Fast Fitness - Fix Flat Feet, Pronation, and Fallen Arches
Friday, April 04, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
- Stand with feet parallel and look in a mirror where you can see your feet, or just look down.
- Pull outward (straighten) until your arches rise and restore to neutral position, and your ankles are straight.
- Learn to feel neutral position. Don't hold rigidly or roll outward. You gain built-in muscle strength and arch stability with each step you take.
Click the > arrow to see the short movie made for us by reader David from Belgium:
First he allows his weight to shirt inward, pushing his arch flatter toward the floor. At seconds 3 to 4 in the movie, he uses the outer muscles to pull to straight neutral ankle position. At seconds 8 to 9 he allows the arch to sag again, then restores and holds healthy arch from second 13 onward. The "exercise" is not to roll back and forth. It is just to learn to feel what allowing sagging too much feels like, and how to restore neutral position.
During walking and running, there is a small natural inward drop (slight pronation) that is part of the spring and propulsion. Allowing exaggerated sagging is like rounding your shoulders too much. Legs and feet have posture that you can control yourself. Use your own muscles and get free built-in exercise and arch support all day, and stop painful poor positioning.
Some people with existing abnormality or growths in the ball of the foot will roll inward (or outward) to get the pressure off the deformed area because standing straight hurts. See your doctor first. Remember, don't force. If it hurts, it's wrong. All you are doing is learning how to stand neutral, not tilted so much that you compress the joints. The concept is to hold your feet in the same healthful position that shoe supports would. It is like an ice skater holds their skates straight at the ankle, not angled.
Movie by David, www.hierennu.be
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy.
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy.
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Labels: ankle, arches, fast fitness, feet, fix pain, posture, pronation, video/movie
16 Comments:
At Friday, May 23, 2008 11:52:00 AM,
Anonymous said…
this is good, but i was wondering how to do this whilst walking? i cannot seem to do it.
thank you.
At Friday, May 23, 2008 1:19:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Anonymous,
Practice.
It is like toilet training. Practice, make your mistakes, then learn to hold it - without clenching.
At Wednesday, July 16, 2008 4:35:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Hi, I started looking into your articles for neck and mid back pain. Great stuff! Thanks. I am asking, though, about how running may be causing me tibial strain. I have rather large accesory navicular and very high arches. I never had pain in the area until I recently took up running. I started slowly and progressed gently to not cause my body shock or injury. Nevertheless, I thought I was getting a shin splint (MTSS) on my left leg, but now think that it actually may just be the soleus reacting to a misaligned ankle. IF so, what can I do about it or to fix it? I find when I massage my calf and shin in downward strokes (while not flexing the leg) my ankle will make crunchy cracking noises if I rotate or turn it and sometimes will just pop. Any thoughts?? (I'm practicing for a sprint triathlon and want to have fun INJURY free!) Thanks,
Malina
At Wednesday, July 30, 2008 12:08:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
I'm desperate. I have flat feet and they're causing me a lot of pain. My posture is terrible and I have developed hyperlordosis. My heels and ankles hurt a lot and I can't walk for more than 10 minutes without feeling pain everywhere. My orthopedist told my only hope to create a feet arch is through surgery. I'm afraid bacause the thing they will put in the foot might be not well tolerate by my body and because I have to do one surgery for foot which means two months without walking.
I have reading on line that orthopedist believe flat feet are morphostructural while others believe they're morphodynamic. In the first case it is consider a structure defect of the bone while on the second a wrong attitude of the muscles and tendons.
I have watched the small video up here but the problem is that when I try to recreate the foot arch in front of a mirror as shown in the video I can see the arch forming but the heel is still in the wrong position causing the food to have the strange look flat feet have.
The surgery in fact is about preventing the heel from slipping in the wrong direction. But even when I'm able to recreate the arch in front of a mirror using muscular effort, the heel is still in the wrong position and the foot looks weird anyway.
Is there a real hope to cure flat foot and all the problems it caused to me without invasive surgery? Can you suggest me all the possible healting paths I can follow?
Thank you immensely
Daniel
At Wednesday, September 03, 2008 1:22:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Daniel, don't worry, just practice using your muscles to hold your foot where you want it, just like a beginner ice-skater learns to hold straight ankles, instead of sagging inward.
At Sunday, February 08, 2009 12:47:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
I tried this exercise faithfully, and now have sesamoiditis (a hard-to-treat, very painful foot condition) in both feet - just a week later. Please post my comment - it's not fair to only post rosy comments when this exercise is so damaging. Jolie, you may want to invest in a medical degree before dispensing potentially harmful advice over the internet.
At Sunday, February 08, 2009 2:18:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Dear Anonymous, I don't want anyone to hurt. My professional work as a researcher is to study and develop methods that doctors and technicians learn in school and use to make life better.
Sesamoiditis is often developed over years, not usually in a week. Of course, stop whatever you feel is contributing.
This post shows one way to gain neutral ankle and foot position, which is supposed to get weight and pressure off the sesamoid bones. It is not an exercise to roll back and forth, it is a way to normalize daily gait so that the bottom of the foot and arch does not grind inward onto the sesamoids and other structures.
See if you walk heavily, or grind body weight forward onto the sesamoid bones, instead of the padded sole. The concept is to normalize gait, not increase strain. Send photos/videos if you think that will better describe what is occurring. Best to be seen in person to make sure you are doing healthy things.
I agree that much of the medical training I invested in consisted of practices repeated in books without basis, driving me to devote much of my life in the lab to find better ways.
Sesamoids are small bones embedded in muscles on the bottom of the foot near the big toe. Sesamoiditis is common in people who spend long hours in activities that roll onto the big toe (like ballet dancers), and not usually hard to treat.
I am not the comment moderator. I only see comments after they are on the board and sent to me for answering, no salary, on my own time. As far as I know, all comments go through except for advertisements.
At Monday, February 09, 2009 12:09:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Thanks for answering, Jolie. I have to say, I am almost positive this retraining is what facilitated my foot pain. I've never had any foot problems before (but plenty of low back pain), and I don't have any of the other precursors (ballet, etc.) But - maybe I was doing it wrong or over-doing it, simulating the high-arch situation that can give people sesamoiditis.
I am not sure what my long term prognosis is for healing, but I do know that it is a pain to treat simply because it's difficult to really give your feet a rest without your own personal assistant...and it really hurts.
Anyway, I am on the fence. I would like to believe orthotics are a just another business, dependent on convincing people that they are "required" in order to beef up the bottom line, and the doctors are just as marketed-to as the rest of us...but on the other hand, now my feet REALLY REALLY hurt. I did have orthotics (to help the back pain, supposedly) but after practicing your exercise both barefoot and with them in, well, I'm 26 and I hobble like an 86 year old. Now barefoot is an impossibility.
I really would rather believe that our bodies are built to recover into a healthy, natural gait, but has this been adequately or even minimally researched?
At Thursday, February 26, 2009 5:47:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
I have been performing this exercise on and off for a couple months now; practiced it more consistently before then. Anyways, the muscles in my feet have indeed strengthened, and i can feel load of my body-weight being spread more evenly among the muscles of my lower body.
I used to suffer from chronic muscle tension in my hips and hamstrings. I am a dancer and live an active lifestyle with plenty of stretching and strength training, but no matter what i did i could not alleviate the pain in my hips. I would maintain a good level of flexibility but my hip flexors would remain hard as a rock no matter how elastic my leg muscles would get.
I later then attributed this to my fallen arches and have since then committed to these exercises. I have garnered positive results. My hips feel more properly aligned and are more relaxed.
I would just like to thank you jolie for posting this. It's not the miracle instant fix that many ppl are hoping for, but i guess in that regard, that's what makes it so awesome.
"We are all creatures of habit."
~Reggie
At Friday, April 17, 2009 4:28:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
I have serverly flat feet. I was wondering if this would work for me even tho I don't have a natural arch.
Thanks,
Sheena
At Monday, April 27, 2009 9:54:00 PM,
Unknown said…
I've attempted walking like this for one or days, and developed a sharp, stabbing pain. It's on the inside of my leg, just above the ankle.
Am I doing something wrong?
How can you tell when you're rolling the foot too much to the other side?
At Wednesday, May 06, 2009 8:06:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Hi.I have flat feet, Ive just started waering insoles and searching the net for exercises that I can do.I didnt have any problems with my flat feet untill lately. I also dance salsa, been doing that for about a year and a half and was wonderig could that make things worse, as I dance in flat shoes with no heal as I find it easier.
thank you
At Monday, May 11, 2009 5:36:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Hello Xiao, yes it's wrong if you hurt yourself. Stop right away. Feel better.
Better to understand and practice healthy motion looking in a mirror first before applying a "fix" without being able to tell what is happening. Without seeing what you are doing, I can't tell anything (I need x-ray distance vision). A specialist near you can help.
To R2G2 (Reggie) great work, thank you.
At Wednesday, August 19, 2009 8:25:00 AM,
Anonymous said…
have any of you guys ever heard of or tried the Bowen Technique?
I've heard it can have some favourable results with this condition.
At Saturday, March 20, 2010 12:12:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Dr. Bookspan,
Great article. This concept makes perfect sense to me.
One point which I don't think the readers have really grasped is that you are not necessarily trying to "fix" the fallen arches. Realistically, they is most likely quite difficult to do, if not impossible, by just doing exercise.
Readers need to keep in mind, that fallen arches are not necessarily a problem in themselves. Really, it's the frequently accompanying over-pronation that causes the associated additional biomechanical injuries to the feet, knees, etc.). (That I think is the beauty of this technique you have shared with us, as you can minimize over-pronation with your technique.
Thanks so much for posting it. I am doing this religiously now and feel much better for it.
Best,
Steve
At Monday, March 29, 2010 7:25:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Sheena, Many people who think they have "flat feet" have just fine arches when they are not weight bearing or when they stand on half-toe (the ball of the foot). They let their weight shift and flatten the arch. It is not structural. You can move to healthy position. Another benefit is the built-in strengthening from healthful flexible muscular control that rebuilds arch function.
To Anonymous Salsa, Flat shoes are not necessarily a problem themselves, but hard inflexible shoes can hurt your feet and knees. It is not true that you need hard supportive shoes. They are a common course of foot and knee pain. Check for a cushioned, flexible sole that lets your foot move and stretch in healthy ways, and use healthful position wearing it.
To Anonymous wanting massage, I don't think that keeping the source and cause of problems, then massaging the pain is a constructive solution.
Steve, Great work. Thank you for using this intelligently, and making it work as intended, and "feeling much better for it." Enjoy getting more benefits with other techniques too, and keep us posted.
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