Moving Should be Relaxing

Every step of a healthy walking pattern involves a moment of engagement and a moment of relaxation. Ideal skeletal alignment should take a great deal of work off of the muscles. There is an opportunity with each step to align through your bones so that half of the body can release and relax while the other half engages to pull you forward.

Let’s look at the action of walking. In an ideal world standing up doesn’t take a lot of effort. It is a place where the bones should be able to take most of the load. In movement the muscle action begins. But try to imagine that in every step there is a moment where movement ceases and the bones are stacked directly on top of one another. This might not be so easy to imagine as so few of us live in this ideal world.