way we're using more of the posterior chain of the legs. To get a feel for this, hip list to raise one leg from the ground and keeping a neutral pelvis, pull the lifted leg backwards. You may feel your butt muscles and hamstrings engage. Then relax that tension and see if you can allow your leg to passively swing forward. Make a game of it. Stand on one leg and pull the lifted leg back, release it forward and set it down to take the next step. Of course, when walking normally, the pulling back phase happens when your foot is on the ground, but this is a nice exercise to get the sensation of when to engage the muscles and when to relax.
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This move helps mobilize the joints of the feet breaking up the tension that may have built up from casting your feet in stiff shoes. Mobile feet will allow us to walk with our feet forward more easily and will also help us with our balance and ability to adjust our gait to the ground over which we walk.
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A good way to illustrate why a posterior driven gait is a more efficient way of walking is to think of the analogy of a boat on the water. If you have an oar and wish to paddle the boat you won't get very far by just reaching the paddle forward and dropping it in the water. Instead, you need to drive the oar into the water and pull backwards in order to propel the boat forward. The legs may be thought of in the same way: in order to propel your body forward, you need to drive the standing leg into the ground and then pull that leg backwards. It's helpful to think of the motion from coming from the back of the knee or thigh rather than the foot, because if the focus is on the foot, there may be a tendency to bend from the knee. To extend the metaphor, your oar in the boat will not be very effective if it's floppy like a spaghetti noodle and your leg is more effective if the knee if the whole leg is sturdy and the knee doesn't collapse. Try walking thinking of the legs like oars in a boat.
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When you've shifted your hips back and dropped your ribs down for a more neutral and vertical alignment you may find that your neck and head tend to thrust forward. This may already be an ingrained habit from how we sit and how we read/look at computer screens, etc. Often people tend to tilt and rotate their head back in order to look straight ahead, but that doesn't fix the problem of the weight of the head pulling the neck and upper spine forward. So a great habit and exercise to develop is "head ramping". This can be done at any time, but especially while walking. Like on a ramp, you think of your head as sliding back and up. It's helpful to think of the chin sliding back towards the throat as the top of the head yearns upward. Make sure while you do this that the ribs don't come up as you head ramp, and you'll lengthen the back of the neck and elongate the upper spine.
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We started the program with finding a gait width that is pelvis width apart. That helps us develop a straighter, vertical leg that will increase our hip strength, stability and balance. However, while walking the needs of the terrain really determine where you need to place your feet. So, it's a good idea to practice variable widths in stance and walking gait when you come upon things in your path such as a curb, a log, or even rail road tracks. This gives you an opportunity to walk with one foot in front of the other like on a balance beam. Then you can alternate between pelvis width gait and balance beam gait to master whatever terrain you come upon.
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Aside from conventional shoes, another way our bodies are "casted" to move less is by walking consistently on flat and level ground (sidewalks, cement, the floors in buildings). To add more movement into your body and to increase your balance and stability, find ways to walk off the beaten path and look for variety in terrain. Even stepping from a sidewalk onto the grass is a good addition to the input you are giving your body. Plus, looking for side paths adds more adventure to your walk!
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Arm swing is an important component of your walking gait in that it counterbalances the swing of the opposite leg. Tension in the upper body can suppress this reflexive motor program, but through awareness and practice, you can awaken this natural movement! Also, notice how the arms are swinging: do they reach forward or do they reach back? How you reach your arms probably corresponds with how you reach your leg. We want to build a posterior driven gait, so just as you want to drive your leg backwards instead of reaching forwards, you want to practice reaching your arms backwards instead of reaching forwards!
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Walking can bring you to destinations that can bring you joy such as a beautiful viewpoint. But conscious walking can be a source of contentment in itself. Awareness of how you body is moving can bring you into a meditative and peaceful stay. Knowing your body is moving toward better health can give you a sense of empowerment. Then, the journey and act of walking brings about contentment, and the destination is just the icing on the cake.
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Here's a variation of the "Monster walk" but to travel forward rather than sideways. When you do a regular hip list, your waist on the side of the lifted leg shortens as that side of your pelvis comes closer to your ribs. It this variation, try to hold one side of your body stiff like a plank so your waist doesn't shorten, and when you lift the leg, tilt the whole body to the side. It's another way to practice the hip list emphasizing control of the lateral hips, but it looks a lot like the classic Frankenstein's Monster's walk!
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How you walk will affect your breathing and also how you breathe will affect your walking. If you have a habit of lifting/thrusting the ribs, for example, it's likely you'll feel your breath moving your belly or your upper chest and shoulders. Unfortunately, that may result in less core support, more lower back discomfort, and excessive tension in the neck, shoulder and chest area. Once you drop your ribs, you'll give your core more opportunity to support your torso, and you'll open up the ability to breathe deeper into the ribs. To experience this, place your hands on your waist and slide them a bit higher to hold the sides of your lower ribs. As you breathe in, try to send the breath into the ribs making the ribcage widen and feel the ribcage push your hands wider apart. Then as you breathe out, feel your ribs funnel downward and inward bringing your hands closer together. The mobility of the ribs will help your breathing and decrease the tension in both your lower back and upper torso.
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Because many of our daily activities tend toward placing our shoulders in an "internally rotated" position (think how you hold your silverware, read a book, type on the computer, drive your car, etc.) our arm swing, while walking, have a tendency to reflect that. This presents itself as the arms swinging across the body from side to side. The weight of the arms moving across the body causes more twist and torque of the torso and is not as efficient at counterbalancing the swing of the legs. So, while you walk, bring your attention to your arms swinging straight forward and back (on the sagittal plane) and see if you feel a difference!
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A cool way to give yourself some feedback as to whether or not your lateral hips (the muscles that control the hip list) are engaging well in your walking gait is to listen for the sound of your footsteps. If your heel strike is audible with a big “thud”, that’s a pretty good indication you are falling forward onto the next step. If your heel strike is soft or barely audible, then you know you’re on the right track. The term Heelstrike can be a bit misleading because it seems to indicate striking the ground with a lot of force. I would prefer the term, Heel Touch or Heel Connect because your lateral hips can control the downward phase of the hip as the leg swings forward and the heel can come softly to the ground. This helps mitigate the force of impact your body has with the ground on each step, it can save your joints, and also keeps you from experiencing the micro-whiplashes caused by falling onto your foot with each step.
Take a listen to the audio and see if you can hear the difference. Then try it out while you walk!
You could also use this as a walking meditation to draw your awareness both into your body and your senses as you connect your feet to the earth.
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This is a silly walk that emphasizes the hip list, arm and leg swing, and engages the backside of the body. Hinge at the hip to pitch the upper body forward, while sending your weight back on the heels (as you would for a forward fold hamstring stretch). From that position, list onto one leg and swing the opposite arm and leg together. Swing the leg forward to take a step, but try to keep all the weight on the heel. Step onto the leg that swung forward and repeat the process. Put it together to walk forward: still pitched forward in the upper body, hinged at the hip, swinging opposite arm and legs, and keeping the weight on the heels. This is akin to a classic Groucho Marx walk. As you feel the engagement of the backside of your legs moving your forward, gradually hinge to stand upright, and continue your walk.
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