1/17/2024 0 Comments Benefits of brisk walking![]() I can feel, for the first time, just how not good my normal walking is. This happens to me when, while I’m busy monitoring my feet, my stride, my hips and my neck, Hall suggests that the pendular arc of my arms could do with a bit more backswing. Hall acknowledges that, for beginners, there will be what she calls “Buckaroo! moments” – named after the children’s game featuring a put-upon, spring-loaded mule – when too much information causes a system overload. I need to think about maintaining all of these things at the same time. Then my neck: there needs to be more distance between my collarbone and my earlobes. Second come the hips: I need to increase the distance between my pelvis and my ribs, standing tall and creating more flexibility through my torso. It begins with the feet: I am trying to maintain a flexible, open ankle, to leave my back foot on the ground for longer, and to peel it away, heel first, as if it were stuck in place with Velcro. It takes a tremendous amount of concentration to do something so basic, and so ingrained, in a different way. People think: poor man, he’s having to learn to walk all over again. ![]() But when you stroll haltingly through a public park while someone instructs you on heel placement, you do attract a certain amount of attention. “I promise you, you won’t look mad,” Hall said. My opening question about optimal walking was: “Will I look mad?” I imagined great loping strides and pumping arms. The struggle to get me to absorb this basic concept takes up most of our first hour together. This shortens your stride, relies too much on your hip flexors and puts unnecessary stress on your knees. Bad walking – my kind of walking – is overly dependent on traction: pulling yourself along with your front foot. If that sounds a bit abstract to you – as it did to me, at first – think about it this way: good walking is an act of propulsion, of pushing yourself forward off your back foot. ![]() “I want you to think about walking out of the space behind you.” What are we doing wrong? Most of us, she says, tend to walk by stepping into the space in front of us. ‘I thought I was already good at walking … Dowling with Hall. ![]()
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