Is It Okay To Walk Duck-Footed?

We tend to think of one’s walking gait as an expression of individuality—something we do without conscious thought and with quite a bit of variety and nuance. One common pattern is the casual-looking, “duck-footed” or “turned out” stride. This is where each foot stands or lands at an outward angle of up to 45 degrees or even more. Less common is an opposing “pigeon-toed” pattern, where some people land with feet pointed either straight or at an inward angle of 10 or 20 degrees. Most of us would assume that one’s footfall is based on our unique musculoskeletal makeup, something involuntary and natural. Your genetics and lifelong movement patterns will surely influence your posture while standing, walking, running and doing complex activities. Sport-specific training might also influence your standing and walking posture. For example, ballerinas train to assume this position. Sprinters with powerful hip flexion often walk, and sprint at high speed, with feet turned out. 

If you have adapted to a turned out (or pigeon-toed) position and feel comfortable, you don’t have to worry about it. However, it’s possible that duck-footed standing posture or walking/running stride can promote muscle imbalances and increased risk of pain, injury, and dysfunction throughout the lower extremities. Similarly, if you tend to exhibit a hunched-over posture with shoulders positioned forward of the spine, this can result in assortment of chronic pain and dysfunction. 

Some research suggests that a turned out position can put excessive tension on the plantar fascia and cause atrophy to the intrinsic muscles of the foot and arch. This is due to a lack of tension in comparison to being appropriately engaged when standing or walking with forward facing feet. Duck-feet can also cause excessive strain on the anterior and posterior tibialis (front of shin), and the flexor hallucis longus and digitorum longus (big toe operators.) It’s also possible to develop dysfunctions to compensate for a turned out position, such as internal rotation of the tibia and fibula, and external rotation of the femur. This can cause muscle stiffness, sciatic nerve pain, lower back curvature, excessive knee strain, and inappropriate positioning of the hips. 

Don’t worry, your turned out position is not causing catastrophic damage, and you might not even notice any directly attributable ill effects. However, if you’re among the 83 percent of Americans who complain of chronic foot pain, and/or reveal an extreme turned out position, you may want to try pointing your feet straight, or closer to straight, when walking, and especially when standing. You can also do alignment exercises that can help correct imbalances that can cause pain. Good resources include Katy Bowman’s  Move Your DNA and Esther Gokhale’s 8 Steps To A Pain-Free Back. 

When your feet point near-straight or closer-to-straight when walking, you avail the full functionality of your feet and legs, with bones “stacked” appropriately from foot all the way up to hips and lower back, and no inappropriate shear forces—such as the knee being forced to move outside the sagittal plane. As biomechanist, bestselling author, and barefoot locomotion expert Katy Bowman explains, “It is in this [forward] position that the levers and pulleys of the ankle can be maximized, the arch-shape can be created by muscles of the feet and hip, and the toes can be more free to move.” Note: It’s likely that you’ll stand with feet at a similar angle to the angle they reveal while moving. Over time, you will wire-in new biomechanics that might one day happen naturally and unconsciously. 

One final thought: Changing your foot position while running is far more daunting than gradually shifting the way you stand and walk. Focus on increasing awareness of how you stand and walk, and making an effort to tighten things up with your technique and point those feet forward. If these adjustments feel better and you adapt well, you can start experimenting with a slight technique alteration while running and see how it feels. Remember, we spend far more time standing and walking than we do running, so it’s not essential to overhaul your high performance technique. 

Wearing Peluvas in daily life will help assist you with improving your posture and walking gait pattern, because of the improved groundfeel and proprioception they offer. You’ll notice how you land gracefully with the splay of the toes and a tightening and flattening of the arch, the dorsiflexion of the big toe, and the efficient expression of rotational kinetic energy when you push off much more so than when you are shuffling along wearing de-sensitizing, elevated, cushioned traditional shoes.