BEIJING NEWS: Interview: Dr James Stoxen DC – Incorrect Walking Form May Cause Back Weakness And Pain (English Version)
Incorrect Walking Form May Cause Back Weakness And Pain
Interview with American sports medical professor, Dr. James Stoxen DC
Dr James Stoxen, D.C., has directed Team Doctors Chiropractic Treatment and Training Center.Dr Stoxen has developed very unique approaches to caring for patients who suffer from acute and chronic back problems and other serious musculoskeletal conditions – conditions that others feel surgery is the only cure. Stoxen’s treatments have received worldwide interest in both the chiropractic and medical fields.
“Take off your shoes and socks, and roll up your trouser legs, and then walk. I can tell what problems you have on your walk posture.”
“Problems from the foundation will lead to pain in the upper body.” Incorrect walking posture will cause silent inflammation.”
Feet actually are the weakest part of you body, although people usually take it as the strongest part for bearing the whole bodyweight.. Many people feel back weakness and pain, but doctors can’t find any pathological reasons. When this happens, the reason might be your walk pattern is not correct. If you can’t walk with correct posture, you will feel foot muscle weakness. Then you will find a walking pattern to release the weakened foot, which will lead to misalignment of the upper part of the body and your legs will pull you down, that actually will make your feet weaker.
If this continues for a long time, it will cause “silent inflammation”. Dr Stoxen separates this kind of inflammation to 10 levels. (Below 7, normally your brain can’t feel pain) This inflammation can be transferred upwards from the feet to your legs then to your back so that you feel back pain, even some arthritis and age-related diseases. Many doctors do not know this, they think back pain is resulting from back problems. For curing this, they just rely on back medication or even back surgery.
Training Should Start From The Feet
“There are 4 reasons for foot muscle weakness,” Dr. Stoxen says. “The first is injury, the second is binding from shoes, the third is overload from being overweight and the last is lack of training or balanced walking.” In most daily life, we are walking in a straight motions but lack of walking in natural undulating terrain or other directions. Keep on walking in straight will lead to the accumulation of pressures in the arch, also the silent inflammations.
Actually, the silent inflammation will lead to some pain signals, but people cannot feel it because it is below level 7 and sometimes, people get used to this kind of weakness in the feet, especially for the beautiful ladies who are wearing high-heals all the time. When you feel foot pain, you will avoid using weak muscles and walking even more incorrect. Unfortunately, this will lead to worse situations such as back pain and other conditions.
Some people say they go to the gym every day, but when we check the gym equipments, we cannot find any one that function to train the feet. Actually, the healthiest training, should start from feet. Sometimes, You Need To Do Some Side Step Walking Or Play Like A Child, “Dr Stoxen”
Reporter: Dr.Stoxen, What do you think is the best walking posture?
Dr.Stoxen: According to my research, people will need to walk about 10000 steps every day. Walking in a incorrect way will influence more than 10 conditions, then leads to the arthritis.
The most relaxed walk is walking without shoes and socks, landing the feet first on your side, then balance of weight between both inside and outside foot muscles. This walking method will load the whole bodyweight step by step and training balanced muscles in the feet. What is more important is that this walking method will let the foott arch use recoil in the best way, and recoiling will save your stamina and decrease the accumulation of inflammation. Of course, we cannot be barefoot all the time and have this ‘bad way’ to walk, so what we need to do is if you have time, do some side walking (horizontally walking) and exercise love like a child.
Reporter: The walking posture is a habit which influenced from childhood, so what is your opinion of training walking posture from childhood?
Dr.Stoxen: I think what parents need to do are two things: 1. Let an experienced sports medicine practitioner check your child’s walking pattern periodically. If they are not walking with good form, then correct it. 2. Do not let children wear loose or tight shoes which will cause inflammation.
Reporter: Can you explain your therapy, the Stoxen Approach?
Dr. Stoxen: After a whole day walking and working, people are likely to massage their feet, because they will be more loose and flexible. Actually, massage on foot is releasing the silent inflammation, which causes soreness, so you will feel flexible and loose.
Stoxen Approach :
#1, Watching your walking pattern and locating the exact pattern of walking incorrectly.
#2, Release the silent inflammation.
#3,Relax the arch of the foot and rebuild arch flexibility and elastic recoil muscles. Get back to what Mother Nature intended for you.
Reporter: The famous Chinese runner Xiang Lau quit the Beijing Olympic Games just before he started because of the foot pain. What is your opinion about this issue? Do you think he should have surgery?
Dr.Stoxen: I am sorry to hear this and see this. I have watched the video of his quitting and watched his walking pattern on Youtube. It is obvious his foot pain was the result of the accumulation of silent inflammation, which is an usual problem for athletes. The shoes for short distance runner actually will increase the pressure on the muscles of the feet. So if you do not have a correct warm-up method, it will worsen the situation.
For runners, the faster they run, the more pressure they are enduring on feet, which could mean more inflammation with even subtle poor mechanics. So we first need to release arch spring, the inflammation and rebuild arch elastic recoil muscles for Lau. About surgery, if there is no other severe injury in his foot muscles or other tissues, there is no need to do the surgery. Of course, I need to watch him face to face then I can make a better diagnosis, if possible.
Reporter: What kind of shoes will be helpful for your health?
Dr.Stoxen: The best shoes are the will be strong along the heel, to protect and hold the ankles, but loose in front part because it will leave some space for walking from supination to pronation. It should not be too tight as it will not allow the elastic recoil of the foot.
