Newsletter 1
Walking Back To Happiness?
We think that walking is a natural activity that we all do – so how can it possibly cause us problems?
We need to consider several things.
The big toes need to be fully flexible. How many of us have bunions or have stubbed our big toes and they just don’t bend like they should. This can have big implications for pain free walking. Walking is a complex activity made up of stretching one leg forward to ‘heel strike’ whilst pushing off with the other leg. If we do not push off with a flexed big toe, the sacrum may not be able to move forwards as it should in the pelvis and therefore the pelvis will not be as stable as it should be. Given that we must have stability in our trunk for our limbs to function from, this can potentially cause pain in the pelvis, hip, low back or even up to the shoulder.
Sitting a lot can cause shortening of the iliopsoas muscle. This in turn can inhibit the gluteus medius muscle. If the gluteus muscles are not activated at heel strike, the knees can collapse inward, and as a result, the foot arches collapse. The result is that the “shock absorbers” in the feet are not fully functional, and the back can be repeatedly jarred causing back pain.
Flat feet – or pronated feet may be feet that don’t look particularly flat but when we try to push off when walking, the arch drops down rather than arching up.
This affects knee, hip and back movements in such a way that they rotate in completely the wrong way. How long will this happen before pain arises somewhere along the kinematic chain?
Psoas muscle (in red) if weak leads to pronated (flat) foot.
A kinematic chain is a ‘chain’ of linterlinking muscles and fascia and when you move one joint this affects the movement of another joint within the kinematic link. However, if one part of the ‘chain’ doesn’t function properly the it imposes more often inappropriate movement onto another part of the chain – and in the human body this can mean pain.
Where we feel pain depends a lot on what we have inherited for example faulty genes may mean we have a tendency to knee arthritis or if we have taken part in a lot of sport these may make our knees more vulnerable to pain whereas someone with a spinal curve or disc wear may be more prone to feeling the pain in the back.
Hips often don’t move properly or the hip muscles are weaker than they should be. The resultant lack of stability means that the low back moves more than it should and eventually we develop low back pain when walking or running. We can test hip function and give you simple ways of improving both function and stability so that you can walk or run without pain.
The cause of pain when walking is often multifactorial – hence the need to seek the advice of a Chiropractor in Southampton – whether when you have pain as a result of walking or running or if you think you would like to start walking or running to get fit. Better to be examined first and corrections made to avoid problems later. It is easier to prevent an injury than wait for it to recover!
At the Avenue Clinic we will examine you from the feet up to find all of the areas of your body that could be contributing to your back, knee or foot pains.