Running barefoot reduces the likelihood that you’ll land on your heel… because, frankly, it hurts. Instead, what people naturally do is start landing on their forefoot or midfoot, with a bent knee and the ankle not in front of the knee. This reduces the force going through your joints, allowing you to use the muscles, ligaments, and tendons the way they’re meant to be used, as natural springs, shock absorbers, and joint protectors.

So, what does all this have to do with walking?

Well, the whole conversation about foot-strike rarely came up prior to the barefoot running boom. Now it’s practically dinner party conversation, where the barefoot gang looks down their noses in disgust at shoe-wearing heel-strikers.

And the increase in the volume of this conversation has led to another question, which probably nobody asked prior to the publication of the book Born To Run, the book that kicked off the barefoot boom. This is a question I’m emailed almost daily, namely,

“How should my foot land when I am walking?”

It sounds like a reasonable question.

If there is some optimal way for your foot to land when you run, there must be a “right” way for it to land when walking, right?

Well, among the barefoot running research community there’s debate about whether a forefoot strike is better/worse than a midfoot strike, or whether foot strike is idiosyncratic and different for different runners. There’s even an argument about whether heel striking is as evil as most barefoot runners take it to be.

How can this be? And how does this apply to walking?

Simple. Because heel strike is the effect of other aspects of your biomechanics, not the cause.

Think about it. The only way you can change how your foot lands on the ground is what you do with your ankle, your hip, and your knee.

To not land on your heel when you run, you probably need to bend your knee more than you usually do. But that alone could cause you to trip over your toes, so you also need to bend your hip a bit more. And then you may relax your ankle a little rather than pulling your toes towards your knee.

So “land on your forefoot” is really just a cue for “bend the hip and knee and relax the ankle.” For most people It’s a change in your whole posture of running. But if you told someone to change their hip, knee and ankle joint angles, they’d be too confused to even take a step.

Well, it’s similar with walking. Where your foot lands isn’t the issue. How you move your foot through space is.

When you walk, your foot can land in one of three ways: touching the front of the foot first, followed by the heel dropping to the ground; landing basically flat-footed, probably touching the midfoot first, or; touching/rolling over the heel… which is sort of still a flat-footed landing but with the heel contacting first.

Which one of these happens is a function of how fast/slow you’re walking, whether you’re walking up/down hill, whether you’re accelerating or slowing down, and what kind of surface you’re on.

Really, there’s no need to worry about foot-strike. It’ll take care of itself… if you pay attention to this next thing.

Here’s How to Walk Naturally

First, you’ll want to be barefoot, or as close to barefoot as possible. (In other words, if you don’t want to walk in bare feet, avoid a cushioned shoe and pick a pair of barefoot-inspired, or minimalist, shoes instead.)

Why? Because there’s value in being able to fully articulate your foot and in letting the nerves in your feet actually feel the ground.

If I then asked you to start walking, most people would basically swing their free leg out in front of them and, at the right moment, push off the toes of the back leg to pivot over the front foot, which has landed on the heel way out in front of you.

Try this instead: Lift your left foot about an inch off the ground and imagine the motion you might see in roller skating or ice skating. When you’re skating, you push yourself forward with the back leg, driving the heel backwards, which engages the glutes and the hamstrings.

In fact, If you can feel your glutes and hamstrings, tightening them will drive your heel back and move you forward. (“Drive the heel back” and “tighten your glutes” are two cues referring to the same thing.)

When you do this – driving the heel back and using your glutes and hamstrings – don’t worry about doing anything with your left leg (which is slightly off the ground). Don’t move it forward. Let it just hang there and use it to catch you from falling on your face.

As your weight shifts onto your left leg, don’t actively swing your right leg out in from of you. Just lift it an inch or so off the ground and repeat the motion I just described, driving your left heel backwards and using your right leg to catch you so you don’t face-plant.

If you simply place your foot down where it’ll stop you from falling (rather than swinging it out in front of you like you usually do), it’ll land closer to your center of mass, more flat-footed, with a slightly bent hip and knee, and with the now front leg in a biomechanically stronger position. You will have planted your foot.

If you repeat this — using your glutes and hips to move you forward, and placing your feet instead of swinging your legs forward — you’ll be supporting your lower back… and your knees, and your hips, and even your ankles.

Your foot-strike will take care of itself.

You’ll feel like you’re walking “on top of your feet” rather than behind them.

This motion may feel a bit robotic at first, but as you practice and relax, it’ll get smooth, comfortable, and efficient.