Help with my Walking!

[watermelon_2001]

For a good while, I had been experiencing difficulties with walking in a 'balanced' manner; at the end of last year, in an attempt to counteract this, and to try to re-align myself, I had focused on walking with my feet dead-straight ahead. This ended suddenly when, after a month or two, I awoke one day with excruciating pain in my knees- I was diagnosed with chondromalacia patella and IT-Band syndrome, leaving me barely able to walk for a number of weeks. After about 7 or 8 weeks I returned to activity and had no pain for about 5 months; I then reasoned that my body was not biomechanically designed to have my feet pointing in such a way (as I had never naturally walked in that manner.) However, a few months ago, after still being unable to resolve my balance issues (even after physio, ortho and chiro) I again tried changing my style of walking, but this time in a different way. Things seemed to be fine for a week or two, and I even began to feel more balanced, but I eventually began to experience pain, particularly around my knee and my IT-Band; as soon as this began, I tried to revert to what I thought was my natural style, only to realize that I have forgotten what it is. Even returning to what I thought was correct, I now find very difficult to maintain- yet I'm not even sure if is. My feet and knees now seem to be 'stuck' in the position which eventually resulted in my intial CP and IT-Band syndrome, and no matter what stretches or soft-tissue work I do, I can't seem to put things right, or to ease any pain. I'm a very active individual, with a passion for cycling and running, yet this has all but put a stop to it- walking is now a challenge, simply because I can't remember what is 'right'. In addition, I have a huge fear that I'm going to end up with a similar injury to that which I have already experienced- I'm already feeling slight discomfort and pain, but I can't help but worry that it's only going to get worse. Is there anything I can do to find what should be my natural walking style, or to reverse what I have done? I have no photos or videos of myself to refer to, which would seem the obvious choice. Please, any advice is hugely appreciated.

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[physiobob]

Sounds like you should abandon any attempt to change the way you walk. Normal walking is with the foot slightly turned out as you land on it so trying to make it dead straight is incorrect and would lead to issues. If you have balance issues then go see someone to assist assess why you have balance issues. When this does occur the feet often turn more outward to increased the side to side balance. There may be much more to understand here and altering your walking does not seem to be the best starting place.

[watermelon_2001]

I do agree with what you're saying- I know it was a foolish thing to do and I've only myself to blame; looking at photos from a couple years ago, my feet do seem to point quite noticably outwards, but this was before I began to exercise, so I don't know if it is a good reference point as I figure some changes would have come about naturally from changes in muscle strength and function. I had thought initially that my balance issue may have stemmed from my left hip, which, for as long as I can remember, I have had difficulty with fully dropping it out to the side (a problem which isn't repeated on my right side.) I had tried to resolve this a good while before any of my pain started through soft-tissue work, hip mobility drills and glute activation, but had no luck. Ortho told me the X-Ray of my hip and pelvis was normal; Physio told me my left glute med. was slightly weaker, but apparantly I had no other problems; Chiro said my left psoas was weak, left piriformis was tight (with stiff SI-Joint) and that my right foot was more pronated. All in all, I don't know who to listen to. You're right too in saying about getting my balance issues assessed; however, financially I can no longer afford to continue seeing either the physio or the chiro. With regards to my current problems with walking, I don't know how to move back to my natural style- it makes me wonder if some muscles adapted during the time when I was playing around with stuff, leaving me unable to revert back. Only problem is, what I'm doing at the minute is causing pain. I've even tried going back to wearing shoes which had been pretty worn down, so that my feet would fall into what should be their natural 'groove' but now walking in those shoes is so uncomfortable and feels so unnatural, whereas before it would have felt fine.