“CHI” WALKING – FOR ALL WALKS OF LIFE
Walking is often seen as the answer after injury: once you can walk again, everything should settle down. But an important question is often missed — how are you walking?
After an ankle, knee or hip injury, pain may settle while stiffness or altered movement remains. You start walking again, but the body compensates. Weeks or months later, pain may return in the same place or appear somewhere else.
Even without injury, small walking habits matter. If you walk 7,000 steps a day, that’s more than 2.5 million steps a year. A slightly excessive stride, heavy heel strike or poor posture repeated that many times can gradually contribute to pain.
As a sports and musculoskeletal physiotherapist, I regularly assess walking and running technique. The encouraging thing is that walking is trainable. Small changes can improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary strain.
What Is Chi Walking?
Chi Walking was developed by ultra-marathoner Danny Dreyer and combines body awareness with sound biomechanics.
Instead of pushing yourself forward with large strides and heavy heel strikes, you use posture, a gentle forward lean and gravity to help create movement.
Key Technique Cues
Don’t try to change everything at once. Choose one or two things to practise on each walk.
1. Align your posture
2. Keep your feet pointing forward
3. Grow tall through your spine
4. Lightly engage your lower abdominals
5. Shorten your stride
6. Lean gently from your ankles
7. Notice your standing leg
8. Relax your shoulders and arms
9. Let the back foot peel away
10. Avoid a heavy heel strike
Technique cues are only useful once you know which one actually applies to your body, and that’s usually not obvious from the outside.
I use these principles with people experiencing recurring hip, knee, foot and lower-back pain, as well as walkers and runners wanting to improve efficiency. It combines biomechanics with body awareness – something that fits naturally with the physiotherapy and yoga principles I use in my practice.
Bio-mechanics of Walking
Make Walking a Practice
You don’t need to analyse every step. Pick one focus and practise it until it begins to feel natural.
Walking this way can become almost a moving meditation — noticing your posture, balance, breathing and the way your body responds.
Technique also works best when the body has enough mobility and control to support it in four areas:
- Flexibility — particularly through the hips, calves and thoracic spine
- Alignment — improving postural habits
- Connection — coordinating the trunk, hips and supporting muscles
- Movement efficiency — reducing unnecessary tension and effort
Common areas of pain when walking are;
- Heel pain – there are many causes, not just the plantar fascia!
- Forefoot pain – neuroma (nerve swelling), plantar plate (under the forefoot), nerve or muscular pain
- Ankle sprains, arthritis, tendinosis
- Nerve entrapment leg pain – anywhere from the buttock to the foot.
- Bunions – big and little toes.
- Arch pain – weak deep foot intrinsic muscles, toe flexors, and calf muscles.
- Knee pain – knee cap maltracking, arthritic pain, baker’s cyst, ligament injury.
- Hip pain – bursitis, tendinopathy, muscular imbalance.
- Low back pain– from poor posture, or alignment of your body over your feet. See blog on good posture.
More Than Pain Relief
Improving your walking or running technique isn’t simply about avoiding pain. Walking can improve cardiovascular fitness, mental wellbeing and confidence in movement — particularly when the pace is brisk enough to challenge you.
And when walking becomes easier and more efficient, it becomes something you are much more likely to keep doing.
Physiological Benefits:
- Cardiovascular – interval training at 70-80 steps per min or 70-80% maximum heart rate (still be able to talk – just) for 15-30 mins.
- Enhance breathing fitness – there are many breathing practices.
- Sociable – walk with friends
- Relaxation – walk in nature, time alone, your time!
- Mindful walking. Focus on your body and give the mind a rest.
- Memory is enhanced (T Gronwald et al Increasing exercise’s effect on mental health: Exercise intensity does matter. PNAS Dec 18, 2018 115 (51))
Ready to Walk or Run More Comfortably?
If pain keeps returning when you walk or run, or you’d simply like your technique assessed, physiotherapy can help identify why it is happening rather than only treating the painful area.
Book an appointment with A-J →
For low-impact and pain-free walking get advice from A-J, here at Physio Body and Sole in Milsons Point, North Sydney.
“Chi Walking” was developed by Danny and Katherine Dreyer, Canada. It is walking that combines mindfulness and biomechanical principles.
