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Efficient walking

For those of you who read the newsletter, Mike Edwards' tips to keep you walking at your best will be very familiar. Here you will find the additional photographs to make the positioning even easier.

Mike Edwards writes........

Before we start the walking tips, lets look at basic posture and how we use, or rather don’t use, some muscles that should be involved in everyday life:-

Exercise 1

Sit on a dining chair, and ‘slump’. Push your fingers into your tummy – squidgy? Now sit tall, chest up, and prod again. Most likely, the tummy muscles will be firmer, which shows you are doing tummy muscle exercises just by sitting taller. Good active tummy muscles help walking, running, lifting, reaching away from the body, in fact almost all activity, and they take about half the load off your back muscles.

Exercise 2

Standing, walk around the room normally, registering your height with your eyeline against objects on the walls. Stop. Imagine you have a paintbrush sticking up towards the ceiling from the top of the back of your head. The back of your neck will lengthen, as you try to paint the ceiling with the brush. Your shoulders will drop back, your chest will lift, and your tummy will flatten a bit as those muscles are activated.

As you walk around the room in this new way, imagine the floor is a long way down (don’t look) so you almost have to reach for the floor with each step. Now see how tall you feel. Look at those objects on the wall again. An observer will notice several things. You are walking more elegantly, you may look slimmer, taller, and you may look younger! What a result!

Try to practice these posture exercises each day, as often as possible, whether driving, relaxing over a coffee and a piece of cake, walking, or standing. You don’t need to give yourself a hard time if it seems hard to achieve the new posture for more than a few seconds at a time in the early days, but the more you practice, the easier it gets, and in the end you will have better posture and movement without thinking about it, as the subconscious has been retrained. Oh, and have a good slump occasionally. I do!

Our personal patterns of posture and movement have been developing for years, but unfortunately not always in the correct way. It’s rarely our fault. It could be genetics (go on, blame your parents, it will feel good!), injuries, accidents, overuse of certain muscle groups at work (go on, blame the boss, it will feel even better!), poor beds, chairs, and age (oh yes, and laziness does come into it – sorry) that affect posture. At least you are now aware of it, and can do something about it. It will take a while to correct, but can be sped up by attending a Pilates/posture/Alexander technique/Core control class, but the safest and most effective classes are small. More than 10 in a class and it becomes a demonstration rather than a lesson.

Making walking less tiring.

Those tummy muscles we talked about are going to come in handy whilst walking. Obviously, you aren’t going to be able consciously to hold them tight for hours and hours, no-one can. However, when going downhill make a special effort to lift your abdominal muscles . You don’t need to jam them tight, as that would be counter-productive. Try to lift your navel towards your chin – that should be enough of a contraction. If you can’t hold that for long, then engage the abs during each out breath. (You can practice this while going downstairs, or walking down escalators.)

The first, obvious benefits of using your abs will be on very steep descents – if your knees usually hurt at this time, then the pain should be reduced immediately. You will also be toning those muscles at the same time. Saves doing sit-ups – and who likes doing those?!

I haven’t even mentioned legs yet, and we are already walking taller, and have come down a long, steep descent, hopefully with less effort and discomfort and enjoying the view!

ottoms! Otherwise known as buttocks, gluteals, or for those in the trade, gluteus maximus, medius and minimus. The biggest muscle group in the human body, and for some, a pain in the ….!

When walking, especially uphill, we tend to use the muscles at the front of the upper leg, and the calf muscles at the back of the leg below the knee, which isn’t very efficient.

Try another way, using those gluteals, as they don’t tire anywhere near as quickly as the other muscle groups. When climbing hills (you can practice on the stairs or escalators) at least think glute or buttock, or whatever you want to call it, when pushing down with the foot. So – right foot pushing down, think right glute, left foot, think left glute. Try to engage the muscle you are thinking about, and let the other side relax. If you do it well, walking up a steep hill will become instantly easier, as you are using your muscles more effectively.

As with all these exercises, you are changing the way your brain directs the muscles, so it is a conscious effort to begin with, but as time goes by, and as long as you keep practising regularly, less conscious effort will be required, until it becomes completely natural.

To stretch the gluteals after walking, simply pull one knee into the chest. You can do this laying on your back, or sitting in a chair.

Hill walking.

This time we will look at the calf muscles and how you can best use them walking up hills. From personal experience I realised that as the hill got steeper (we are talking coast paths and fells) I was walking on the balls of my feet, almost on tiptoe, and as a result my calf muscles were tense for the whole climb. Yes, they got tired very quickly, and ached the next day.

So I changed all that, and found that, as much as possible, I would walk from heel to toe, then as the hill got too steep for that I would walk with a flat foot against the ground. My calves would work and then stretch between each pace. Much more efficient and fewer aches the next day.

Try to keep the ankle articulating with each step that you take so that the calf can extend as well as contract while you walk. If the muscle stays contracted all the time, then blood circulation is reduced, resulting in fatigue.

It may sound a bit scary, but it is worth mentioning that in mid to later life, the risk of Achilles tendon damage increases. This is the thick tendon that joins the calf muscles to the back of the heel. Sometimes it can snap, resulting in great pain and up to 6 months in foot to hip plaster! Most people I know who have suffered have been quite inactive physically, but who stand all day, so it’s likely their calves are tense for long periods of time, with poor blood circulation. It’s worth doing all you can to minimise the risk of injury, and one way is to keep the calf muscles in good condition by keeping the ankle articulating while walking so the blood circulation remains high in that area. Of course, massaging the muscles and tendons is also highly beneficial as a preventitive, and getting your feet up and relaxing with a nice cup of tea is good!

To stretch the calves after walking, stand with the balls of the feet on the leading edge of a stair. Hold on to a support, such as the banister and allow one heel at a time to drop slowly until you feel a gentle stretch in the muscle at the back of the leg below the knee.

Stretching on your walk

When you have been walking for a while, or if you stop for a break, you may benefit from a stretch. It’s a good idea, after your break, to have a few seconds stretch to help tease out the tight bits and speed your way to the next break. Trouble is, you may be walking in a muddy bit, so be unable to sit on the ground, or, heaven forbid, you may be in a pub propping up the bar, and be too embarrassed to stretch in public (or the lounge bar either!). Mind you, after a few beers, you may not care what other people think! The good news is, all you need is a tree, gate or wall, and a step.

Let's run through the essential stretches:-

1. Calves (back of the leg below the knee). Find a low step, stone, ledge or kerb (with very little traffic on the road). Put the ball of one foot on said step, and gently push that heel towards the ground. Keep that knee straight for ten seconds, then bend the knee for another ten seconds. Repeat on the other leg.

2. Hamstrings. (back of the leg above the knee). Put one heel on a very low wall or high step, keep that knee straight, lift the toes towards your face, and to increase the stretch, lean towards that foot with your chest up. Again hold for ten seconds and repeat the other side.

3. Quads (front of the leg above the knee). Grab hold of one foot (the top of the foot, the front of the ankle joint, not the toes) and pull it towards your backside. Keep your knees together, and use your tummy muscles so your lower back doesn’t arch. Use your other hand for support against a wall, tree, bar or teashop cake display case.

4. Glutes (buttocks) Lean back against a solid support like a tree etc., cross one leg over the other and do a sitting back type motion or lean forward from the waist – have a look at the photo!

There you are, in a couple of minutes your legs should feel refreshed and raring to go. Obviously you can extend the time spent stretching if needs be.