Walking defines most everything about us, including athletic prowess, predisposition to pain, and our health with respect to aging. Although it seems that walking correctly should be something everybody does automatically, it’s not. Most people walk with small, but very significant structurally unsound movements. It seems impossible, or ridiculous, that how you walk might be why you have pain, or why you have a double chin, or saggy buns, or a potbelly. And just imagine, if how you walk is the reason why you can’t accomplish an athletic endeavor that seems like it should be easy to attain! Changing the way you walk can absolutely improve your level of fitness, eliminate structural pain, and help you look and feel better.
步行几乎可以详细说明我们所有的问题，包括运动技能，受伤的倾向，以及机体衰老的健康状况。尽管看起来步态矫正似乎是每个人自动会做的事情，但事实却并非如此。大多数人走路的步伐很小，并且步行中的动作形态，从生理结构上来说是非常不稳定的。听起来似乎很不可思议，甚至很荒唐滑稽的是，步行的方式可能决定你为什么受伤，为什么有双下巴，为什么臀部下垂，为什么大腹便便。只是想象一下，如果步行（的方式）是影响你成为运动家的原因，那么好像（成为一个运动家）是非常简单的事情！改变步行的方式，可以确实的提高你的健康水平，消除受伤的倾向，并且帮助你改善体形和建立良好的自我感觉。
The system we use in my clinic, and as outlined in my book, Walk Yourself Well, is a combination of simple gait corrections and exercises that corroborate those corrections. There is a standard for walking. And every person has their own walk that wavers from that standard in one or more ways. How many of you have a walk which when you really stop and think, resembles somebody you loved, when you were first learning how to do it? I say, all of you have. It’s much less genetics, and much more patterning. (Imitating!) Your injuries and exercise history and habits and mood states all play a role in how you walk too! Once any of your weight bearing joints gets crooked, (don’t panic . . . there are only six, plus your spine . . .) or out of balance, your brilliant survivalist mechanisms makes it so you look and feel like you can walk perfectly well. You don’t realize the change, your whole body adjusts to it, and now, you’re askew. Even if it is very subtle, that change is a compensation, which is either wearing down that joint, or, one adjacent to it, or across from it, or diagonal to it. Somewhere, there’s a crooked joint, which eventually is going to give out. You’ll push a thumbtack into the wall, or pick up a paper clip, or just turn quickly, and you’ll think that that simple movement caused your pain. Actually, those previous compensations, set you up. You were an accident waiting to happen.
在我的诊所里，我使用一种系统的方法来进行治疗。我的书《走出你的健康》，作为这个系统的大纲，结合了简单的矫正指南以及强化矫正的训练方法。这里有一个基本的标准来衡量步态。每个人都有不同的步态，在这个衡量标准中，（步态）摆动的方式有一种或多种。在你们当中有多少人在步行时会停下来认真思考这个问题呢，打个比方，想想当你第一次遇见心仪的对象，你的表现会如何？我想，其实你们每个人都知道答案。步行的方式与遗传因素关系不大，与（运动的）模式（模仿！）关系很大。你的伤痛与练习经历，习惯与情绪状况，这一切同样作用在你步行的方式上！当你的体重变得笨拙，关节变形，（别惊讶…这会有6处，再加上你的脊柱上）或者失去平衡，卓越的生存技巧（本能的自我调整）会使得你自我感觉保持良好，并且让步行好像仍然趋于完美。你察觉不到这些变化，你的整个身体开始改变，现在，你大概并不赞同（我的看法）。这些即使很微妙的变化，却是一种关节磨损所产生的补偿，这些代偿也许产生在变形的关节上，或发生在邻近的关节上，或跨越多关节产生，也或许产生在变形关节的对角线上。在一些部位上，关节发生变形，并最终导致功能丧失。可能你只是将图钉钉在墙上，或捡起纸屑，或只是突然的转动身体，这些简单的动作都会导致疼痛。实际上这些只是身体产生代偿的早期现象，更严重的事故随时会发生。
The most classic deviation is the lean back. Most people do this and it comes in many variations. The result, however, always turns out to be the same. The bulk of the weight is toward the rear of the body, and collapsed into the hips, knees and lower back. The majority of the weight will be felt in the heels as opposed to the balls or front of the feet, where it belongs. When that happens, the head and shoulders are forced to move forward, as a counter-balance to keep from literally falling on their rear ends. In corrective walking, we learn to lift our bodies up and forward with true grit muscle strength instead of being held up by our joints. This creates a much more fluid, graceful, and lofty movement pattern. And our weight is forward, where balance becomes our method of lifting our bodies against gravity, and strengthening becomes the result.
最经典的问题是背部变得孱弱。大多数人都有这个问题，并且背部孱弱会有很多不同的表现。然后，最终的结果总是一样的。体重的增加将挤压关节，并增加髋关节、膝盖与下背部的负担。这些重量多数会加在脚后跟上，与跖骨或前脚掌产生对抗的力量。当这个现象发生，头部和肩膀将被动的向前移，以此来补偿维持身体的平衡。在步态矫正中，我们学习如何通过肌肉收缩产生强大的力量来向上挺拔身体，而不是用关节来支撑身体。这能够形成更流畅、优雅和巧妙的运动模式。身体的重量向前，用对抗地心引力挺拔身体的方法来保持平衡，并最终获得身体的伸展。
What if you could learn to fully understand and rebalance your body. With only six weight bearing joints (two feet, two knees, and two hips) and your spine, it’s doable! Stand and imagine growing as tall as you can, with your weight in the balls of your feet, your chest down and your knees unlocked. This is the place to walk from. Try walking with your feet as wide as your hips (those bony protuberances on your front and just below your waist)- Feel too wide? What if a ladder had its bottommost rungs an inch less wide than the next ones up? Get used to this one. Well-balanced feet will give you a chance, for all the joints above them to be in balance.
当你能完全理解和重建身体的平衡，身体仅用6个关节（两脚，两膝和两侧髋）和脊柱来承受重量，这是完全可能的！站立并想象你的身体向上长高，重量放在双脚大脚趾下的球状骨上（跖骨），胸口保持下降，膝盖不要锁住（过伸）。从这个位置上开始步行。尝试在步行时，双脚之间的距离保持与骨盆一样宽(跖骨与髋关节是位于身体前侧腰部以下的骨性结节)——感觉太宽了么？一个梯子最底部的宽度是否应该比上部要宽一些呢？利用这个原理。更稳固的双脚可以很好的帮助脚部以上的关节保持平衡状态。
Expect this to feel awkward. If you can understand that this is a process, one that will be served well by taking your time and going step-by-step, your physical and mental barriers to healing will fall away, as will your backaches, swollen joints and back and neck soreness. It’s an inexpensive drug-free and surgery-free method of ending pain, even if the pain has been with you for years.
也许这会让你感觉到笨拙。如果你能理解这是一个过程，需要花费一些时间逐步建立身体的平衡，那些在治疗中的身心障碍将被去除，同时你的背部疼痛，关节肿胀以及背部颈部疼痛也将逐渐得到治疗。这个方法可以帮助你结束疼痛，即使是这些疼痛已经跟随你多年，它花费不高，不会导致上瘾且无需手术。
Everyday someone comes into my clinic telling me they know they have bad posture and that is besides the point of the pain they came in for. When it happened to me, I also did not realize that my pain was more than one weak link that blew. It’s so hard to believe that something as simple as posture is precisely what is causing the weakness that allowed a joint to be vulnerable and give way. And the hardest part is convincing people that is totally changeable.
每天都有人来到我的诊所，告诉我他们发现除了疼痛点之外，不良姿势还带来了其他的问题，他们都是因此前来就诊。过去当我的身体产生疼痛的时候，我也不曾意识到疼痛的原因不仅仅是单独一个薄弱的环节。这令人难以置信，简单的姿势竟可以如此精确的反应出身体上的薄弱环节，正是这些薄弱的部位，让关节变得容易受伤并且塌陷变形。最困难的问题是，如何说服人们，让他们知道这些是完全可以改变的。
We take an average of twenty-five hundred steps a day per foot. What this work would give you is the opportunity to make every one of those steps strengthening, instead of wearing down the very joint that right now, is giving you pain.
平均每天我们的每只脚要行走25000步。这提供了一个机会，让每个人能够在步行中变得更加强健，而不是像现在这样让重量塌陷在关节上，造成疼痛。
以上所有文字均来自Sherry Brourman老师，感谢老师的睿智与卓越贡献！文章内容是我根据自己的理解翻译成中文，如果有哪里不太好的，请大家批评指正。整篇文章是一个一个字母码起来的，确实挺辛苦，所以未经允许，谢绝任何商业用途的转载，欢迎作为讨论学习之用转载，敬请注明出处！
