Podiatrist · Specialist in Biomechanics · Founder of VOLKAN
"The body does not compensate because it is wrong. It compensates because it wants to keep moving forward."
"I have been told that I walk compensating"
Many patients arrive worried about that phrase.
As if compensating were some kind of failure of the organism.
As if their body had chosen the wrong path.
However, I always ask them the same question.
—If tomorrow you were to immobilize one arm... would you stop getting dressed?
The answer is always the same.
No.
They would look for another way.
They would use the other arm more.
They would change their posture.
It would take them a little longer.
But they would find a solution.
That is also compensating.
And no one would say that the body is functioning poorly.
We would say exactly the opposite.
It is doing everything possible to remain functional.
The organism always seeks a way out.
Our brain has a very clear priority.
To keep us moving.
It doesn't matter if there is a small injury.
If fatigue appears.
If a muscle does not work the same as yesterday.
The nervous system tries to reorganize movement so that we can continue doing the task.
Sometimes it uses other muscles.
Other times it modifies the speed.
At times it changes the distribution of loads.
It can even slightly alter the way you walk.
All of this happens with a very specific goal.
To solve the problem with the available resources.
Compensation is real-time adaptation.
Throughout the book we have talked many times about adaptation.
Compensations are one of its most visible expressions.
They do not appear because the body is confused.
They appear because the organism needs to respond immediately to a new situation.
Imagine that you are walking on a path and suddenly step on a stone.
You don’t have time to think.
The brain reorganizes movement in just a few fractions of a second.
It changes the support.
It modifies the muscle tension.
It redistributes the weight.
You have compensated.
And thanks to that you probably won’t fall.
Compensation is adaptation working in real time.
When does it stop being useful?
Here comes the real nuance.
A useful strategy for a few days may stop being the best option weeks or months later.
An injured ankle needs protection.
But if a year later we are still walking exactly the same way as during the injury, the organism may have lost other possibilities for movement.
Not because the compensation was bad.
But because it stopped updating.
The brain retained a solution that had worked very well in the past.
But the context had already changed.
And the system still hadn't realized.
The brain always chooses the best option... of the ones it knows
There is an idea that seems fascinating to me.
The brain never deliberately chooses a worse strategy.
It always selects the one it considers safest and most effective with the information it has at that moment.
If it maintains a compensation for a long time, it is probably not because it wants to.
It is because it still hasn't learned an alternative it considers better.
That’s why many times treatment does not consist of eliminating a compensation.
It consists of teaching the organism new options.
When more effective alternatives appear, the body usually abandons the old strategies on its own.
What does this have to do with barefoot?
A lot.
There are people who start using more flexible footwear and discover movements they hadn't performed in years.
The toes participate again.
The foot explores new supports.
It changes the way loads are distributed.
At the beginning, small compensations may appear.
It’s completely normal.
The nervous system is exploring.
It is comparing strategies.
It is learning.
Over time, if the process is progressive and respects the capacity of the organism to adapt, many of those compensations cease to be necessary because more efficient solutions appear.
Not because someone has prohibited them.
But because the brain finds better options.
What I see every day in consultation
Many times a patient arrives convinced that their body is "badly accustomed."
I don't see it that way.
I see an organism that has done exactly what it needed to do to keep functioning.
Perhaps that strategy is no longer the best.
But it was useful.
And recognizing that merit completely changes the way to approach treatment.
We do not fight against the body.
We give it new opportunities to reorganize.
That difference seems small.
But it completely transforms the relationship between the patient and their recovery.
What you can do starting today
The next time you discover a movement that seems like a compensation, avoid thinking immediately that you must eliminate it.
First, ask yourself a question.
What problem is my body trying to solve with this strategy?
Understanding the function of a compensation is often much more useful than trying to correct it without understanding why it appeared.
The organism rarely does things for no reason.
🔬 In a sentence
Compensations are not errors of the body. They are temporary solutions that the nervous system uses to keep functioning.
The most important idea
Compensation is part of biological intelligence.
Thanks to that ability we can keep moving even when the circumstances change.
The true goal of biomechanics is not to eliminate all compensations.
It is about expanding the organism's repertoire of solutions so that it does not always depend on the same strategy.
Because the more options the body has, the greater its ability to adapt.
And adaptation remains the best definition of health we have found so far.
A question to reflect on
Think of any physical limitation you have had in recent years.
What if what you now consider a defect was just the best solution your body found to protect you at that moment?
In the next article…
So far we have talked about movement from the perspective of the organism.
But there is an idea that can completely change the way we understand health.
What if the goal had never been to avoid all injuries?
What if the true goal was to develop a body capable of recovering better when they inevitably appear?
In the next chapter we will talk about a fundamental concept in biology and modern medicine: the capacity for recovery, or physical resilience.
We will discover that health is not about being indestructible.
It is about being extraordinarily adaptable.