How do you Treat your Feet?

Feet are incredibly supportive appendages at the end of our legs. Made of 26 bones, and acting as an anchor for over 100 different tendons, ligaments, and muscles. It seems insulting to shove them into colorful, overly small rubber coverings to impress others. Many people are put in shoes for the amusement of others before they even walk! Hard shoes deprive feet of precious stimuli that might make our feet grow strong and able to support all our activities. Typical shoes push the toes together, destabilizing our natural base and our body as a whole. I’m going to tell you all about your feet, why they are important, and how to equip them for the best results. 

The Toes 

Your foot should be it’s widest at the end of your toes, not the ball of your foot. With your toes immobilized, the muscles of your low leg are also limited. The longer you spend with your toes pushed together and immobilized, the more strongly your body will respond to that. Your toes will become weak, feeble, and unsupportive as your body relies on the hard surface of the bottom of your shoe. Your big toe is a major line of support that should be lined up with your knee, typical shoes push the big toe in and also lift it up leaving the great point of contact at the ball of the foot. When the line of support is compromised, the adaptation your body makes is actually A BUNION. High heels accelerate this, but pretty much any typical shoe can cause it. Bunions don’t just happen, it is an enlargement of the joint to provide greater support. A step further, your big toe is the end of your deep front line, a line of muscles that goes up to your head, on which your hip flexor (psoas) lies. If your big toe is not engaged in your stance, your hip flexor is less likely to function, and can make you much less effective physically, and even lead to chronic pains in your back and hips ( near either end of the hip flexors ). Getting a wide shoe will remedy this, and if your toes are pressed together firmly, a set of toe spacers may also be in order, more on this later. 

The Heel 

Many of the most popular shoes have a hard bottom, and a raised heel. This pushes the body forward onto the toes, and effects the way gravity works on the body. Instead of just resisting the vertical compressive forces, now your body must hold your weight through your posterior chain to a much greater degrees. This creates additional stress on the ankles, the hamstrings, and the low back etc. This will also keep the calves stiff and inflexible. I have worked with many people (including myself) who have made the switch to flat shoes and seen wonderful results. Any raise in the heel can be an issue, so obviously high heels are death for your body. Your body is always responding to the positions that you spend time in and use, raising your heel comes with a set of adaptations, just like any other way position or activity.

The Sensory Nervous System

Your feet are actually very rich in nerve endings, just as many as your hands. The SAID principle works both ways, up and down regulating aspects of your body to match their use. When you wear hard, well padded shoes you are depriving your feet of a ton of stimulation. Stimulation that is valuable for your balance, and your entire body as it moves, including your hips and back. Your body will learn to use your hard shoes just fine, and you can have good balance that way. When you are not getting the stimulation of the surfaces you walk in with your feet, the sensory aspects of your feet down regulate. This will make your feet less tactile, and also cause them to stiffen up over time. This can lead to uncomfortable conditions like plantar fasciitis where the many layers of fascia tighten down to match the shape of your shoes, this can even make walking barefoot painful simply because your foot has lost its mobility to support the way you typically use it. Some great professionals in the field suggest walking barefoot on varied surfaces regularly, even making a texture pads to stand on at home to upregulate the sensory systems of your feet. Having a strong connection to the ground through your feet can quite literally make you or break you.

Your Arches

We all have the same bones, and the same muscles, with very small differentiations in the minute shapes of bones. Your arch is not a bony structure, it is a muscular one. You can train your feet to be arched, or flat. With practice, this can change. I was a very flat footed child with poor ankles and knees. I have trained myself out of these positions, and unless I am being mindless or intentionally pronating, I have strong capable arches. If your arches are stuck in a fallen position, your hips and back will also be limited. Taking the supports from your arch, and using your feet intentionally will let your feet know you need them to support themselves, and you. With time, they will. The more support you give your feet, the less support they will offer you. After a point, no orthotic in the world will properly support a completely downregulated foot. The only option is to change what you’re doing and ask your feet to do more, they will.

The Solution

Find some shoes that are flat and wide. Many companies are now making ‘barefoot’ shoes, or ‘foot-shaped shoes’. My choice, and a company that I am an affiliate with is Xero Shoes. They have done some great work to bring foot shaped shoes out into the public eye, and educate people about their feet. The shoes are very thin, allowing your to feel everything you step on, and very wide to increase the tactility of your toes. They make sandals that secure with out a thong between the toes to keep the mechanics of your gait natural. Many other companies such as Lems, FreeBarefoot, Vibrams, and many others are making similar shoes. 

Toe spacers are a solution for waking up your toes. I am wearing mine right now. I use Correctoes, which were designed by a doctor and can fit inside many foot shaped shoes. I have been using them for over 4 years and the results have been absolutely phenomenal. Many other kinds are also available at lower prices for use in and out of shoes. I highly recommend wearing them, and stimulating your toes to work with some space between them. It may be a little sore, you may need to limit your use at first. After some consistent exposure, your toes will begin to adapt to the stimulus and grow apart, become tactile. I figure skated a lot as a kid, so my toes were all kinds of smash, twisted, and shoved together. At this point in my life, only one of them is a little sideways, and I no longer have flat feet unless I hold them that way. I wear my toe spacers every day that I wear closed to shoes, and sometimes when I sleep. This will prevent my bunion from getting worse and keep my feet healthy and tactile. 

Consider putting in some work to make a better relationship with your feet. Walk barefoot. Wiggle your toes! Try some flat wide shoes. Ask more from your feet, they will deliver. Falls are a big problem for older people, this is your chance to make getting older easier on yourself.