7 Ways to Help Correct Misaligned Walking

Want to walk with a straight, efficient stride and not end up with pain or injury? The first thing you need to do is, make sure your pelvis, hips, and legs are in alignment. Here are some of the ways that you can help correct misaligned walking.

How to Help Correct Misaligned Walking

1. Strengthen Your Hips and Glutes

The actions of your hip abductors will affect how you walk. If they are weak or tight, it will result in an anterior tilt of the pelvis, which will put you in an inefficient gait.

To help correct misaligned walking, you can start to strengthen your abductors or even do some stretches to lengthen them. A better balance of strength will signal to your hips and pelvis that they need to shift into a position of stability so that you can walk in a straight line.

2. Lengthen your Back

If you have a swayback posture, then you need to get your back lengthened. When walking, try to focus on elongating the spine. Avoid leaning forward or slouching which can put pressure on back muscles.

3. Strengthen Your Core

The abdominal muscles are responsible for keeping your hips locked into a neutral alignment. If they’re weak, you won’t be able to prevent your hips from either moving in or out of alignment.

To help correct misaligned walking, strengthen your core muscles and make sure that they are both lengthened and activated. This will stabilize your pelvis so that you can walk in a straight line.

4. Strengthen the Quadriceps

Strengthening your quadriceps helps combat posterior pelvic tilt, which can cause instability in the pelvis and lumbar spine.

5. Practice Good Posture

Posture and walking are closely related, so if your posture is bad, working on a walking pattern will help maintain good posture.

6. Strengthen the Gluteus Medius Muscles

The stronger your gluteus medius muscles are, the stronger they will control your pelvis when walking and help prevent you from overusing your hip flexor muscles.

7. Use Foot Drop Braces

An afo brace is used in treatments of foot drops and is also used to help correct misaligned walking problems. They are worn over the foot when you walk and they provide support to keep the ankle in a neutral position.

Foot drop is a condition that typically occurs in one leg due to a weak hip abductor muscle or an overuse injury. When this happens, the pelvis is no longer supported by two strong legs but instead has to rely on the strength of just one of them.

Benefits of Walking Correctly

1. You’ll Reduce Your Injury Risk

Walking properly keeps your body in alignment, which reduces your risk of injury. If you correct your walking posture and create a better balance of strength, then your body will be able to find stability.

2. Improves Core Strength

Correcting misaligned walking will help to improve your core strength. If you train your muscles to be evenly balanced and activate your lats, you’ll end up with a strong and stable pelvis.

3. Better Balance and Posture

If you’re walking correctly, then your bones are stacked on top of each other to create better balance and posture. If your base stays in a neutral position, then your body will find the balance so that it can walk properly.

4. More Energy

Walking not only requires a greater amount of energy than sitting but moving around also increases your metabolism.

5. Stronger Bones

Walking is great for strengthening bones in your legs, hips, and spine by forcing the body to work against gravity to keep you upright.

6. Increased Flexibility

As you walk, you stretch the muscles in your ankles, greater flexibility will help prevent muscle strain when walking.

Causes of Walking Problems

1. Weak Abductor Muscles

The abductor muscles are located in the front of the thighs. If they’re weak or tight, then your pelvis will be misaligned and you will end up with an anterior tilt of the pelvis.

2. Foot Problems like Corns or Calluses

Foot problems like corns or calluses will make it difficult for you to walk correctly. If you have a corn or callus on the bottom of one of your feet, then you’ll likely find that you walk with a limp or drag that foot, especially when there is pain in the area.

3. Arthritis

Arthritis will cause you to experience uneven wear on your joints. As a result, the muscles that support your pelvis will be weakened, which will cause your pelvis to go through an anterior tilt and your legs to swing out of alignment.

Conclusion

Walking correctly will give you a better chance of staying injury-free. Correcting your posture for good walking can help to restore balance to your body.

by Hannah Boothe

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