With the weather so cold all around us, and the snow and ice on the ground everywhere, I just thought I'd share something I've learned these past few years about walking and running on slippery terrain.
I think of the technique as "marching for safety": keeping my feet underneath me, stepping down on the balls of my feet instead of my heels. Or maybe tip-toe-ing for safety, but with a little more persuasion.
The way we usually walk, by landing on a heel of a foot that's in front of our bodies, is a perfect set-up for slipping and falling. If your foot hits a patch of ice and slides, it slides forward, while your body slides backwards, and it can be just about impossible to catch yourself. I did an arm-flail outside just today, in fact. What a way to work those fast-twitch reflex muscles!
On the other hand, if you sort of lean forward a bit and make sure your foot lands (ball first) underneath you, then when it slips, it slips backward and your body falls forward, but you can sort of jog your feet fast and regain footing again much more easily (or even if you can't, at least you can catch yourself with your arms instead of landing on your butt).
There are a bunch of people who blame our shoes for the way we've learned to walk and run so poorly. Our shoes cushion us so much, they say, that we walk unnaturally, and jar our bones and cause ourselves injuries that we wouldn't have if we let our feet and ankles land on the ground "naturally", softening the impact, and also keeping us better balanced.
One of the prophets of the barefoot running movement, Chris McDougall, has promoted an exercise called "one hundred up", which is super easy to do inside in a tiny space. The idea is that this little exercise trains you to walk and run in a way that will help prevent injuries. You can see an up-beat 62-second video of this exercise (with a cheery little sound track that makes me happy just listening to it) at this link: it's changed the way I run (for the better), especially when I'm on ice or other slippery terrain.
The first few times you walk like this, on your balls instead of on your heels, it feels really awkward. It's not something we practice much. But I really love getting out in this cold weather and moving around in the air, after being stuck inside. And with just a bit of practice at this, I feel like a gazillion times safer on slippery surfaces! So I figured I'd share.
I think of the technique as "marching for safety": keeping my feet underneath me, stepping down on the balls of my feet instead of my heels. Or maybe tip-toe-ing for safety, but with a little more persuasion.
The way we usually walk, by landing on a heel of a foot that's in front of our bodies, is a perfect set-up for slipping and falling. If your foot hits a patch of ice and slides, it slides forward, while your body slides backwards, and it can be just about impossible to catch yourself. I did an arm-flail outside just today, in fact. What a way to work those fast-twitch reflex muscles!
On the other hand, if you sort of lean forward a bit and make sure your foot lands (ball first) underneath you, then when it slips, it slips backward and your body falls forward, but you can sort of jog your feet fast and regain footing again much more easily (or even if you can't, at least you can catch yourself with your arms instead of landing on your butt).
There are a bunch of people who blame our shoes for the way we've learned to walk and run so poorly. Our shoes cushion us so much, they say, that we walk unnaturally, and jar our bones and cause ourselves injuries that we wouldn't have if we let our feet and ankles land on the ground "naturally", softening the impact, and also keeping us better balanced.
One of the prophets of the barefoot running movement, Chris McDougall, has promoted an exercise called "one hundred up", which is super easy to do inside in a tiny space. The idea is that this little exercise trains you to walk and run in a way that will help prevent injuries. You can see an up-beat 62-second video of this exercise (with a cheery little sound track that makes me happy just listening to it) at this link: it's changed the way I run (for the better), especially when I'm on ice or other slippery terrain.
The first few times you walk like this, on your balls instead of on your heels, it feels really awkward. It's not something we practice much. But I really love getting out in this cold weather and moving around in the air, after being stuck inside. And with just a bit of practice at this, I feel like a gazillion times safer on slippery surfaces! So I figured I'd share.
Fascinating. I've read that this is how people walked before shoes. This article includes a wonderful video of a guy walking that way: http://mentalfloss.com/article/505105/why-people-walked-differently-medieval-times
ReplyDeleteI've watched that video a bunch of times, too, and considered linking to it. Thanks for doing it for me! It's a 6+ minute video, and most of it is talking. The actual walking comes 3:50-4:30, roughly.
DeleteThis guy extends his foot in front of him while he walks slowly. When he starts moving fast, when his feet stay under his torso. I'm a fan of the feet-under-the-body approach, it's safe to say!
I would look into Pose running! I looked into both chi running and Pose running as a result of the whole barefoot running movement, and ended up thinking Pose running aligned well with another technique I'm interested in, http://www.alexandertechnique-running.com/the-arc-of-the-running-stride/. here's an alexander technique practioner running on ice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo63nfIqfvc
ReplyDeletePose running definitely looks like it dovetails nicely with what I've been seeing elsewhere! Although perhaps what I'm doing as I trudge to-and-from my office is Pose Walking (?!?).
ReplyDelete