Hello and welcome to the Own
Your Health Podcast,
I'm Cyndi Lynne and I
can't wait to help you step
into your health power.
As often occurs when I hear
a couple of things, a couple of
the same themes or even the same
words come out of clients in
a week, I know that's something
that I need to share. And the
phrase of the week this past
week seemed to be, is walking
your answer to everything?
And when I think about it,
it actually is.
So let me share what some of
that thinking is about for you.
I'll also share with you that both of
these clients are people who
spend a tremendous amount of
time on their feet, working on
their feet, doing volunteer work,
doing their job. A lot of standing,
a lot of short kind of motion.
Occasionally they have ankles
that swell a little bit and their hips
kind of ache, their knees
kind of ache. And when I first
see them and start to talk to them
about this, the thing that I most
often hear is I just, well, I can't go
out and walk because my hips hurt
and my knees hurt and my feet hurt.
And after we work together for a
little while, and I hear that several
times, I ask them, what if the reason
that your hips hurt and your knees
hurt and your feet hurt are because
you aren't walking, you're standing,
you're shuffling, you're sitting,
occasionally strolling. But how many
times during the day, how much time
do you actually spend walking in a
full stride, reaching forward, rolling
through the foot, arms and upper
body in coordination where your
entire body is walking? So if you're
with a laundry basket full of clothes,
going up and down the stairs, if
you're in the kitchen, back and forth
behind the counter, if your job has
you doing something between or
among several counters, that
isn't walking, it's standing,
it's exercise, it's effort,
it makes you tired, but it's
not walking. And our bodies are
built to walk. You can argue
whether we're built to run.
Some bodies are.
Some bodies are less mechanically
positioned to run, but we are all
built to walk. And that's so
important. But it's a pretty hard
sell after someone spends the
entire day on their feet and their
legs are tired and sore and it takes
some convincing, but once they
do, it's been absolutely life changing
for them. So these two clients
especially that I'm talking about
have learned to walk and they've
also learned to do some walking,
interspersed in the midst of these
other activities and finding it
makes a huge difference.
So let's talk about why?
What's different about walking than
the shuffling and the standing?
Well, walking involves a lot of
coordinated movements and a lot
of coordinated muscle action.
And that muscle action really
supports the hydraulic system of
your body, the venous blood
system of your body, to help return
the blood from the extremities,
from the legs, back up to the heart,
back into the circulation.
So think about it.
When we're standing,
our feet tend to be fairly flatter
in whatever shoes that we're in.
And we don't use when we don't
come up on our toes, when we
don't walk and roll through our feet,
we don't use our calves as muscles
that actually can contract and help
pump that blood back up to the heart.
And so the fluid tends to settle,
and our body has to do something
with that fluid. And very often it
gets what we call third space.
It turns into swelling in the
tissues because it doesn't have a
way of getting back up into the
circulation. It's simply gravity
pulling at us without our muscles
providing any of the action that
help return blood to our heart.
Now, that's a very simplified
explanation, but I think it makes
it fairly easy to understand.
People will often describe their
legs feeling so heavy.
I just can't even drag my legs
around. They're so heavy,
how could I possibly walk?
But again, it's the reverse.
It's the inverse of what's actually
going on. So my recommendations
to those folks are if you stand
at your job all day, rather than
sitting down right away after,
go ahead and take a short walk.
Now, here's a couple of caveats.
One, this walk doesn't have to be
a power walk. It doesn't have to
be super fast, but you do want
some momentum. You want your
arms involved, you want your upper
body involved. You want to be taking
long, full strides so that you're not
only your calves, but your
hamstrings, your glutes, your buns,
which are big muscles that we
want to recruit to use. Those
muscles need to be involved.
So it can't be a shuffle, and it
can't be just a little stroll and
window shopping where you
keep pausing. It needs to be that
continuous fluid motion. And if
you haven't done it for a while,
it's going to feel awkward.
It's going to feel like you can't
find your stride. And that
expression, although we've heard
it a million times, you may not have
ever experienced it, but you need
to kind of push through, walk for
five minutes and see if it starts.
If your body finally settles in,
and maybe it's going to be
10 minutes if it's been a really
long time. Again, this doesn't
have to be super fast paced,
but it needs to be full stride.
It needs to have the arms
operating it. It needs to be an
actual walk. And your body will
settle in. You will find that stride
like, oh, this is how it's all supposed
to work together. And as your
body begins to feel that,
it becomes more efficient at that.
So like anything else, it takes a
little time. And if you haven't
walked for a long time and think
about it, think about, you know,
where you park. Do you grab a
cart on the way into the grocery
store? So you're sort of pushing
a cart, taking shorter steps so that
you don't bump your shins on the
front of the cart? Are you taking
the cart out of the grocery store?
Are you carrying boxes?
When you want walk into the office,
do you have your briefcase or
your backpack? How many times
during the day do you actually walk
full strides, arms moving? You know,
if you work in a large corporate
center, there may be long hallways
where you can actually do that.
And I would encourage you to take
advantage of that, especially if
you're living somewhere where
we're coming into the winter
weather, where it's hard to do this.
So I see more and more people
after or as the winter progresses,
doing what I call the Minnesota
Shuffle. And that is when you're
walking on snow and ice and
unstable situations, we tend to take
smaller steps because it's safer.
We don't want a leg way out in one
direction and the back leg
out behind us. Because if you do
the splits on the ice, that's not
pleasant for most of us. But we
want to take advantage of an
opportunity. When we have a
long hallway, when we have
a space, when we have a clean,
clear driveway. If you don't have
and most houses don't have long
enough, hallways where you can
actually do a full stride for any
length of time. So how do we start
doing this? How do we start to find
our stride? Find a clean, dry, level
place to walk where you don't have
to be watching your feet so you
aren't watching for gravel or
watching for holes or watching
for bumps in the sidewalk.
Eyes up, hands and arms empty
so that you can actually use them
and start to propel yourself forward.
Think about reaching forward with
the front foot, and then as the other
foot comes forward, think about
pushing off from that back foot.
Pick comfortable, supportive shoes
and tie those suckers on so no flip
flops, no slides, no clogs,
none of that. We want shoes that
are on and that are tied on so that
when we're reaching forward,
we don't worry about them sliding.
And when we're pushing off in the
back, the heel of the shoe stays on
our heel. And I know a lot of summer
shoes especially don't fit that criteria.
And if you wear flip flops, and I
love them as well, but I know you
can't really walk in them, your toes
tend to crunch, to hold on to them
at a time in the stride when they're
supposed to be spreading out and
pushing off. So to get good foot
function, you need decent shoes
that are tied securely on your feet
that are going to stay put when
you walk. Eyes up, arms moving,
feet reaching out front. Reach out
front with that heel, roll onto the
toe and push off as you go through.
And don't be surprised if it feels
awkward because naturally you're
going to think everybody knows how
to walk. But we've developed such
habits around our workspaces or our
kitchens, or carrying something all the
time, or carrying kids. If you carry, if
you have little kids or grandkids that
you carry, you aren't taking
these strides, you aren't taking these
walks.So be patient with yourself if
it takes you some time to find that
stride and you'll begin to feel your
muscles working. And in fact,
after the first five or ten minutes,
you may actually feel your calf
muscles and it's possible that you
haven't been using those for quite
some time. So I encourage you to
do this. Seek out spots, seek out
times. You don't have to do an
hour long walk in order to get this
circulation going. You just have to
do it frequently. And you have to
interrupt those, I call them shuffling
activities, where you aren't using the
leg muscles, you're just kind of
holding yourself up on two posts
and that's a great way to start.
Two or three times a day,
five minutes, full stride walking.
And that is the answer to a lot,
because once that blood is
circulating, once gravity doesn't
have full control, ankles and calves
loosen up quite a bit. Once we're
pushing off and using our glutes,
they're able to anchor the fascia
that is really the support for
our spine. So a lot less stress
on the back if our leg and hip
muscles are working properly.
And walking is the foundation of
that as well. In fact, walking,
your feet touching the earth or your
shoes touching the earth is the
foundation of most movements
for us in our day to day life
every day. So I want you to make
the most of it and I want you to
rethink why. Maybe your legs get
sore, maybe your hips are sore,
maybe your knees are sore. And
ask yourself, am I walking?
And could it be that walking, good
full stride walking, is the answer for
you as well? Now if you'd like some
help with this, or we could set
up a time. If you'd like a zoom
analysis of your walking, I'd be
happy to do that as well.
Grab a time on my calendar below.
And until next week,
let's go out and own it.
