Well balanced feet support us with stabilizing both the body and the mind. Rigid feet which lack tone and elasticity require a bigger effort to keep physical and mental balance. With this blogpost I would like to explore the importance of this distal region of the body, our feet.
Are you consciously aware of how you stand or walk? Do you pay attention to how you engage your toes, the balls of your feet and heels when you shift weight from one foot to the other and move? For many people walking is like breathing – an autonomous activity, it just happens, they never spend a thought on it. Unlike me. At least not after I turned 20 something and had to pay my first visit to an orthopaedic physician after several months of knee pain. The doctor glanced at my bare feet and then asked me to show him my shoes which I had left outside his room. When I stood in front of him again holding my impressive 10cm heeled boots, his message was short and simple: “You can throw these shoes away when you get home. Or even better, go and buy new ones immediately,” he added. “Why?” I protested, painfully aware of my modest personal financial situation and unwanted new expenses. “You have flat feet and maximum heel length of the shoes that your feet can handle without pain and discomfort is up to 5 centimetres. Everything higher will just make it worse,” he added. (For hypermobility and its effects, including lax connective tissue in feet, read my other blogpost on this topic)
Fast forward 25+ years and yes, high heeled shoes have not been my regular footwear since then. I buy only anatomically comfortable shoes which have good cushioning and low heels. And in addition to ordinary training – yoga, running, dancing, gym and what not, I have spent countless hours on special exercises for my feet to make sure that the arches would not collapse. And mind you, I do not have flat feet anymore. This requires daily routines for toe raises, extensions and curls in various ways, ankle rotations, balancing on one foot, picking up objects from the ground with toes, stretching Archilles tendon, walking on tiptoe, using elastic bands and balls in different sizes and with or without spikes to strengthen my feet and keep them toned.
As soon as I get lazy, my feet will tell me: “Kairi, you have been slacking again. If you do not get your act together in a couple of days, your knees will start hurting. You will start putting your body weight mainly on your heels. And when you do not distribute your body weight evenly over the entire sole of the foot, we (my feet) will start overpronating. And when you do not exercise your arches properly, the pronation will only get worse. And then this will aggravate the inward rotation of your legs as the main leg bone tibia will turn inward. After this, your knees will also rotate inward, your pelvis will tilt more forward which compromises your overall balance and increases the effort you need for postural control. After a while you will discover that you need to use more muscle power to keep yourself upright and stand with ease. Are you really sure that you want to scrap your daily exercise routine?”
About a quarter of all your bones in the body reside in feet (the other quarter is in hands). In addition to 26 bones, each foot, including the ankle, has 33 joints, 30 something muscles and over 100 ligaments. In comparison, the hip joint has only 3 bones and 4 main ligaments although it is much bigger in size and serves a somewhat different function. Our feet are a complicated orchestra – you are the conductor over one hundred musicians and they all need to play at your command and preferably the same tune. The conductor needs to know how capable the orchestra is (the condition of the feet) and ensure that the musicians get to rehearse regularly (exercise). This orchestra needs constant stimulation (walking barefoot, movement). Otherwise, it will not be able to perform the most intricate symphonies as some musicians get out of practice.
Yes, feet are amazing. Intricate, delicate structures, and yet extremely strong, able to carry much heavier stuff than just one’s body mass. During an active day while roaming in the nature or in a city, not just sitting in the (home) office, our feet will take an accumulative force of a couple of hundred tons. When we walk, each foot will take on average 1.5 times our body weight and up to 5 times while running. The heavier the body, the more wear and tear this means for one’s joints.
One simple way to know more about one’s feet is to try to stand. Close your eyes and become aware of the feet. Pay attention to which part of each foot takes most of the body weight – is it front or back or in the middle? Is it outer edge or inner edge of the feet? Sometimes just one look at old stockings or your favourite well-worn shoes can give a good insight into how feet are used. People with flat feet (ie low or non-existent arches) usually wear down the heels of their socks – after a while the heel will look like a thin spider web. And the more unaligned and out-of-shape feet are, the more difficult it is for them to absorb shock.
Excessive pronation or supination in feet manifests in shoes where the heel part is more worn down from the inner (pronation) or outer edge (supination) of the heel. This happens due to the arch of the foot collapsing extensively during running or walking when the foot hits the ground and if there is a tendency for overpronation (ie putting more weight on the inner edge of feet). For the ones who have very little movement in the arch, this may lead to supination (ie using outer edges of the feet to take the weight and absorb shock).
I have noticed that quite many people use their toes as a stress ball. Without being aware of this, they subconsciously cramp all five toes together when they are overstimulated physically or mentally. Have you seen how some people press their lips together when they lift weights in a gym or do last push-ups of a series, the body already struggling with excess lactic acid, the face red from the effort and lack of oxygen, the muscles screaming “stop, stop, STOP!”? Quite many of those heavy-duty exercisers are not aware that at the same time as their face turns into a wrinkled red grape, their toes kind of do the same. It takes a lot of coaxing to bring back space between the toes once it has disappeared. Yet, this space is very much needed – being able to stand with the toes spread out gives more stability and a better balance as there is a bigger area to stand and balance on.
Feet are the foundation of the body and when this foundation starts to crumble, cracks also start appearing elsewhere. Sometimes it even hard to detect problems back to one’s feet as they manifest in another region in the body. In yoga there is a pose called Tadasana, Mountain Pose which essentially means active standing with engaged feet, somewhat flattened spinal curves (by engaging the core muscles) with arms relaxed beside the torso, palms facing inward, shoulders rounded back and a slight engagement of stomach muscles (which supports flattening the spinal curves, especially in the lumbar spine). The body weight should be distributed evenly across the foot and before standing still, one is encouraged to sway side to side and forward and back on the feet and lift the heels and toes to become aware of one’s balance centre and how the feet are engaged. Mountain Pose is best done with feet hip distance apart, not big toes touching as the first option is anatomically much more comfortable and natural for the body, especially for women whose hips are bigger (proportionally and in relation to their own body) than men’s. Anyway, there is a reason why standing and not doing much else is not that simple and why this pose is called a mountain pose. Stability starts in the feet and only when feet are strong can they form a base that one can lean on without swaying and shifting and wobbling too much. A mountain which is an inverted pyramid can be easily toppled by forces of nature or collapse on itself.
Spring is in the air and soon it is possible to walk barefoot on green grass. This is an opportunity not to be missed – feet love being detached from their protective wrappings from time to time and getting challenged on uneven surfaces. They do not want to be caged all the time. Otherwise they do not get sufficient stimulation. Always buy good quality and suitable in size and shape training shoes – this purchase is not a matter of fashion but function. Everyone’s feet are unique so you cannot refer to your friends or a family member in what is best for you – you have to use yourself as a reference point. In any case, give your feet the love, care and attention that they deserve, do not underestimate this intricate area which is expected to serve and carry the rest of you throughout your lifetime. For some people this can be a real life-changer.
More reading:
More on pronation and supination: https://soulinsole.com/pages/over-supination-vs-pronation
A good illustration of how excessive pronation and supination can affect the health of feet (and I am not encouraging to buy the products, just using this to illustrate how shoes can make a difference or make matters worse:
https://www.asics.com/gb/en-gb/running-advice/understanding-pronation-find-the-right-shoes-for-you/
https://www.runningwarehouse.com/learningcenter/gear_guides/footwear/pronation.html
Mountain pose and how to do it: https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/mountain-pose/