How you walk

Nice post!

Without a doubt as we get older we stop doing things like jumping, squatting, lunging, and even moving laterally very often. The results is the muscles involved in those activities begin to weaken and atrophy, which only exacerbates this weak muscle/tight muscle problem which exists already in each of us. When this happens, abs get weaker placing greater stress on the entire pelvic region, glutes get weaker, helping to shorten the stride length, inner thigh muscles get weaker while outer thigh muscles stay the same of get slightly stronger and the legs will rotate outwards.

Strength training and proper stretching can help tremendously.

It seems as people age, many will walk with toes pointed more and more outward. Since the knee is a hinge joint, I'd expect this to put more stress on knees over time.

When I was very young I broke my left leg in 3 places. Once I finally got to a point of being on crutches, my left foot turned outward. My mother thought the doc screwed up, but he told her that I can correct that myself and, over time, it would stay that way.

We can purposefully walk dink or pidgeon toed. Seems odd, but if you do that long enough it will apparently stay that way.

I tend to observe the gait of others and myself due to my history. There was a woman where I work that was very attractive just standing there, but she walked like a duck. She is pretty regardless but I can't help think how much more so she could be if she just straightened her feet out when she walked.

With knee problems being so prevalent as we age, i can't help but wonder if the way we walk could be as much or more of a factor than our weight. Thoughts?