I absolutely cannot get enough of all the foot information I am absorbing from my Science of Healthy Feet course to become a certified Healthy Foot practitioner.
Besides Katy Bowman’s book, Every Woman’s Guide to Foot Pain Relief: The New Science of Healthy Feet this article Why Shoes Make Normal Gait Impossible by Dr. William Rossi has fantastic pictures and EXCELLENT information on how shoes have basically ruined our lives!!
Although Dr. Rossi wrote the article in 1999 and yes, now there is a big barefoot movement going on, the information he provides is so clear.
The highlights of the article include:
1) Well, how do we define normal vs natural – normal being acceptable or average, like the common cold is normal but is it healthy or natural? NO! Natural being an ideal state, the ideal form and function. Shoes have disabled our natural gait.
2) A thorough analysis of HEELS. When we are barefoot there should be a perpendicular line with the straight body column that creates a 90 degree angle to the floor. Guess what heels do? Throw that way out of line! And the body needs to compensate for that angle of the heels. Not only that but the natural path of weight stress when walking is completely altered. NO WONDER our bodies hurt all over when we are in heels. (check out those pictures in the article.)
3) An analysis of the parts of the shoe construction and design and how they RUIN our feet. Firstly, when we are barefoot our toes (should) rest on the floor, flat on the floor, as they assist in grasping the floor to help us move. When those poor guys are in a shoe there is a general design in a shoe in the toe box called toe spring, which means the toes are lifted slant-wise off the ground. So no way are they able to help us in moving, walking. Not only this but the combination of these tilted up toes and then the downward slant of your foot from a raised heel creates a
n angle where all the pressure converges. And guess what? it’s not a healthy place! It is around about the ball of your feet. And then on top of that, the shoes are usually made very narrow further putting pressure on those digits and forcing the metatarsals to take the weight.
And there’s more – but I hope you will read it for yourself. Consider your shoes. Consider what you are doing FOR your feet when they are not in shoes.
And look for my class offering FOR JUST YOUR FEET coming soon!