Walking correctly follows fairly specific patterns. Â Learning to walk through the inner foot is a great pattern to adapt.
It is about using the whole foot—starting on the outer heel and finishing through the inner foot.
Every step we take should end with the full weight of the body above the mound of the big toe. The inner foot is supposed to push off and propel us forward.
If this happens successfully our shoes will wear out across the whole ball of the foot.
It is worth checking out some of your shoes to see how that is going.
If you watch people as they walk down the street and focus on their feet many different patterns will emerge.
The most prevalent one that I see is feet that turn out a little too much with the energy of each step falling through the outside of the foot.
There is a big difference between transferring weight through the inside or the outside of the foot.
The ankle and inner arch are essential shock absorbers with the spring arch of the foot dropping and lifting with each successful step through the inner foot.
This also creates a rebounding effect backup through a well-aligned skeleton.
If we walk to the outside of the foot we fail to take advantage of some important design elements. There are two bones in the shin, the tibia and the fibula.
The tibia is the larger of the two bones and connects directly to the femur bone of the thigh, and to the ankle and foot through the talus bone.
The way the weight of the head, trunk, pelvis, and legs, passes through to the feet is of paramount importance when it comes to an efficiently functioning body.
We need the tibia to be aligned in such a way that it stacks directly over the ankle with each step.
The fibula, the smaller bone of the shin doesn’t connect to the knee or the key weight-bearing inner arch of the foot.
Each step that leads towards the outer foot mitigates the successful bridging of the shin and foot through the talus bone, the consequences of which can be substantial.
The wear and tear on joints is minimized when the bones align and track as designed. The tibia connects the knee to the ankle and allows for weight to transfer from the upper body down to the feet.
In an ideal gait, every step would have the tibia directly over the talus and foot so that the skeleton bears the weight of the body most optimally.
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