My feet are now stronger than ever (thanks to hundreds of daily reps on the
Elgin Archxerciser), and better-supported than ever (doctors digitally scanned the bottoms of my feet to create insoles that'd support my high arches). So with the obvious problems addressed, the difficulties that pop up as my feet re-acclimate to carrying my body around tend to be weird, random things.
The latest? I have hyperflexible toes and I walk funny! Over the years plenty of people have told me I have a "distinctive" walk... I blame the grade-school classmates who teased a friend of mine because his butt wiggled when he walked. It's because of them that I decided to walk smoothly, in a way that made my butt feel as un-wiggly as possible.
So my latest task is to re-train the way I walk. I need to straighten my knees more at the end of each step so that walking puts less strain on my forefoot. I hardly ever straighten my knees as much as I'm teaching myself to now... I fainted in the middle of a school ceremony, once, which taught me never to lock my knees while standing. Now with each step I take I'm trying to remember to straighten my knee all the way, which makes me feel like a total robot. I've been at it a couple days and still feel a little stiff and jerky. I console myself that this new way of walking can either make me look like a robot or increase the amount the my butt wiggles, but probably not both. =P
I'd be interested to see how you walk - both previously and what you are trying to do now -- I think I walk strangely as well, but that might be a bit from the many years of ballet. it was also commented on by friends in school years about how when i walk, i don't really have a lot of up/down movement.. more of a glide, not a bounce. i think it's probably alright (i don't think its doing damage at least), but it does seem to make my fitbit track less of my steps sometimes!
ReplyDeleteYeah. My PT commented that I "walk like a dancer" in that I tend to turn my feet out (though she also says my leg bones are naturally rotated out more than is typical, which seems likely to affect that sort of thing as well).
DeleteI bet we both have some weird ballet-related habits.