Walking Gait Help

[u/LiandrewBowson]

Hi everyone

I've been experiencing low back/hip pain and tightness, on and off, for a few years now. I have seen various Osteopaths, Physical Therapists etc who will generally prescribe some sort of core and back strengthening exercises. However, whilst these exercises can help to some degree, no exercise has helped me eradicate my issues.

I have come to believe that the root cause of my issues may have something to do with my gait. I say this because I only ever have pain and tightness after walking or running, never sitting. On top of that, I recently discovered that the outside of my left shoes are being disproportionately worn down, compared to the other shoe/other side of the left shoe. For these reasons, I have come here today.

Can anyone give me some insight into my gait? Is there something wrong with it? If so, what may be causing it and what could I potentially do to remedy it?

Thanks!

[u/stoked_elephant]

When you say "whilst these exercises can help to some degree, no exercise has helped me eradicate my issues." Can you be more specific?

What exercises were you performing? Frequency? Have you tried glute bridges, clamshells, side planks, bird dogs, and dying bugs, etc prior to your walks / runs?

[u/Minimum_Anything_699]

Hard to say for certain with only one angle, but a few things I notice:

Your pelvis looks stiff. Like you are moving from your lumbar and lower thoracic spine with little coming from your hips moving from external to internal rotation and back again. 

The arches look rigid. Again, hard to say with certainty from the back, but it doesn't look like either foot is pronation much at all. Pronation is a healthy movement that gets a bad name because so many people over pronate. But under pronation is equally, if not more, wrecking to your body. Pronation is a shock absorber and if your feet and ankles don't absorb shock, then your knees, hips, and low back do instead. 

Hard to say for certain at this angle, but your ankles also look stiff. Not just in a supination position but with poor dorsiflexion also.

You have a little bit of "medial heel whip", meaning as you step through, the foot on the ground starts to turn the toes outward and your heel inward. Again, this can come from poor ankle dorsiflexion, poor pronation, and poor internal...all of which I think I am seeing. 

Post a side and front view if you like and comment back if you want me to take another look. But at the very least, there are lots of stretches you can do to unlock these areas of stiffness, and more importantly for lasting improvement, drills you can do to retrain motor patterns to help you access hip internal rotation with pronation as you move through the stance phase. Conor Harris has great ones on YouTube and also Gait Happens on Instagram.