[embodiment,movement] ... knees and toes...

[kaberett]

I have been met with surprise from A and others recently, when pointing this out, so it gets to go here too:

In theory, when you are standing and indeed walking (or even cycling), you want your knees and your toes to be pointing in more or less the same direction, with your kneecap approximately in line with your second toe.

Doing this -- keeping your knee still, and rotating your foot around your ankle (yaw and roll are the relevant axes) -- activates the muscles of the arch of your foot, in ways that I at least find surprising and discombobulating, but which also make it actually possible for bits of my anatomy other than my joints to act as shock absorbers.

The thing with my particular flavour of bendy is, it's much less work to just let my toes drift outward and my arches flatten and my knees go back -- to let my joints take the strain, instead of activating my muscles and having them stabilise and shock-absorb and such. It's what I do automatically! It doesn't require me to pay attention! ... and it puts a lot more wear and stress on my joints and my muscles decondition and doing less work in the moment makes me hurt more over time.

So. Yes. Toes forward. Arch muscles engage. Isn't it weird.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

…note to self, pay attention to this thing

[flippac]

I've got some trouble courtesy of what's down in my notes as flat feet and the things orthotics do and don't do, and this certainly makes sense to me.

I need easier-for-me-to-do-in-practice exercises to stop myself from twisting stuff just enough I get twisty cramps at night, that's a pretty common thing when I actually get out and about and has been for a fair few years now.

Bending knees I've definitely learned though, Bad Things happen if you try to do martial arts otherwise!

[starlady]

This is good to remember, particularly for cycling when it's fairly easy to correct.

[sporky_rat]

Every time I see someone when I have to relearn to walk, this gets drilled into my head.

I think we're on drilling four? (However they're always very patient with me. And to this day I have trouble remembering how to walk not straightly)

[ewt]

...whereas I tend, if I'm not very careful, to achieve this by rotating my leg at the hip so my knee points outward, and leaving my foot where it was already pointing. (Especially with cycling, less so with walking, though the tendency is still there.)

I suspect the reason I *haven't* had "keep your knees aligned with your toes" drilled into me, but rather something more like "point your toes forward" is related to this tendency.

[cesy]

My knees always want to turn in and face each other

[davidgillon]

keeping your knee still, and rotating your foot around your ankle (yaw and roll are the relevant axes) -- activates the muscles of the arch of your foot, in ways that I at least find surprising and discombobulating, but which also make it actually possible for bits of my anatomy other than my joints to act as shock absorbers.

For my particular flavour of bendy, that rotation tends to deliver a distinct clunk which I suspect is something subluxing and reseating itself, at times on every rotation.

it's much less work to just let my toes drift outward and my arches flatten and my knees go back -- to let my joints take the strain, instead of activating my muscles and having them stabilise and shock-absorb and such. It's what I do automatically! It doesn't require me to pay attention!

*noddy nod* it's a physical lock rather than an active muscular 'lock', that's really more of a continuously varying movement about the theoretical straight-legged / balanced position. Think of a Segway that's on and actively balancing on its two wheels vs off and resting against the wall.

and it puts a lot more wear and stress on my joints

You occasionally see people who've completely destroyed their normal knee ROM by repeately hyper-extending it that way, mostly due to post-polio, but I've seen one or two people who were so clearly Marfanoid in appearance that it was likely hypermobility.

Because my bendiness is worst in my hips, I've a tendency to walk stiff-legged and slightly on my toes, which minimises hip movement, but does tend to keep everything pointing in a line, but also means I need to be careful of hyper-extending.

(And if things are really bad I've occasionally caught myself rotating foot and knee 90 degrees off centre-line, taking both joints out of the equation in favour of a sort of peg-legged rocking over my heel. This is really not good as it's stressing the joints at 90 degrees to the way they're meant to take loads).

[highlyeccentric]

deeply weird. I should practice that exercise of which you speak.

[glass_icarus]

Heh, there are reasons dancers talk about alignment! (You may also find it helpful to pay attention foot articulation and where you place your weight while standing/walking, which isn't as excessive as it might seem for random everyday contexts. :P)

[smilingslightly]

Frequently I have to remind myself this is a full time gig, this positioning and holding the body just so. Keep wanting to relax down into all the backward angles on my "down time" and then get confused when my toes will no longer propel me forward on walks unless I wear shoes so small* they can't fling themselves about.

* not a recommended therapeutical solution

[sfred]

I hadn't thought of or been told this - thank you.

(Am v behind with reading!)

[kaberett]

Less behind than me!

[sfred]

<3