Shoe wear : Strength and balance .
Did you know your feet should be as strong as your hands - your toes as strong as your fingers? Feet and toe strength is critical to balance and can help you to lift more - get stronger
And yet we put feet into socks and thick shoes almost binding our toes restricting their strength. We take long children shove their feet into shoes and make them sit in a chair - no wonder we are getting weaker and injured.
Imagine if we were to put our hands in tight gloves for the entire day ?
As we age the first place we begin to lose our strength is in our feet , ankles and lower legs - calves . An added contributor to the fall epidemic .
I have simple exercise that I perform daily which is putting my socks and shoes on standing up - without touching the working leg to the ground .
Can you do it ?
On a daily basis you should be gripping the floor with your toes . Its integral to balance. You could even take it a step further and perform “ toe yoga “ - see the exercises below.
Working out in bare feet ( as long as you don’t drop anything on them ) makes you aware of literally how much using your toes can actually help you to lift both more weight and activate more musculature in the lower legs - and for sure afterwards you will feel it in your calf muscles
Wearing thick padded trainers for working out in and everyday walking or running - makes your feet weaker , increases overall weakness in the lower legs and believe it or not when running - it increases the force with which you strike the ground.
I am not suggesting you immediately ditch the space shoes - especially for running - if this is what you have been used to - but all I would encourage you to think about is that we were - as the famous book suggests - born to run - and in doing so our feet were actually designed to run barefoot.
Going back to primitive days we would catch our prey ( animals ) because of our running endurance . Its not that we could run faster than the animals we were trying to catch but rather we are designed to run for extended periods so we would literally tire them out .
This was not done in a pair of Nike space shoes but would have been done barefoot The soles of our feet are designed to grow thick skin . Putting feet into very padded shoes is like putting hands in boxing gloves -:Which produces more force ? - the boxing glove or the bare fist ? Well its the boxing glove . The extra padding not only causes you to strike with more force but also it forces a heel strike and we were designed to strike with the ball of our feet.
With so much padding and protection you do not feel the ground , I have seen people squatting in running shoes and it is really difficult to get your centre of gravity right . A deadlift is pushing the floor away from you - gripping the floor with your toes - you cannot even feel the floor in these thick soled shoes
In the UK the slipper wearing culture further weakens the feet - people never wear bare feet .
Wearing bare feet you are more kinaesthetically aware , you land with lighter impact naturally , your legs develop strength to absorb impact and your ankles also get stronger. Try wearing bare feet and gradually get used to wearing more minimal shoes - especially if you have injuries in the lower leg or feet .
Think of a triangle - the strength is in the base - strong base of support- less likely to topple over .
Since the introduction of all these space shoes running injuries have actually increased
Food for thought . “ Running in highly cushioned shoes increases leg stiffness and amplifies impact loading ”
“ the runner’s leg may stiffen and compresses less when running in shoes with additional cushion “
If you suffer with plantar fasciitis rather than putting your feet into very padded shoes - attack the root of the problem by working out your toes . In bare feet practice lifting your big toe while keeping the rest of your toes on the floor and then keeping your big toe on the floor light the rest of your toes .
You can also practice lifting each toe individually and returning it to the ground.
You can also walk around in bare feet with spacers between your toes ( the foamy dividers people put between their toes when painting their nails :
Give your feet a work out and you will find that ankles get stronger as do your calf muscles and that knee and hip problems may also clear up too .
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