Improve Your Balance - Get Naked….feet
Oh those big clunky sneakers!
I have a thing against them. It seems like “everyone” is wearing them as their daily footwear.
Originally what was footwear meant for running, has become every day wear for everything. We are told we need a stable shoe, a shoe with support, or a shoe to help with pronation or supination.
So we take the “magic pill” (shoe) to help fix what we are lead to believe is broken.
First your feet aren’t broken and two the shoes, in the long run, don’t help. But what I do see are feet growing “stupid”.
My top 3 reasons to get naked and make the feet smart again.
1) Perception. First the cushioning in the sneaker actually takes away or dulls the nerves of the feet that are sending sensory information from the feet to the brain to then control balance and posture in the body. The wearer becomes less aware of their body in space, their proprioception. If the wearer is in them for 8 hours or more each day, the feet talk less and less to the brain with each passing day. Standing on a soft, cushy surface actually makes it harder to balance, not easier or better. As a personal trainer if I want to make a move harder or more challenging then I have them do it on a softer surface. It is more challenging to stabilize the body on a softer surface, easier on a firm surface.
A firm surface allows for the sensory conversation from the nerves to the brain.
2) Balance. Second is the stack or height of the sneaker. The sole of the sneaker is higher off the ground therefore the wearer looking, and perhaps feeling, less and less stable. The opposite of what we want and need as we get older. The wearer has a greater fall risk when combining the loss of sensory sharing in the brain from the cushioning, and the height off the ground. They are growing more vulnerable to injury.
3) Gait. Third is the sneaker is more rigid. It can be so stiff the wearer can’t make them bend therefor it limits or completely extinguishes foot dexterity. The shoe doesn’t bend so neither can the toes. The toes need to bend for both balance and stability.
Fix your feet freeing them to make them smarter, improve balance and more mobile. To improve the function of the foot, there is no magic pill in the long run, is to address your foot health.
For balance and stability the toes need to bend.
I see many stiff feet and toes in my classes.
I watch people my age and older move with an awkward gate, stiff feet, and poor balance and posture.
To begin to address foot health to make them intelligent again, I ask them to take off their shoes during class as an initiation. You can start here as well.
Start at home. Let the foot make contact with the ground/floor to begin to feel the skin, weight, and position of the foot on the surface. There is no cushioning to dull the sensors in the feet-the sensors can begin talking to the brain-for some it’s been years if you’ve been constantly wearing cushioned shoes.
Without the stack of the shoe, your foot is actually flat on your standing surface, you may notice the heel/achilles is stretching since the stack can shorten the heel cord. It now gets to stretch. But, gradually work into being barefoot to allow the body to adjust. For example-the heel cord will need to gradually adjust to it’s new position when without shoes or you could end up with a strain. Spend short periods of time out of the stacked cushy shoes, then put them back on. Slowly the duration of them off grows longer and longer until you are ready for a flat shoe.
With my class attendees, I encourage them to get something like a converse all star sneaker-yup the one’s you wore as a kid.
Lastly to improve the mobility of the foot a tennis ball or golf ball can be a good place to start. Spend at least 2-3 minutes on each foot each day. The morning can be a good time to wake things up. It can be a simple as rolling one foot at a time with a golf ball. You want the muscles and fascia of the foot to slide and glide, bend and twist while also waking up the nerves.
A gold ball can be a great way to wake up the nerves and mobilize the muscles, fascia and joints of the foot.
Now that you have read through this put these 3 tips into practice.
Let’s see what happens.
For more information on foot health with renowned functional podiatrist Dr. Emily Splichal you can listen here:
https://thereadystate.com/trs_podcast/emily-splichal-foot-health/