A Road Map to Functional Feet
We’re all in the same boat
Most people have a degree of dysfunctional feet. However most people go about their daily life completely unaware and unbothered. It is only when something goes wrong that we might notice. Often the chronic dysfunction is reduced to an acute issue which is approached with a quick fix solution. Plantar fasciitis, shin splints, over-pronation, bad backs, knee pain etc. Buy new shoes, orthotics, chiropractic treatment, sports therapy etc. Although all of these solutions have a place, often the root cause of the issue is ignored. It’s often our lifestyle choices which cause pain and dysfunction. It’s how we move our bodies on a daily basis which causes most of our pain.
The following article will help highlight the life long issues inflicted onto our feet and bodies and signpost you towards actions you can take. I have personally never turned back since my “lightbulb moment” but it took me 27 years to figure it out.
We didn’t evolve to wear shoes.
We spend most of our life in shoes. We are of course animals and we spent many millenia without any shoes so it should be no surprise that we don’t need shoes to function and in fact they might be hindering our natural ability to function correctly. Like our brains not needing a calculator to make a simple calculation but if we use a calculator too often we lose our mental arithmetic prowess. The body generally works on a “use it or lose it” basis. We shouldn’t be surprised that this applies also to our feet. Throughout this article I will highlight why a lot of shoes make our feet weaker.
Shoes affect the mechanics of your feet
The challenges that footwear bring to your feet are not always obvious. A shoe which doesn’t fit your foot might be easier to notice but the subtle design features built into shoes are quite hard to notice and very easy to get used to, as they often make walking feel better.
Toe Spring
Toe spring built into a lot of shoes assists with rolling over the ball of the foot onto the toes before driving off. Toe spring is a necessity of shoe design when the sole is too stiff to allow the foot to flex naturally. The toes have to dorsiflex but with a thick sole they can’t. So instead the shoe design places them in a permanent dorsiflexed state. Sichting et al (2020) studied the joint kinematics of a varying degree of toe spring compared with a completely flat foot. They found that the more toe spring , the less work the intrinsic muscles in the foot had to do. They therefore suggested that toe spring contributes to weakening the muscles of the foot which could be a pathology for many foot disorders. Effectively toe spring allows your feet to be lazy. Again, use it or lose it!
Narrow toe box
Most shoes are not “foot shaped” because at some point in history we decided that shoes look best when they were pointy at the end. We effectively give ourselves a cage for our feet to operate within. This leads to a restructuring of the foot, an inability for all the joints in the feet to move in the ways that they naturally should.
Heel Lift
Heel lift has a similar impact as toe spring but it also tips the entire body forward affecting how every joint above the feet then functions. Stand on a downward slope and you have to tilt the pelvis, torso and head to counteract the forward lean or you would just fall forwards. This is happening every moment you spend in a shoe with a heel lift. If you aren’t tipped forwards it’s because you’ve shortened your achilles and spend your entire life in ankle plantar-flexion thus shortening the posterior chain of the ankles.
Heel cushioning
Excessive padding underneath the feet does many detrimental things.
It encourages us to heel strike harder as the heel is a lot closer to the ground sooner in the gait cycle.
It ruins proprioceptive awareness of the foot. It’s like typing with oven gloves on. A thick padding ruins sensory feedback to your central nervous system meaning you will keep making poor movement choices not matter how hard you try.
A thick sole is going to be stiffer and reduce the foot’s natural desire to flex and extend joints throughout the gait cycle.
What can we do?
The good news is there’s a lot you can do. Change your shoes, spend more time without any shoes on and challenge your feet in different ways. Research found a 57.4% increase in foot strength in 6 months by simply changing footwear to minimalist barefoot shoes (Curtis et al 2021). Combine a change in footwear choices with deliberate exercises and movement choices and you could have considerably improved feet in 6 months from now!
Move your feet and your body more.
Ultimately most foot dysfunction is due to the foot not being able to move in the way that it should. This is often due to a chronic lack of movement or an acute trauma which has left the brain forgetting or avoiding a particular joint movement. So we need to practice new movements and understand how they tie into the rest of our body. I’d strongly recommend you start with MyFootFunction’s online courses and Gary Ward’s Wake Your Feet Up course.
Online Courses and Tools
Gary Ward - Anatomy In Motion Author of “What the Foot!”, a lot of the courses are about body awareness, activation and correct movement. A lot of overuse injuries throughout the body can be explained by understanding what joints are moving too much and which are moving too little. Wake your Feet Up is worth doing. Using wedges to help show your feet different shapes and movements can be an enlightening journey.
My Foot Function Foot rehabilitation tools and techniques. The ultimate online foot geeks. Very practical exercises that will help rebuild foot strength and mobility. They also have courses on running technique, mobility, and strength and conditioning. I’m not trying to make money off affiliate links but I have figured out I can save you 10% off using the code I created : BIKEFIT I think I get a few pennies out of it. Next stop Monaco!
MOBOboard Effectively is a balance board that is designed with a hollow box under your little toes to prevent you from using a gripping strategy, and teaches you, and your feet, to drive your big toe down to find stability through your arch. The need to balance and coordinate your hips and upper body with your feet is really powerful.
Finding Shoes
Look for manufacturers which talk about how your feet work inside their shoes. Vivo, Altra and Lems all sing from a similar sheet …. “Shoes should be foot-shaped”.
Altra Zero Drop Road and Trail running shoes
Lems Shoes (Uk Retailer Footworks )
Vivo Barefoot ( and Reconditioned “Revivo”)
Shoe Manufacturers Vocabulary
“Zero Drop” : The heels and the forefoot are at the same height. A more natural way of standing and walking which maintains Achilles length and prevents the entire body from compensating for standing on a constant slope. These may or may not have a thick sole.
“Barefoot” : Shoes which have very minimal sole throughout the length of the shoe. Allowing the foot the flex and have much more increased sensory feedback.
The most comprehensive resource I have found is https://barefootshoefinder.com/
References
Curtis, R., Willems, C., Paoletti, P. et al. Daily activity in minimal footwear increases foot strength. Sci Rep 11, 18648 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98070-0
Sichting, F., Holowka, N.B., Hansen, O.B. et al. Effect of the upward curvature of toe springs on walking biomechanics in humans. Sci Rep 10, 14643 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71247-9
