10 Aug Flat feet (Yoga in Heston & Hounslow)
We all wear shoes in the modern world but have we stopped to think if there are any ill effects to not spending time walking and moving barefoot. Do shoes actually harm our feet?
The following is an edited extract from Daniel E. Lieberman’s brilliant book “The Story of the Human Body”. If you have time I highly recommend reading it. If you have issues with your feet hopefully this will help you understand why.
“Shoes are now ubiquitous in the developed world, where being barefoot is often considered eccentric, vulgar, or unhygienic.
In reality, shoes have benefits but also some costs, which we often fail to consider because wearing shoes has become normal and commonplace. In addition, most shoes, especially athletic shoes, are extremely comfortable. Most people assume that any comfortable shoe must also be healthy. But is this assumption true?
The drawback of thick-soled shoes is that they limit sensory perception. You have a rich, extensive network of nerves on the bottom of your feet that provides vital information to your brain about the ground beneath you and that activates key reflexes that help you avoid injury when you sense something sharp, uneven, or hot underfoot.
Any shoe interferes with this feedback. In fact, even socks lessen stability, which explains why martial artists, many dancers, and yoga practitioners prefer to go barefoot to enhance their sensory awareness.
Many shoes, including running shoes, have an arch support, which props up the arch of the foot. A normal foot arch looks like a half dome and naturally flattens a little when you walk, stretching to help stiffen the foot and transfer your weight to the ball of the big toe.
When you run, the arch collapses much more, acting like a giant spring that stores and releases energy, helping push you into the air. Your foot has about a dozen ligaments and four layers of muscles that hold the arch’s bones together.
Just as a neck brace relieves your neck muscles from supporting your head, an arch support in your shoe relieves the foot’s ligaments and muscles from having to hold up the arch.
Arch supports are therefore built into many shoes because they lessen how much work the foot’s muscles have to do. Another labour-saving feature is a stiff sole, which allows the foot’s muscles to work less hard to push your body forward and upward (this is why walking on a sandy beach can tire your feet). Most shoes also have a sole that curves upward toward the front. This curvature, called a toe spring, requires less muscular effort when your toes push off at the end of stance.
Arch supports and stiff, curved soles are unquestionably comfortable, but they can lead to several problems. One of the most common is flat feet, which occurs when the foot’s arch either doesn’t develop or it collapses permanently.
About 25 percent of Americans have flat feet and thus are more likely to suffer from discomfort and sometimes injury, because a fallen arch changes the way the foot works, causing improper movements in the ankle, knee, and even the hips.
The problem is mostly caused by weak foot muscles, which otherwise help create and maintain the shape of the arch. Studies that compare habitually barefoot and shod people have found that barefoot people almost never have flat feet but instead have much more consistently shaped arches, neither low nor high. I have examined vast numbers of feet, and I have almost never seen a flat arch in any habitually barefoot person, reinforcing my belief that flat feet are an evolutionary mismatch.”
At Sefali’s Yoga we start the session with barefoot functional walking to help build the muscles in our feet which have become weak through our modern lifestyle. We also include 3 point toe raises which further help to strengthen the feet and build the arch in the foot. A major focus of our classes is addressing the imbalances in our bodies brought about by our modern lifestyles. These imbalances cause unnecessary pain and suffering.
Next time we will look at another common problem that may occur from wearing shoes called plantar fasciitis.
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