Look at Your Feet

About a month ago I spent a day with Dr. Emily Splichal of Evidence Based Fitness Academy.  She is unique in that she is a podiatrist with an extensive background in fitness.  There were significant insights that day.  I’ll briefly talk about two.

The first is that we really need to pay attention to our feet.  The foot is where it all starts.  How your foot contacts the ground determines how the whole body moves.  Ask yourself some questions.  What part of your foot holds your body weight?  Are your feet turned out?  Is one turned out?  Is one foot bearing more weight than the other?  Look at the illustration from the course material below.  Ignore the words, just look at the arrows and levels.  That skeleton’s left foot can cause that particular skeleton to experience knee pain, hip pain, back pain, shoulder pain, or all the above.

Your foot dysfunction could be caused by an ankle you twisted 10 years ago.  It could have healed, but it’s still a little stiff. You may not even notice this stiffness in your everyday life.  You may have also changed the way you walk to compensate for this prior pain.  It doesn’t hurt anymore, but you still walk differently.  Now your knee and back hurt as well.  Look at your feet in the mirror.  Have somebody snap a photo from the back.  Look for asymmetry. Look for duck feet.  Look for collapsed ankles and arches.  It could present differently as you stand, walk, or run.  Check all 3.

The second, is that we need to be barefoot more.  We have receptors embedded in the skin of our feet.  These receptors give our body feedback for balance, reaction time, etc.  Being in a minimalist shoe is great, but some work should still be done barefoot if possible. This barefoot work will increase  the activation of foot muscles, which will then increase activation of muscles in the hips and core.  When you stand barefoot, push that big toe into the ground…then feel your arch engage.   Dr. Splichal calls this technique short foot.  Here is a clip of an exercise to do while practicing short foot.

If you have inserts or foot pain,  talk to your Doctor or Physical Therapist first.  Try things out in low doses and see what happens before you go crazy with it.  I have seen people switch to minimalist shoes from traditional running shoes with little to no transition time.  Often an injury occurs.