gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Dec 19, 2013 12:01:36 GMT -6
Hi Everyone!  I've had a bit of trouble lately with some crazy-awful cramps in my neck/shoulders (don't know the name of the muscle(s) but it's always the same spot, on the top of the shoulder right up where it meets the neck) and some foot pain as well ("tailor's bunion"). I know the muscle cramps are partially biochemical, because magnesium helps, but the fact that they always happen in the same place means that it's also partially structural. So I've been doing some reading about restoring alignment and moving more naturally, etc. I thought I would share what I've found in case anyone else might benefit from it. Katy Bowman has some great information on her blog, Katy Says. And Steve Gangemi, aka the Sock Doc, has lots of great articles and videos as well. I especially recommend the Sock Doc's video series about addressing pain in specific areas. For example, he has one about plantar fasciitis, one about elbow pain, etc. Some major points on which they both agree: Stop wearing high-heeled shoes. Guys too, because this doesn't just mean stilettos, but ALL shoes where the heel is elevated higher than the ball of the foot. And that includes the vast majority of casual and athletic shoes on the market. Look for shoes that say "zero drop" or "zero heel drop" so that your foot can move through its natural range of motion as you walk. An elevated heel causes the Achilles tended and calf muscle to shorten. And as your body tries to compensate for the fact that it's being awkwardly pitched forward, you can experience pain in the feet, hips, or even shoulders. Also, look for shoes with a wide enough toe box that it allows your toes to spread and work the way they're meant to work. And a thinner sole with less support is actually good for you, because lots of support in your shoe causes your natural support structure of muscles, tendons, and ligaments to atrophy. Go barefoot whenever possible, and wear minimalist shoes when you have to wear shoes. The Sock Doc has some great videos about transitioning, and building up the muscles in your feet and ankles so that you can comfortably go barefoot/minimalist. I've been doing his recommended exercises, and they're harder than they look. At least for my poor, weak feet! They also both highly recommend squatting. But I'm not talking about repetitive weight-bearing squats (though those are fine too), but just being able to squat down and stay there comfortably for awhile. They both say that this restores muscles of the feet and ankles as well as hips and pelvis, and that it's an "antidote" for all of the sitting we do for hours and hours every day. This also, I'm discovering, is harder than it looks! I see little kids squatting down like this all of the time, but I guess all these years of sitting and wearing crappy shoes really have done a number on my body. The trick is keeping your feet flat. Because we've been walking around in high-heeled shoes all of the time for most of our lives, the achilles tendon and soleus is so tight that as you go down, you want to lift your heels up. I'm going to try to attach a picture that shows what I mean. I don't know why this would be, but when my shoulder is starting to cramp up, if I just go into this squat for as long as I can (which isn't that long for me), it really loosens up. I think I have some asymmetry in my hips that is pulling my shoulders around in a funky way, and the squat helps everything relax and realign. I also struggle with piriformis pain, and it's interesting to me that my piriformis pain (hip and butt) is always on my left side, and my shoulder pain is on my right side. I think my hip is definitely torqueing (is that a word?) my shoulder around in a painful way. Now the question becomes, why do I have this asymmetry in my hip? There is one area where the two disagree, and that is the topic of stretching. Katy recommends specific stretches to address specific problems. The Sock Doc says that unless you have a profound need to stretch because of a specific sport/profession (such as dancing or martial arts), stretching is going to do most people more harm than good. He recommends trigger point therapy instead, and learning to move and function in ways that allow your body to move naturally through it's full range of motion rather than artificially trying to force yourself into a greater range of motion by elongating your muscles. In other words, if you've got a muscle that's too tight and feels like it needs to be stretched, ask yourself why it tightened up in the first place. Perhaps because you're not moving the antagonist muscle adequately. I could talk about this all day, but I've been quite long-winded already. If anyone had enough patience/interest to haveactually read all of that, then thank you! I hope you'll find something on those websites to be helpful.  Attachments:
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Post by reddarin on Dec 20, 2013 10:17:21 GMT -6
Very interesting gretalyn  Are you familiar with Bill DeSimone? He has done a lot of work researching the bio-mechanical aspect of exercise. He has two channels - an older one that is no longer updated and a newer (congruent exercise channel) one that is updated. Here is a lecture he gave at the 21 Convention in 2010: Lecture. Here is a video of how to do proper chin ups that is an example of the type of detail and thought he's put into the subject of body mechanics: congruent chin up. Squatting... There are about a billion Asians that wear western style elevated heel footwear that can squat flatfooted for extended periods of time. I wonder if squatting like that is healthy for the knees, ankles and related joints/tendons? Drew Baye is big on natural footwear. He wears zero shoes, like a sandal completely open, (I think that is what they are called) as often as he can. Personally, I don't care how beneficial those 5 toe shoe things are (he used to wear) - they just look stupid. I figure I am always on the brink of saying or doing something stupid, I don't need clown shoes to complete the picture. I'd do the zero shoes though since they are just a better version of flipflops and don't look strange. "The Sock Doc says that unless you have a profound need to stretch because of a specific sport/profession (such as dancing or martial arts), stretching is going to do most people more harm than good." The Sock Doc is exactly right about that. DeSimone covers it in that 21 lecture or one of his other videos. |
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gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Dec 20, 2013 12:19:01 GMT -6
Are you familiar with Bill DeSimone? No, I've never heard of him. Thank you so much for the links! I look forward to checking them out. Hmm, that's an interesting point. Maybe it's not the footwear so much as just practicing it? The argument is that it actually strengthens the ankles, and when I do it, I feel muscles in my ankles that I'm not normally aware of. But I've wondered that about the knees too. Ha! I can relate.  I've read that spreading the toes out is very helpful for people with bunions, and that the reason bunions are more common in women than in men is precisely because we tend to wear shoes that squish or toes together to make our feet look smaller and more dainty. So I've been seriously considering some Vibram FiveFingers because they might help. But they are just so darn ugly that I couldn't think of any place I could wear them in public, and at home I'm just going barefoot anyway! I live in a pretty crunchy place so I actually do see people wearing them sometimes. I'm just not sure I'm brave enough to join their ranks. VivoBarefoot is minimalist footwear that looks pretty much like regular shoes. I just hope that they have plenty of room in the toes. But what I don't understand about all of this minimalist footwear that's out there is this: if there's no arch support, if there's no heel elevation, if there's far, far less support, padding etc. then why isn't the price any less??? Minimalist footwear at maximum prices. Kind of makes you feel like you're being duped. I'm going to look for that. I'm very interested in this topic, and feel somewhat conflicted about it. Years ago, I took Yoga and I was seriously into deep static stretching. I thought it was the pinnacle of cool. Then I started to hurt. I later became convinced that the kind of stretching typically done in yoga (at least in the classes that I took) is not natural or beneficial. But I also have places where my body is chronically tight, and it's so hard to get past the notion that I should stretch those areas. (I have other areas where I'm more flexible than average, so no temptation to stretch those areas.) Anyway, thanks for mentioning this, I'll check it out. |
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Post by reddarin on Dec 20, 2013 14:26:26 GMT -6
when I do it, I feel muscles in my ankles that I'm not normally aware of. Ah, but are you feeling the muscles or are you just feeling the stress on stretched tendons and joints? Drew Baye made some insightful comments about the ever so common and meaningless term "strengthening your core" that is almost always mentioned when training of any sort is the topic. He pointed out that the inner muscles are small by design. They cannot be grown to any meaningful degree. Think about that for a minute. [My thoughts] Muscle strength is *always* growth. Dexterity and manual facility are *skills* not feats of strength. For a muscle to get stronger it has to grow new fibers to expand its capacity short of the very small amount of fiber type conversion that may or may not take place. So you cannot really strengthen your "core" - all you can do is get technically proficient at any given exercise that supposedly targets your core. Have you ever seen anyone with a beefy foot? Or a muscular ankle? Nope. I think that weakness in the ankle or foot area that comes from wearing modern footwear has to be a skills weakness rather than a strength weakness. I wonder about minimalist footwear and the arch of the foot. Unless you are walking exclusively on ground with some kind of give to it, won't those types of shoes destroy your arches? Remember a decade or two ago when saving the arch of the foot was all the rage? The question is, what is the history of the shoe design that includes arch support. Is it a recent value added thing or has it been there prior to the industrial revolution? If it is something added well after the industrial revolution then there must have been an epidemic of people suffering from fallen arches, no? Maybe there wasn't a problem back then, despite the hard surfaces being walked on, because the heel wasn't raised so the foot wasn't put at an unnatural angle. High heel shoes for the ladies had contoured arches but that had to happen to make it possible to walk in them (I guess). OMG! So true! Especially those 5mm thick sandal shoe things. I've wondered about that since hearing DeSimone's talk about stretching. I think this is going to be one of those things that ends up like the progenitor (Cooper?) of jogging as an exercise and recreation where he was remorseful of how many knees he'd destroyed by promoting something so bad for the body. I bet the victims of stretching related tendon and joint injury/wear are hidden within the junk drawer of 'age related complaints'. The way statin victims are just assumed to be suffering from the vagaries of age. *That* is the crux of it right there. It is reflexive to stretch when you yawn or first get up in the morning. It feels good to stretch my arms out every so often if I've been at the computer for a long time. Or stretch when you stand after sitting for a long time. Why do we have that reflex? Is the pleasant feeling simply a reward doled out mechanically for meeting some other need the body has, like a deeper breath or something? |
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gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Dec 20, 2013 17:17:03 GMT -6
Ah, but are you feeling the muscles or are you just feeling the stress on stretched tendons and joints? Well, it certainly has the feel of muscle fatigue to me. Like if you contract your bicep to lift a gallon of milk or something. If you were to just hold it there, you'd feel fine at first, but then you start to really feel that muscle, it would get tired, almost of a little bit of a hot sensation, and maybe even start to shake if you did it long enough. It feels just like that. To me. But that's a pretty subjective measurement, so I'm certainly not saying it's a definitive answer to your question. I think it's going to take me more than a minute to think that over. The muscles are small, okay. But does that mean they can't get ANY bigger? And could a modest increase in size result in a significant increase in strength? I don't know enough about the biomechanics to begin to answer that question. But my experience tells me that muscles that aren't being properly used tend to atrophy. I don't know why this wouldn't be true of core muscles -- if we aren't using them properly to maintain good posture and motion, I would think they would atrophy just like any other muscle. So maybe core work doesn't so much build the muscles as simply restore them to normal strength? And if you just go back to your bad posture and your inefficient movements after you've worked your core, are you doing yourself any good at all? Maybe the secret to a strong core lies in having good alignment, not in doing crunches, etc. Well, the argument goes something like this. Babies are born with flat feet. It is only when children learn to walk that those tendons start pulling on the foot in such a way that it creates the arch. Strong tendons = healthy arches. By walking in shoes that have an arch in them, you rely upon the support of the shoe rather than the support (tendons) of your feet. And THAT is when you get fallen arches, when those tendons grow so weak that they no longer support/create an arch. Whether the reasoning is sound, I'll leave it to anyone else to judge for themselves. But I will say this. I have hard tile floors throughout my house, and so I normally wear my shoes indoors, or at the very least wear my house-shoes (padded slippers). Though the theory of barefoot/minimalist always sounded valid to me, I never really wanted to put it into practice, since I spend my day on such hard floors. I thought that surely that couldn't be good. I finally decided to try it a few days ago and there was one instant difference: when you are walking barefoot on a hard surface, you do not just mindlessly plod along like you do in supportive shoes. You are much more aware of your feet, and you walk more gingerly. I don't just thud thud thud my heel on the ground when I walk barefoot the way I do in my shoes. So what I mean is that if you're stomping along in your high-heeled, arch-support shoes and imagining how hard the ground is going to be walking that way barefoot on it, well you're right. But that's not the way you'll walk. Oh, you may for the first half hour to an hour or so. But believe me, after that you won't! You'll learn very quickly how to step lightly. Pain is a great teacher.  So which is better for the body: to tramp around in shoes that make us not realize that we're stomping, thudding, pounding - or to walk lightly and with control? Good questions. (And I don't have the answers.) By "jogging" did he mean thud, thud, thudding along mindlessly pounding the ground with a heel strike?  I bet you're right! Yes, and I should point out that Sock Doc does make a distinction between that kind of stretching (the stretch you do when you get out of bed, and that you see your dog do after a nap, etc.) versus the kind of deep, static stretch that you hold for 30 seconds or more. It's the latter that he says crosses the line into absurdity. The problem (and I think this is what you were getting at) is that since the first kind of stretch feels so good, it's very tempting to think that more stretching must be even better. |
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gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Dec 20, 2013 17:31:13 GMT -6
I've never heard of this Cooper guy, and I'm not a jogger myself. But what you said reminded me of something I happened upon online last night: www.gnolls.org/3208/Scroll down to the picture that shows the difference between the guy who is jogging and the guy who is running. I have very little experience with either one, but I can tell you that I feel about ten times better when I run than when I jog! My husband was a jogger for many, many years. Marathons and all. Eventually he had to quit because of plantar fasciitis. Then he learned to run and he no longer has plantar fasciitis. He swears the difference on the body is night and day. |
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victlady
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Post by victlady on Dec 20, 2013 17:43:06 GMT -6
Hi Everyone! I've had a bit of trouble lately with some crazy-awful cramps in my neck/shoulders (don't know the name of the muscle(s) but it's always the same spot, on the top of the shoulder right up where it meets the neck) and some foot pain as well ("tailor's bunion"). I know the muscle cramps are partially biochemical, because magnesium helps, but the fact that they always happen in the same place means that it's also partially structural. So I've been doing some reading about restoring alignment and moving more naturally, etc. I thought I would share what I've found in case anyone else might benefit from it. Katy Bowman has some great information on her blog, Katy Says. And Steve Gangemi, aka the Sock Doc, has lots of great articles and videos as well. I especially recommend the Sock Doc's video series about addressing pain in specific areas. For example, he has one about plantar fasciitis, one about elbow pain, etc. Some major points on which they both agree: Stop wearing high-heeled shoes. Guys too, because this doesn't just mean stilettos, but ALL shoes where the heel is elevated higher than the ball of the foot. And that includes the vast majority of casual and athletic shoes on the market. Look for shoes that say "zero drop" or "zero heel drop" so that your foot can move through its natural range of motion as you walk. An elevated heel causes the Achilles tended and calf muscle to shorten. And as your body tries to compensate for the fact that it's being awkwardly pitched forward, you can experience pain in the feet, hips, or even shoulders. Also, look for shoes with a wide enough toe box that it allows your toes to spread and work the way they're meant to work. And a thinner sole with less support is actually good for you, because lots of support in your shoe causes your natural support structure of muscles, tendons, and ligaments to atrophy. Go barefoot whenever possible, and wear minimalist shoes when you have to wear shoes. The Sock Doc has some great videos about transitioning, and building up the muscles in your feet and ankles so that you can comfortably go barefoot/minimalist. I've been doing his recommended exercises, and they're harder than they look. At least for my poor, weak feet! They also both highly recommend squatting. But I'm not talking about repetitive weight-bearing squats (though those are fine too), but just being able to squat down and stay there comfortably for awhile. They both say that this restores muscles of the feet and ankles as well as hips and pelvis, and that it's an "antidote" for all of the sitting we do for hours and hours every day. This also, I'm discovering, is harder than it looks! I see little kids squatting down like this all of the time, but I guess all these years of sitting and wearing crappy shoes really have done a number on my body. The trick is keeping your feet flat. Because we've been walking around in high-heeled shoes all of the time for most of our lives, the achilles tendon and soleus is so tight that as you go down, you want to lift your heels up. I'm going to try to attach a picture that shows what I mean. I don't know why this would be, but when my shoulder is starting to cramp up, if I just go into this squat for as long as I can (which isn't that long for me), it really loosens up. I think I have some asymmetry in my hips that is pulling my shoulders around in a funky way, and the squat helps everything relax and realign. I also struggle with piriformis pain, and it's interesting to me that my piriformis pain (hip and butt) is always on my left side, and my shoulder pain is on my right side. I think my hip is definitely torqueing (is that a word?) my shoulder around in a painful way. Now the question becomes, why do I have this asymmetry in my hip? There is one area where the two disagree, and that is the topic of stretching. Katy recommends specific stretches to address specific problems. The Sock Doc says that unless you have a profound need to stretch because of a specific sport/profession (such as dancing or martial arts), stretching is going to do most people more harm than good. He recommends trigger point therapy instead, and learning to move and function in ways that allow your body to move naturally through it's full range of motion rather than artificially trying to force yourself into a greater range of motion by elongating your muscles. In other words, if you've got a muscle that's too tight and feels like it needs to be stretched, ask yourself why it tightened up in the first place. Perhaps because you're not moving the antagonist muscle adequately. I could talk about this all day, but I've been quite long-winded already. If anyone had enough patience/interest to haveactually read all of that, then thank you! I hope you'll find something on those websites to be helpful. Gretalyn have you ever tried yoga? Try a yoga class for alignment start with Hatha yoga. You will very quickly discover where you body is our of align and what poses will correct. That flat squat is a pose and you will be amazed at how fast your body pulls itself into alignment. I would suggest a class though with a knowledgeable instructor an off the mat teacher who will gently correct your postures to best benefit you. |
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gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Dec 21, 2013 9:14:36 GMT -6
Gretalyn have you ever tried yoga? Try a yoga class for alignment start with Hatha yoga. You will very quickly discover where you body is our of align and what poses will correct. That flat squat is a pose and you will be amazed at how fast your body pulls itself into alignment. I would suggest a class though with a knowledgeable instructor an off the mat teacher who will gently correct your postures to best benefit you. Hi victlady! I had some bad results from yoga in the past, but that was Ashtanga. Could you tell me how Hatha differs? Thanks! |
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Post by reddarin on Dec 21, 2013 9:52:29 GMT -6
I've never heard of this Cooper guy, and I'm not a jogger myself. But what you said reminded me of something I happened upon online last night: www.gnolls.org/3208/Scroll down to the picture that shows the difference between the guy who is jogging and the guy who is running. I have very little experience with either one, but I can tell you that I feel about ten times better when I run than when I jog! My husband was a jogger for many, many years. Marathons and all. Eventually he had to quit because of plantar fasciitis. Then he learned to run and he no longer has plantar fasciitis. He swears the difference on the body is night and day. That is a striking difference Greta. Very interesting! |
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victlady
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Post by victlady on Dec 21, 2013 10:13:12 GMT -6
What type of bad results? If Ashatanga yoga was your introduction to yoga I can well imagine negative results. That is more a power yoga set to a standard of vinyasa flows designed to make you sweat. Hatha is a generic term used as an introduction yoga designed to stretch and align the body for further practice.. beginners yoga but very powerful. Yoga should be a very personal exercise connecting body and breath not "keeping up" You will definitely feel a difference in you body almost immediately. There is also Lyengar yoga which is a type of Hatha practice held in small classes and is for alignment with an off the mat teacher who will gently adjust. At the beginning of the class the teacher should ask if there is anything specific you would like to work on do not hesitate to tell her your needs. You might even approach her before class to talk tell her what you expect from the class. Remember there is nothing new under the sun and your needs are always anothers. We actually love it when we can design a class around a specific need. It improves our practice and the "spirit in me bows to the spirit in you" Namaste
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Post by reddarin on Dec 21, 2013 12:41:32 GMT -6
Well, it certainly has the feel of muscle fatigue to me. Hmmm. Google around for images of the muscles in the foot. I don't see anything but tendons in the ankle area. I'm open to being corrected since I know very little about anatomy. Looking at those images and thinking about your observation on muscle fatigue made me think of something that Baye and McGuff and DeSimone have all said in various ways. What is the purpose of a given exercise? Are you lifting weights to lift the weight? No. Lifting the weight is a means to an end. What is the function of the musculature in the foot? Does a flat footed squat meaningfully work those muscles? Even if it works them adequately, what is the impact on other joints, tendons and muscles? Wouldn't curling and uncurling your toes be a more appropriate way to isolate and strengthen those muscles? Wouldn't isometric-esque rotation and flexing of the ankle joint with feet elevated be a better way to stress the ankle structure? DeSimone points out that some common exercises are very bad for the spine - like barbell squats. Or that snow shoveling video I linked in the main thread. I am thinking along those lines with the flat footed squat and the targeted muscles. They don't have anywhere to go if they get bigger. They are surrounded by other stuff. Unlike visible muscle groups, the biceps, lats, thighs, et. al., if they grow they have to displace adjacent parts of the anatomy. The thing is, "core" muscles are *always* in use. Standing. Walking. Bending over. Picking something up. Everything you do involves the inner muscles because they allow the body to function. The only way for them to truly atropy is to be comatose. I think any broadband physical exertion is going to keep the core muscles at about the best level they can be. I agree with you that improvement can be made but we probably disagree about the degree possible. That does sound like a reasonable argument. This is similar to what Baye has to say about his awful looking choice of footwear heh. I agree with you entirely about the way a person walks being altered by modern shoes. I don't think fallen arches were a major problem before the advent of arch support in shoes. At least not until shoes became stratified by luxury value added features. And that is a helluva an argument in favor of barefoot or minimalist footwear. Shoes were functional - no big problem with fallen arches. Value added fluff makes the scene, fallen arches become a problem, arch support added to fix the problem that value added features created. Ah, he has to be right about that. Moar is better is so often wrong. |
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gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Dec 21, 2013 13:51:41 GMT -6
What type of bad results? If Ashatanga yoga was your introduction to yoga I can well imagine negative results. That is more a power yoga set to a standard of vinyasa flows designed to make you sweat. Hatha is a generic term used as an introduction yoga designed to stretch and align the body for further practice.. beginners yoga but very powerful. Yoga should be a very personal exercise connecting body and breath not "keeping up" You will definitely feel a difference in you body almost immediately. There is also Lyengar yoga which is a type of Hatha practice held in small classes and is for alignment with an off the mat teacher who will gently adjust. At the beginning of the class the teacher should ask if there is anything specific you would like to work on do not hesitate to tell her your needs. You might even approach her before class to talk tell her what you expect from the class. Remember there is nothing new under the sun and your needs are always anothers. We actually love it when we can design a class around a specific need. It improves our practice and the "spirit in me bows to the spirit in you" Namaste I didn't mind the fact that it was physically demanding and made me break a sweat. The problem that I had with it was that everyone in the class does the same moves/stretches with no regard to whether they are appropriate for the individual. With me, for example, I have a LOT of flexibility in the hip abductor muscles, but a lot of tightness in the hip adductor muscles. I probably shouldn't be doing any hip abductor stretches at all, but because I could do them easily, I was encouraged to go deeper and deeper into those stretches. After awhile, I developed hip and sacral pain. And I must confess that shoulder stands really creep me out. I'm just not sure that the human body should ever be put into that position. Ever. But thank you for explaining how Hatha is different! It does sound like it's a better place to start than Ashtanga. And you sound like a wonderful teacher! If you'd promise never to make me do a shoulder stand, I would take your class! |
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gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Dec 21, 2013 14:11:25 GMT -6
Hmmm. Google around for images of the muscles in the foot. I don't see anything but tendons in the ankle area. Oh, yes, good point! The area where I'm feeling it does seem to be tendons and not muscle. Mea culpa. Yes, good points/questions again. My hips, lower back, and shoulders all feel very good when I do this squat. And I am taking it very gently and slowly. But if there are better (i.e. safer) ways to get those results, I'm certainly open to that. Oh, I see what you're saying. My knowledge of anatomy is sorely lacking, so I didn't realize you were saying NO room for growth. Limited room is what I was picturing, just given that we are talking about very deep muscles. But that's different from no room at all. I don't have a strong opinion here. I'm very much in the early learning phase about all of this stuff. What you're saying sounds very reasonable to me. I appreciate you providing me with the links, and challenging my thoughts and views! This has been a really interesting discussion. And I'd like to keep it going if you have anything else to add! Maybe I'll have more questions for you once I finally get a chance to investigate those resources more thoroughly. |
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gretalyn
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Post by gretalyn on Jan 17, 2014 12:18:22 GMT -6
I'm going to try this for my neck/shoulder pain. Looks amazing!
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rejoicealways8
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Post by rejoicealways8 on Jan 18, 2014 7:23:54 GMT -6
Let us know what you think once you try it.
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Post by reddarin on Jan 18, 2014 10:37:45 GMT -6
Looks interesting |
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I've read that spreading the toes out is very helpful for people with bunions, and that the reason bunions are more common in women than in men is precisely because we tend to wear shoes that squish or toes together to make our feet look smaller and more dainty. So I've been seriously considering some Vibram FiveFingers because they might help. But they are just so darn ugly that I couldn't think of any place I could wear them in public, and at home I'm just going barefoot anyway! I live in a pretty crunchy place so I actually do see people wearing them sometimes. I'm just not sure I'm brave enough to join their ranks.
So which is better for the body: to tramp around in shoes that make us not realize that we're stomping, thudding, pounding - or to walk lightly and with control?
