Fix Your Stride (Plantar Fasciitis Part 1)

If you’ve ever had knee pain or plantar fasciitis pain you know how much they can get in the way of your life and rob you of your energy.

Walking becomes painful and difficult, and surprisingly, HOW you walk may be just the thing that caused the problems in the first place and is keeping them from going away. 

It may be time to look at your STRIDE.

Let’s take a look at a couple pictures that show where the problems are and how you can fix them.

 In the first picture, her left foot has just hit the ground flat in front of her. The short line shows where the center of her foot is, and the long line is an estimate of her overall center of gravity.

With such a long stride, her center of gravity is well behind the center of her left foot on impact. There are three problems here:

1. The front knee is more likely to have straightened completely (hyperextended) going into the step forward, which can cause knee pain.

2. With the left foot so far forward, she can’t use her left hip to hold her up and she'll have to overuse her thigh muscles, which puts more stress on the knee.

3. With her center of gravity so far behind her front foot, she has to “pole vault” herself over that left foot by pushing off harder than normal with the right foot. That means her right calf and underside of her right foot have to work harder than they should, which helps start and perpetuate plantar fasciitis. 

The second picture shows a different story.

This time, she was cued to take shorter steps and lean forward slightly as if walking into a stiff headwind. As a result, her center of gravity is already moving over her left heel when the foot touches down flat.

This fixes all three problems above and takes a lot of stress off of the knees, calves, plantar fascia and muscles in the bottom of the foot. 

Your stride is a very automatic pattern that you've probably never really thought about before, so changing it will require some practice and patience. 

Taking shorter steps can feel awkward at first, and if you’re used to walking at a brisk pace, you'll also need to retrain yourself to take steps that are both shorter AND quicker. 


Doug Barsanti
ReInvention Fitness

P.S. If you're a runner and you overstride when you walk, there's a good chance you overstride when you run as well!