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So I’ve had issues with my feet and ankles for as long as I can remember. Being that I played multiple sports competitively throughout my entire childhood and teenage years, these issues would be emphasized to me the more I got injured.
Although I have seen many healthcare professionals over the years and had numerous X-rays done, the advice from them is always the same: “You could start wearing orthotics”, “We could put you in a walking boot again”.
It’s always been amazing to me how little thought seems to be put into this advice by “experts”. They just walk you through their checklist of check-up, X-ray, walking boot/orthotics, then physical therapy (which happens to be the only beneficial part of this process).
What orthotics really do is hold your foot in the correct position without you having to do anything. It is worth noting that this can be a major contributor in lessening your pain. It is also worth noting that these orthotics are not going to make the targeted muscles flexible again or stronger than they were before.
Take my feet for example. I had a very serious foot injury towards the end of March 2018. It is now the end of December 2018 and I have been wearing orthotics like it’s my job. I have been doing exactly what every professional has told me to do and there has been very little progress made…. and I’m itching to start working out again.
My girlfriend gifted me a pair of Birkenstocks, which have been the catalyst for me staying out of pain in my everyday life. Before these, I bought a pair of Superfeet foot orthotics and had been rotating them in whichever shoes I was wearing at the time. These also have kept me out of a lot of the pain that I experience walking barefoot or in flat shoes.
What’s deceiving though is something my mom pointed out to me about a month ago…. I now have arches in my feet! The orthotics were on my feet so often that they formed a decent looking arch in the soft tissue of my feet. So problem solved according to popular belief right?! Not at all. My symptoms are still the same when I’m not wearing them and I can still hardly jog without feeling pain. How could this be?
It’s because I never addressed the actual problem. I essentially put a Band Aid over my problem and hoped it would fix itself. While that has worked for me in the past, my luck has run dry this time. It’s time for me to do something about this.
This is where my impatience with the medical field comes from. They don’t want to ACTUALLY address your problem until they’ve eliminated all the lazy solutions. Unfortunately for us, this means waiting months upon months and spending loads of money as well as incredible frustration before you are really taken seriously.
I realize that X-rays have their value when it comes to pointing out issues that the naked eye couldn’t pick up. But much more often than not, there’s an issue with the alignment in your body. My feet, I discovered after my injury, had been overpronating for years without me realizing it.
Now I have to locate exactly where in the kinetic chain my misalignment is stemming from. This is all it takes for the most part. Locate the initial area of misalignment and address the muscles that need to become stronger or more flexible.
There can only be 2 causes of your pain and this is what they don’t tell you. According to Dr. Kelly Starrett and directly from his book “Becoming a Supple Leopard“, 98% of people’s dysfunction stems from overtension (missing range of motion) or open-circuit faults (poor movement caused by misalignment).
Once you identify which one is the cause, you can quickly begin addressing it head-on instead of dilly-dallying around for months and becoming more frustrated.
Just remember, until you correct the deficiency in your feet, your body will always resort to its old ways and you will continue to experience pain. Choose to address this now and set yourself up for a life of functionality instead of Band Aid solutions.
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