Muscle tone & gait

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When I first learned to walk, I walked on my toes. I did so until I was 20 when I realized I wasn't swinging my hips enough. I retaught myself how to walk, so I walk almost normally unless I am very stressed out. My legs have always had very very high muscle tone. I can tense them more so, but I have no voluntary control to relax them. The past year or so I have been working with an acupuncturist and an energy worker. For some reason I gained voluntary control of ALL of my muscles for the first time in my life. It was amazing and I never knew how free I felt to be able to feel and move every part of my body. But now that I am not seeing them (I can't afford it) I feel like I am slowly sinking backwards. Each day and week and loose more sensation, feeling, and control over my muscles and body.

I know that muscle problems and gait problems can be common in autism. But does what I am going through make sense? And what do I do to help? I only have "mild aspergers" or just "asperger traits". Its maddening and painful to be losing control of your body as it tenses up and stops responding. I have no money to see a doctor or anything.

They're also common in cerebral palsy, which comes in very mild variants, as well as in autism through proprioception issues and long habit of walking on toes; but in your case, there mayn't be any need to check into it--because hey, if the acupuncture and energy treatments are working, why knock it? (I'm pretty sure it's the way they're helping you relax--relaxation has many known benefits, and they're not just "all in your head", either...) There's not too much to worry about here, though you probably should mention it to your doctor once you get the money to get regular checkups again.

I walked by putting down my toes first for a good part of my childhood, until I started walking long distances to relax and found that heel-first gave you a longer stride. I still walk toe-first when I'm barefoot. I think it's probably a sensory issue.

I'm a toe walker.

I recently became sort of obsessed with these shoes called 'Vibram Fivefingers' that are like gloves for your feet, no 'support' at all, they're just a close-fitting thin rubber sole and enough upper to keep it on. They are fantastic because they don't try to hold my foot rigid. I like to run in them, it's lots more fun than it ever was in normal shoes. I think they help with sensory integration problems, too -- I can feel the texture of the surfaces I'm walking on, it's just enough shoe to stop my feet getting cut up.

Funny thing is, there are a couple of biologists into biomechanics who are saying that toe walking (when running, anyway) is the proper gait and that a heel strike is an artifact of wearing shoes with padded heels. What they call a 'forefoot strike' running gait is the foot movement I use all the time, walking or running.

http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/index.html

I walk on my toes when I'm wearing no shoes, and I never swing my arms when I walk. I never consciously decide to do these things, and I cannot get out of the habit of doing them.

I have to think about it to walk 'normally'. People made fun of me for it a lot when I was a teen and I taught myself to do it, but I still don't do it naturally. If I want to walk with my heel hitting first, I must stay conscious of my gait.

growing up, i was often told that i walked "like a girl." i still do, partially because having one leg a bit shorter than the other forces my hips to swing in a feminine manner.

as for muscle tone, it was poor as a child, and even in the military it was mediocre compared with the other GIs compared to whom i would have to work several times harder just to be able to do the required 50 pushups.

just to boost various WPer's spirits, john wayne was also a toe walker. but he made it look like a swagger.

I am a bit of a toe walker myself. I have this weird aberration that all my sinews are too short or inflexible. There is no way I can touch my toes with the tips of my fingers without flexing my knees and I can not nearly flex my wrist backwards as much as most other people can.

I always thought that ninjas / martial artists walk on their toes. Its more stealthy and offers better maneuverability.

that's what i was thinking too. I have a fanciful idea that us aspies have figured the best way to walk due to a lack of social adherence to the heel first thing.

it is tough though because i'd imagine if you were exclusively a toe walker that certain sports and activities that have evolved from heel walkers could be more difficult as a result. i can't think of any examples tho!

i wonder also if the heel walking thing is re enforced by the fact that putting pressure on your heel can be pleasurable and is seen as kind of related to getting someone turned on.

Well, sort of. I figure it's more us being less responsive to shoes. Not just the social adherence, but the fact that it's easier to heel walk in shoes, and actually sort of hard to toe walk in them. Since I started wearing the foot-glove shoes, I've realized how regular shoes make me clumsy and awkward.

I can't think of any disadvantage to toe walking except that people make fun of you for it, and that it gives you a shorter stride so you must take more steps to go the same speed.

I used to walk on my toes in childhood as well. Still have an unusual gait, despite years of physiotherapy.

i don't find it hard if i wear thin flexible shoes which i do a lot, things like converse etc. skate shoes not so easy. i find that my top speed for walking is with shorter strides and i'm pretty sure that is normal.

i often don't swing my arms but it is considerably more efficient if you do.

Eh, I meant it is hard compared to when wearing the 'fivefinger' foot-glove shoes. Before I got them, I didn't realise how awkward my shoes (converse knockoffs) made things.

Since I got my first pair of VFFs, a year and a half ago, that is the *only* shoe I will ever wear. For me, it's definitely about proprioceptive difficulties.

(although I'm also a toe-walker and just today I was reading an article by a doctor who believes that toe walking is due to a visual-vestibular issue and claims to have stopped it in children 100% of the time by having them wear some kind of prismatic glasses for one year. I didn't pursue that any farhter, though, because I figure a. my brain is less plastic than that of a child so it's less likely to change me and b. I'm not troubled by my toe walking and feel no need to change it.)

For me, the big difficulty with "conventional" shoes was that I would fall down at least once per day, often three or four times. Also, when walking, I frequently turned my ankle - not enough to cause injury, but my foot would come down and just roll off to the side so that I was stepping on the outside of my foot instead of the bottom. Since switching to VFFs (the Vibram FiveFinger "glove-like" shoe Electric_Kite was describing, for those reading this who aren't familiar with the product) I have not fallen down once! Not once in a year and a half after falling down while walking EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE.

The way I figure it, anyone who wants to hire me is going to have to put up with the shoes. I will never go back to "traditional" shoes. They are like wearing a cast on my feet and I put a pair on once after wearing only VFFs for half a year and I felt like Frankenstein's monster walking in those awful, clumpy things! Plus I only walked about four blocks in them and the next day my whole body hurt so much I couldn't leave the house.

I have been told by a few people that I "walk just like a model" and my mother used to complain about me walking too "sexy" and would tell me to "cut it out!" At first I thought they were making fun of me, but I saw video of myself walking, and I think I understand what they meant- I sort of reminded myself of certain types of large cat, putting one foot directly infront of the other and walking fast but smoothly while holding my back straight and my head very high (this probably has something to do with people thinking I'm a stuck-up overconfident jerk). However, sometimes if I stand in one spot for too long I will start to fall over. When I am walking straight for a long time I always start zigzagging and sometimes when I try to step over something I start to fall over and end up standing on one leg for several seconds flailing my arms to catch my balance- sometimes even spinning in place. So, I go from confident model walk to spinning around on one leg with my arms waving in a panic. Very recently I have been trying to keep my feet apart more because I figured the way I was walking was making it easier for me to lose my balance. Now I sway from side to side a lot and probably look generally clumsy and very unsexy all the time, but I seem to fall over suddenly without warning a lot less (I fall over less, but I still fall over)
I don't think I have the best control over my muscles...

OP, I am not sure what you should do. Perhaps you should look up some PT techniques and try them out.

My parents told me I took a long time to learn to walk when I was a baby. I stagger when I walk so bad, cops have pulled me aside to check my pupils. I also loose my balance just standing still to the point that I almost fall over. I also took a long time before I got use to riding a bike without training wheels. Its also the reason I do not drive a car.