Walking posture

Good walking posture is simpler than good sitting posture: walk tall, look ahead, and let your arms swing. The most common thing that changes it is where you look. Looking down at the path or at a phone bends the neck, slows the walk and changes how you balance. This page covers what happens when you walk head down, a few cues that help, and how to check your own walking.

What good walking posture looks like

• Head up, eyes on the path a few metres ahead, not at your feet.
• Chin level, ears roughly over the shoulders.
• Shoulders relaxed and arms swinging naturally from the shoulder.
• Tall through the trunk without leaning back.
• A comfortable stride, landing under the body rather than reaching far forward.

You do not need to hold this rigidly. Walking is naturally variable, and a relaxed rhythm matters more than perfect alignment. Basics of the gait cycle are in gait basics.

Walking with your head down

Looking down is normal on uneven ground or on stairs. The problem is long stretches of it, usually because of a phone.

In a laboratory study of 26 healthy adults, people who read or texted while walking walked more slowly, held their head flexed, and moved the head and trunk as one block, with less movement at the neck.¹ They also drifted more from a straight path. A 2023 meta-analysis of 25 studies found that texting while walking consistently reduced walking speed, step and stride length and cadence.²

The phone version is covered in detail in walking while using your phone. The same head position when you sit is text neck.

Cues that help

1. Look at the horizon every few steps, not at the ground.
2. Imagine being lifted from the crown of the head, without pushing the chin up.
3. Let the arms swing. Carrying a phone or a bag in one hand stops the swing; switch hands or use a backpack.
4. Stop to use the phone. Step aside, read or reply, then walk on.

Why walking is worth it

Walking is one of the best supported habits for back health. In the WalkBack trial, 701 adults who had recently recovered from low back pain followed a progressive walking programme with education; it reduced the risk of a recurrence and roughly doubled the time until one.³ See walking for back pain and how many steps you need.

How to check your walking posture

• Ask someone to film you from the side for 20 seconds.
• Notice how often you look at your phone during a usual walk.
• Compare a walk with the phone in your pocket to one with it in your hand.

Footnotes

1. Texting and walking: strategies for postural control and implications for safety. 2014. ↩

2. Does texting while walking affect spatiotemporal gait parameters in healthy adults, older people, and persons with motor or cognitive disorders? A systematic review and meta-analysis. 2023. ↩

3. Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an individualised, progressive walking and education intervention for the prevention of low back pain recurrence (WalkBack). 2024. ↩