I just got back from a walk. Like so many others, I’m walking more,
whether that means taking a strenuous “workout walk” as I did today, or just
making it a point to add steps throughout my day – walking up and down the
stairs in my house for any old reason, strolling to the mailbox instead of
stopping as I drive in or out, or parking further away from my
destination. There’s no doubt that
walking is beneficial for our physical and psychological health, as supported
by research and experience. More is
better.
However,
sometimes walking hurts. We get stiff
afterward, our feet hurt, we feel sciatic pain, or worse. I’ve experienced symptoms like these for sure. So I was intrigued to come across two news
items over the past week or so that focused on walking quality and posture. The first was an NPR story about Esther
Gokhale who, having endured back surgery for a herniated disk and later faced
another painful surgery, decided to travel around the world studying cultures where
there are low rates of reported back pain.
Ms. Gokhale, an acupuncturist, visited remote mountain locations in
Ecuador, tiny fishing towns in Portugal and remote villages of West Africa, and
she watched people. The main thing she
noticed was a difference in spinal posture between the populations with little
back pain and Americans, who suffer a lot.
Modern Americans tend to have an S-shaped spine (left image), curving in
at the top and back out at the bottom.
She hypothesizes that being overweight and having generally weak core
muscles exacerbate this tendency for a large portion of our population. In contrast, the indigenous populations she
observed had more of a J-shaped spine (right image), straighter from neck to
lower back and then curving out at the buttocks. People with this posture hold their heads
straight and high and their shoulders back.
Imagine regal posture and you’ll get the idea. I just walked around my office with a book on
my head to practice!
Ms. Gokhale has now written a book and consults with
clients in Palo Alto, where she is known as the “posture guru”. Several of her top tips are shown below, and
you can apply them while sitting, standing, or (of course) walking:
1. Do
a shoulder roll: Lift your shoulders up
and let them relax back and open, so that your arms are able to rotate outward
and your palms forward. This will be
familiar to anyone who practices yoga and it feels great to open your chest
this way.
2. Lengthen
your spine: Take a deep breath in and
grow tall, then try to maintain that height as you exhale. This really activates and strengthens your
abdominal muscles.
3. Squeeze
your glutes as you walk: Just get up and
try this. Ms. Gokhale says its best to
target the gluteus medius muscles here, which are higher up on your buttocks.
4. Don’t
put your chin up: When your spine is
tall and your head high, your chin will dip down slightly as you look straight
ahead. Again, try it and feel how nice
it is to have a long back of your neck!
A link to the full article is provided below. I’m standing on my treadmill desk at the
moment writing this, feeling into all of these recommendations and visualizing
my spine from the neck down. I find it
helpful to really ground my feet and visualize my spine in a J shape to bring myself
into line.
The second article I read was in one of my favorite
blogs, Well + Good, and it’s about a Shiatsu massage practitioner named
Shandoah Goldman who wanted to help her clients find lasting relief from their
pain and stiffness. Many of them loved
their treatments with her, but their aches and pains quickly came back after
they left their appointments. Ms.
Goldman works in New York City, where walking is a significant part of daily
life for many, and she began to suspect that her clients might be causing
themselves unintentional discomfort with their normal stride. Now she offers private sessions and
walking-and-alignment workshops to mainly get her clients to loosen up in the
hips as they walk. She recommends holding
the pelvis in its natural slightly swayback position and to hold the head
“defiantly high”. Ms. Goldman does reassure
her clients that they will still be able to avoid eye contact with others (in
true NY fashion), by focusing their gaze further away and beyond those they are
encountering. That tip is optional (how
about smiling?), but in general, her stride and postural recommendations feel
consistent with the J spinal shape preference described above. A link to this article is shown below as well.
So… no matter where you are right now, roll your
shoulders up and back and take a deep breath in and out. I promise it will feel good down from your
head down to your toes. And the next
time you have the opportunity to take a walk, visualize that J spine, tighten
those cheeks, hold your head high, and stride regally into your future! 
