Why is our female culture so obsessed with their accessories, namely footwear?
Especially when this footwear is known to cause physical grief including calluses, hammertoes, shortened Achilles tendons, shin splints, knee problems, hip problems and back problems, to name a few.
I don't get it!
One of my professional philosophies is that each person's feet tell a story. Not in a window-into-your-soul type of story, rather they can tell me how you treat your body.
How? Well, thanks for asking. Your feet are dead last in the chain of command, the lost link which ends up taking up the brunt of the abuse that you dish out on the rest of your body.
Your feets are required to have adequate mobility and stability in order to protect the integrity of all the joints above them. Without this flexibility in the feet, the rest of your body is forced to compensate leading to irregular stress on the connective tissues, ligaments and surrounding musculature.
The dynamics of our feet are constantly changing depending on our chosen footwear, sporting activities and normal wear and tear. So, how are they supposed to move!?
- You should be able to lift each toe off the floor one by one, starting from the big toe and moving to the little toe. The reverse order should be performed with equal ease.
- Experiment with your hands. Place your hands on the table. Lift one finger at a time. The toes are wired in the same way and should therefore have the same fine tuned mobility and strength.
- As you walk, you should roll over the ankle joint without the foot falling inwards or arching outwards. WIth too much mobility (fallen arches) your ankle will tend to roll inwards and with too much stability you will walk on the edges of the feet.
- Exercises where you practice lifting and fanning out the toes, along with marbles and towel exercises can help you achieve balanced feet.
Ever find yourself doing something (maybe exercise related) and look down to see your toes curled over, tensing to help you accomplish the task at hand? Have you found that after a night of wearing uncomfortable shoes, it affects the rest of your body? Have you considered or used apres sport sandals to treat your dogs?
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8 comments:
the most amazing thing to me was to watch my daughter learn to walk and how she employ her feet and her TOES in the manner you describe.
it was all so innate and NATURAL.
xo xo,
Miz, who wears no heels.
I had problems with my feet for years until I had surgery on both pinkie toes a year or so ago (reshaped the bones to allow shoes to fit properly.) It really does make a difference in energy levels if your feet aren't screaming at you all the time.
I have never in my life been able to do the separate toes thing, although I can pick things up quite easily. When I was a kid we used to play jacks with our feet, just for the challenge.
I wore prescription arch support shoes all the time I was growing up. After several years of ballet, and now all these years of yoga, my arches are much better.
Mary Anne in Kentucky (yay! the comment form loaded!)
I cannot pick my toes up individually. That's interesting.
But, that makes sense, that the feet and hands are wired the same.
"You should be able to lift each toe off the floor one by one"
No way!! I think it's genetic the way people can move their toes. My right and left foot move differently with toe flexion.
Maybe toes are different in Tezas :-)
Miz-- Totally cool!
Cammy- it's so true, I just started to do some serious work on my feet and find that it works wonders for the rest of your body!
antgirl-- ha! It is interesting what muscles we choose to employ and those we choose to ignore and how they work differently as a result!
Mary Anne-- Great!!
Dr J-- how do you explain people who have bilateral amputations mid life and begin using their feet for manual tasks like brushing their teeth?? not genetics my friend, movement training...rewiring the brain! It's innate...what do we choose to use?
~rupal
I have so many pairs of cute shoes in my closet, but I can't wear any of them anymore. It's not worth the injury risk.
I love doing the seperating the toes thing! When I learnt to do it in yoga, my feet actually grew because I started straightening my toes out.
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