Heel-toe is not normal for walking

“You don’t walk right.” I’ve heard that a few times during my life. Hunh? I’m upright, one foot in front of the other, straight back, not staggering. What was I doing wrong?

What I’m doing differently (not wrong) is putting my weight first onto the ball of my foot, then lightly setting down on the heel. Toe-heel. I’ve always done this. I believe it’s a learned behavior from always being barefoot. Since I started tottering about on two legs, the soles of my feet have always been tough. Like leather. I could run on gravel. Even walked over crushed glass. No problem. After being criticized multiple times for how I walk, I analyzed my gait.

Here’s what I’m unconsciously doing. Unconsciously because it’s just how I move after decades of striding about on the planet. As I take a step, I put the ball of my foot down first. If the surface is unstable or uncomfortable, in a millisecond I am able to shift my weight to one side or the other of the wide area that makes up the front of my sole including toes. I can spread the impact or shift where my weight settles as I move through the stride. Then I choose whether to set my heel down or take another step and get to better footing. Because I can disperse the impact of hitting the ground through my toes and ball of the foot, skip my heel if needed, flex my ankle accordingly, I’m able to alter the travel of energy and protect my knees.  It’s all instinctual. I don’t think about it, I just do it. Many times, I’ve hit the ground wrong and was able to “spring” through the twist that would have sprained my ankle.

When you walk heel-toe, you set all of your weight down on the small area of the heel of your foot. Momentum carries you forward with a static force to the ball of your sole and off the toes. It’s a dedicated pattern from the moment your heel hits the ground. The striking force hitting your heel travels through your leg, ankle-knee-hip. You don’t have a safe route of flexibility to alter or release the energy of that force. You are forced to move through the stride your heel has anchored your weight into and then travel the rest of your foot as it pushes your entire body through the stride. It’s difficult to avoid the twist or slide your foot engages in due to unstable/slick ground. And down you go.

I was reading a description of how an American Indian tribe was able to move silently through the woods. They placed the toes and ball of their feet first, then the heel (or not). They could do this pattern of walking at a run, too. Unh hunh. Knew that. Did it. A lot. Though I’m not fast. I don’t have the extra launch effect of striking with the heel and pushing off with the ball of my foot. If they wanted to fool a tracker, they tied their toes close together and didn’t set down their heel so it looked like a bobcat or cougar track. Never tried that, but I can see how that would work.

If you know me, you’ve likely seen me in my preferred footwear. Five Finger shoes by Vibram. I have over a dozen pairs. They look weird. People comment on them all the time. The toes are in individual sleeves of the shoe, which is form-fitted. They were developed as a running shoe, have a thin flexible rubbery sole and arch support, and leave behind a barefoot-shaped print. Your toes and foot are able to flex and move the same as they do when going barefoot. These are my concession to conventional shoes.

Anyway, my conclusion is that before there were shoes or sandals to protect the feet, homo sapien sapien probably walked toe-heel. The soles of their feet were probably tough as leather. The civilization of man and its trappings that evolved into footwear adulterated the natural way of walking. The ease of having an artificial sole take the abuse of the path you walked resulted in an emboldened way of carrying the body upright. I wonder if there is an anthropological study looking at the lower extremities of (pre-shoe) cavemen vs. civilized peoples to look at injuries attributed to sprains, trips, falls. That would be interesting.

Until there’s documented proof, I’m running (and walking) with my theory. Therefore, I do walk right. The rest of you have got it wrong. We’ll see if my theory proves out if I make it into my elder years free of knee and hip replacements, major falls and so on. So far so good.