Why Does Walking Lead to Pain?

Does the posture we walk cause pain in our body? Why is gait so important? Speaking of the knowledge of “walking”, we have been learning it since we were about one year old!

You can observe the walking posture of children. Although their walking posture will be different from that of ours because of incomplete arch development and loss of bone ligaments, we can find that their gait and posture are very sound.

As we grow older, we get into a lot of “wrong movement patterns”. These patterns may come from some painful feelings thus changing the original movement inertia. If it is a long-term habit, it may lead to the formation of wrong long-run muscle memory. So what can we learn from these “wrong movement patterns”?

1. Injury results in pain.

For example, if you bend down to lift a heavy object and then get your back injured, then your walking posture would get changed due to pain and stiffness of muscle, besides, the step width would become less wide and the rotation angle of the body reduces a lot when walking. Once the pain weakens and the muscles are no longer tight, the gait will naturally improve. However, if you have got a backache for years or it hurts all the time, and the wrong action inertia has been executed for a long time,  then it may develop long-term memory in your muscles.

2. Gait goes wrong.

If your gait goes wrong, then be careful of the subsequent problems, such as the decline of walking speed, and the weakness of hip muscles, which are more likely to lead to the recurrence of low back pain or the formation of chronic backache. Here are some common wrong gaits: ①Too loud footsteps when walking, ②Walk with your stomach on like a pregnant woman, ③Both hips sway from side to side. Because of long-term harmful posture (especially nowadays people tend to walk with their heads down), long-term memory of this wrong information is developed in the body.

3. Correct walking posture

So what is the correct walking posture? When we walk, the step we take should land with the heel first, and pass through the arch and then to the toe. At the same time, for better coordination, our shoulders and arms should also cooperate by swinging in order to adjust to the change of our overall center of gravity.

To sum up, old injuries and wrong walking posture would lead to pain when one is walking. In daily life, we should pay attention to the correct gait in order to avoid any further damage to the body.

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