Why exactly is it bad for you if you walk on your toes too much?
In: Biology
An ex of mine did it habitually and it straight up ruined her heels. At least in her case, it calcified the bone as a way to compensate and she was unable to walk any other way after so many years of doing it. She didn’t seem to mind, but it did make her gait very bouncy lol.
Yeah if you were born like that I wouldn’t worry too much as its probably just the way your ligaments and muscles have grown. I had a friend in school who had it quite severly and he was actually really good at athletics. I think It would only be bad if you were purposefully walking on your toes
Not much of a scientific answer but in short only our whole foot has evolved to take our full body weight. Walking on your toes would overuse some muscles and ligaments while not using others. Over many years this could lead to some health issues or an abnormal gait. Or really beasty calve muscles, I know some people who are born that way and never really put their heel down when walking.
I have never heard anyone claim it was actually bad for you just that it is bad because it makes you “look like a flouncy gay boy”.
I haven’t done any research on this in a few years snow don’t know what has changed, but there was a movement in the running community towards zero drop shoes and minimalist shoes. With these you are supposed to run with a forward foot strike, on the balls of your feet, as opposed to the old way of heel toe where you land on your heel and roll to the front of the foot to push off. The thought process being that then your ankle can absorb a lot of the impact that would otherwise go straight up your shin and into your knee.
Cats and dogs have that little nub and bend part way up their lower leg, this is their ankle and “thumb” so they are always walking on their toes. Obviously this is not the whole argument that this is why we should run and walk like this but it is an easy visual example.
On an anecdotal level I switched to minimalist shoes in college like 10 years ago and besides taking a few months to build up some muscles that I hadn’t used as much previously I haven’t had any issues from it. I did also drop a lot of milage because I was nolonger running competitively but I still do the occasional triathlons, have backpacked with a full load 15 plus miles a day, and have completed a very slow marathons running this way and my feet have not exploded.
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