Yes, it is certainly looking more like spring here in West Michigan. Nevertheless, women of all ages can be spotted wearing the fashionable yet non-supportive boots called Uggs. In fact, poor footwear has become a year-round trend. Summer time is even worse with the women wearing flip-flops, flats, or even no shoes at all.
The more recent trend towards barefoot running and minimal support shoes hasn’t helped much either. “Five finger vibrams” are no more than gloves for your feet. Product information suggests that you can strengthen your feet and allow the body to move more naturally. This is a very compelling argument. So what should you make of it?
Let’s look at the poor support shoes first. Wearing shoes like flats, Uggs and flip-flops provide no arch support your feet. People are surprised to find out that feet actually have 3 arches, medial, lateral and transverse. Any or all of these arches can collapse with injuries such as ankle sprains, or with chronic wear and tear. Similar to a three legged stool, when one or more of these supports is weak, the overall structure loses stability. Arch deterioration often occurs with people who are overweight, or athletes, or with those whose occupations require them to be on their feet all the time. These arches need support. The feet are the foundation for your body. Your body is only as strong as your foundation. Biomechanical collapse of the ankles, knees, hips, pelvis, and spines can and will result.
Another problem is that we often wear out our arches unequally. Imagine, for example a person who played a lot of basketball in high school, and has sprained his right ankle numerous times. The inside (medial) arch has fallen, creating a “rolling in” of the foot (pronation). When this person turns 30 years old, and suddenly wants to start running for health reasons, their right ankle continues to provide inadequate support, causing their knee and hip to rotate inward, and they end up with outside (lateral) knee pain commonly called IT Band Syndrome, and low back pain due to stress at the sacroiliac joint.
Women who wear flats, Uggs and flip-flops have the same problems with uneven loss of the arches. Just like with runners, those who pronate only one foot will have the same internal rotation of the right knee and hip, and the same uneven pelvic alignment causing low back pain. Oppositely, those who supinate more due to a loss of the outside (lateral) arch are more likely to have hip pain. Others may have excessive pronation on both feet. This type of supportive collapse will sometimes result is upper back and neck pain. What happens is a forward pelvic tilt creating increased curvature in the low back. This will create a corresponding increased curve in the upper back and then result in an excessively forward head. Even headaches can sometimes be traced back to the feet.
So what should one make of the claims of improved strength, range of motion and balance of your feet with “barefoot” shoes? These claims do have merit, but only in how you use the shoes, or perhaps lack of them. If you use barefoot running as a training technique, and do no more than 15% of the longest run, you can train your muscles, ligaments and tendons to better support those arches naturally. However, problems often arise with runners training barefoot longer distances than this, or with too quick of an initial increase in mileage. Stress fractures in the metatarsals and tibias of these runners tell the story. These people often have switched to barefoot running for relief of their shin splints or IT Band Syndrome, but end up with stress fractures instead.
So what does one do if you have back pain, hip pain or knee pain? First thing to do is: please wear shoes. Consider that not wearing shoes is generally unacceptable in public, on the job, and in many convenience stores (no shirt, no shoes, and no service!). So we had better get used to the idea of having shoes on our feet. Secondly, since we must wear shoes most of the time, and we live in a flat environment, please make sure these shoes have support. This is, of course, unless you live in a cave with no flooring and no paved roads. Most shoe store salespeople have some basic knowledge of which shoes have good support. Thirdly, if you really want to get some use out of the minimal support shoes you have already purchased, don’t run more than 15% of your total long run in them. Or you can also take up rock climbing as a hobby.
If the shoes seem to have good support, yet you still have foot pain or shin pain, more support might be needed. Podiatrists are often adept at fitting you to custom made orthotics. See your chiropractor if you suspect your back pain, hip pain or knee pain is coming from your feet. Many people don’t realize that Chiropractors are trained to correct malpositions of any joint in the body including feet, knees and hips, as well as spines. Proper foot alignment is essential for any human that is more advanced than a Caveman. Ugg!
