Posted on February 27, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Love them or hate them (and judging by the number of websites regarding foot fetishes we actually do love them), we need to respect our feet. Let’s face it, we use them every day – they are the foundation of our movement, and the foot accounts for 25% of the bones in the human body! Just take a moment to consider that all the repeated pounding we put our feet through every time we walk, forces our toes to carry one half of our body weight! This is an average load of 100+ tonnes every day – not bad considering the average shoe size is 6 for women and 9 for men!

So just think about what happens to those feet when we exercise: all 52 bones, 66 joints, more than 200 tendons, muscles & ligaments and those 500,000 sweat glands are impacted in some way or another. If any of these are slightly out of alignment, so is the rest of our body. If you don’t pay attention to your feet when they are sore, you may be ignoring an underlying biomechanical condition or a more serious injury. Whether it’s your toes, balls of your feet, arches, bunions or heels which absorb the brunt of what you do; you need to be wary of over stretching, over use, overloading and over stressing those lovely feet of yours. Achilles Tendonitis – inflammation of the back of the heel; Plantar Fasciitis – inflammation of the bottom of your foot; and Metatarsalgia – pain the ball or bottom of the foot and/or your toes; are just some of the conditions that respecting your feet can help avoid.  Here’s some tips how:

• Footwear.
  • Leave buying new footwear to the end of the day. Your feet will be tired and slightly swollen, so you’ll be less likely to buy shoes that are too small.
  • Wearing shoes with little or poor cushioning/force-absorption, or shoes which don’t quite fit correctly can cause bunions, calluses and small microtrauma injuries
    • Women have approximately 4 times as many foot problems as men and 9 out of 10 women wear shoes that are too small for them! Ladies watch those high heels and pointed toes!
• Varying your exercise.
  • Avoid over use and over-stressing your feet by adding a variety of exercises to your fitness regime. The most common cause of injuries to the feet and ankles is caused by repetitive actions. Switch your activities during the week – not all exercise needs to be high impact! If you run, ensure you run on a variety of surfaces.
• See a Professional.
  • If you’re concerned about any foot pain, go and see a specialist. If you don’t, you could end up spending a fortune on insoles and Orthotics when a few corrective exercises or stretches could have helped.
• TLC
  • You don’t have to like what your feet look like to treat them like you love them!  We spend time washing our bodies, shampooing our hair, moisturising our skin – why not treat our feet the same way? Rest, soak and moisturise – because they’re worth it!

If you want more information on types of Foot Pain or Sore Feet causes, here’s some great websites for you:

http://www.footvitals.com/muscles/sore-feet.html

http://www.medicinenet.com/foot_pain/page2.htm#what_causes_foot_pain

KH