This page is dedicated to the Wheeler Walking Method, a protocol to create a lifetime of Tune Me work into 20 minutes a day of walking. This protocol takes months to years to fully master and must be added on after understanding your unique issues by working with a qualified physical therapist or Wheeler Walking Method professional.
Wheeler Walking Method: I recently traveled with my family to visit my daughter, Ellie, who was studying in London. While there, I did a lot of walking. Walked extensively – about 13 miles a day. We visited Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Westminster Cathedral, along with numerous pubs and so many other sites. As I walked, I reflected on the principles outlined in this book. I also thought about how many of my patients were willing to do physical therapy, but with the goal of being more active.
While walking through London with my wife, I observed her very relaxed gait and excellent posture. As a seasoned distance runner, her gait reflected a parasympathetic dominated distance-running attitude. In contrast, as a former sprinter, my gait was much more front-side dominant: arms and feet more forward, stomach tight, with a sympathetic sprinting attitude. Over time, I began to imitate her walk. This adjustment activated my bracing muscles, stretched my hip flexors, reduced my sympathetic tone and improved my breathing and posture all through thoughtful walking. I realized that my patients could learn this type of walking to achieve several goals: exercise, strengthening, posture, breathing, and preparation for their own travels.
There is much to learn in this walking style, so take one step at a time and don’t move on to the next step until you have mastered the previous one. Consider completing ten 20 minute walks before advancing.
Step 1: Begin by standing with the posture we described in Posture. Stand tall, relax your buttocks, breathe through your nose to relax your diaphragm, keep your knees soft without bending them, and settle into your mid foot and lower back. Ensure that your weight is not on your heels.
As you begin to walk, stay relaxed. Continue settling into your mid-foot and spine. Focus on posture, breathing and landing on your mid foot. Goals: Posture, breathing, mid-foot landing. (see video below)
Step 2: After mastering step 1 through your repeated walks, focus on activating the bracing muscle of the hip. You cannot activate these muscles if you are breath-holding (chest breathing), as the string muscles will dominate. To engage the hip muscles, roll over your great toe (the big toe). As illustrated above, the leg that is behind her is firing her gluteus medius and minimus as the hip prepares to lift to allow the leg to swing through. The leg that is in front of her is firing her external rotator to keep her knee from collapsing inward. Each step alternates between the external rotator (lower butt) and gluteus medius/minimus (upper butt). Place your thumb on your upper butt and fingers on your lower butt to feel each of them contracting sequentially as you walk, provided you are in parasympathetic mode. Also, work on head posture by aligning your ears over your shoulders. The temptation that occurs as you continue walking and advancing in this protocol is to push your pelvis forward and lean back further. This is a fatal mistake in that it ruins much of what we are trying to accomplish. If this happens, it may be because the tone in your core muscles are weak. The compensation of this position is often to draw your stomach in. This is also a mistake as it leads to breath-holding and increased sympathetic tone. The solution is to keep yourself from doing either of the above flaws and to work on core strength when you are not walking to build thoughtless tone.
Goals: Same as Step 1, plus rolling over the great toe to activate the bracing muscles of the hip and head posture.
(see video below)
Step 3: This step is for long walks and is challenging if you are still consciously focusing on Steps 1 and 2. By lengthening your arm swing backward while keeping the forward swing normal, you also lengthen your steps behind you. By lengthening your steps behind you, we begin to stretch your hip flexors. This should be a natural, slightly exaggerated backward arm swing and should not feel uncomfortable. This hip flexor stretch is important as it counteracts a whole day of hip flexor tightness. Many patients have reported how this step took them from wanting to get their walk in daily to needing to get their daily walk. Don’t jump ahead to this. Each step has to be completed, realizing that we go from unconsciously doing things wrong, to consciously doing things wrong, to consciously doing things right, to unconsciously doing things right. Only when we get to this unconsciously right should we move on to the next step. Goals: Same as Steps 1 and 2, plus stretch of hip flexors (psoas, iliacus)
(see video below)
Step 4: Now we need to get a little shoulder movement. This shoulder movement should be opposite to the hip rotation. (Right shoulder forward as left hip is back, and vice versa) This is also a normal walking motion, but people with back pain or who are older stop doing it. Watch a group of people walking and notice how many people have no shoulder movement. As you move your shoulders, you will begin to get much more multifidus activation. Be careful, as this can also irritate your facet joints, so start with one minute of shoulder rotation and advance very slowly. Also work more on posture as you are walking. Goals: Same as Steps 1-3, plus we are trying to get the shoulders moving to activate the multifidus. (see video below)
With all these steps, we are activating our parasympathetic system and decreasing the sympathetic system. We are strengthening the gluteus and multifidus muscles. We are stretching your hip flexors and working on posture. Give us feedback on our website on this Wheeler Walking Method as it is forever a work in progress and I need feedback to make it better and better.