Feet really don’t get the credit they deserve.
After all, they work incredibly hard for us. Not only do they move our entire body weight from one place to another, they also help to keep us upright. They tell our brains about the surface we are on, so the rest of our body can respond accordingly. And they even help us get off the ground.
As ever with any body part, to be honest, we tend to take it for granted until something goes wrong. And then, when it does, all we can do is think negatively about it, when beforehand we haven’t once thought positively about it.
There are so many joints and muscles in the foot and ankle that it really is no wonder things can go wrong. It’s even more of a wonder if they don’t.
There are so many joints and muscles in the foot and ankle that it really is no wonder things can go wrong. It’s even more of a wonder that they don’t.
What happens when your feet don’t get to move?
Just like any joint in the body, the joints in our feet need to move in order to stay healthy.
Previously in my newsletter, I’ve shared the movement I call “shaking hands with your feet”, where we interlace our fingers between our toes.
For some people, even getting their fingers into the tips of their toes is difficult because, instead of the toes spreading, they are often squashed together by the front of a shoe.
When we walk barefoot, our toes naturally spread wider than the shape of the foot when we are standing. Traditional shoes often do the opposite. They create a point.
And when we spend years with our toes squashed together, the foot adapts to that position. This is one of the contributing factors to conditions like hammer toes, bunions and overlapping toes.
But what about the big guy?
Mr Big Toe.
Time and time again, I see in people I work with that when we really get down to how it feels to get up off the floor, reduced movement in the big toe can become a problem.
To stand up from the floor, we need to be able to bend the big toe and push through it.
But if your big toe hasn’t been moving very much for a long time, you may start to do this less. And when we do something less, we limit our ability. Then all the other movements associated with it can become more limited too.
It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s simply what can happen when a joint has been given less and less opportunity to move over many years.
Could your shoes be part of the story?
Traditional shoes often have soles that aren’t sufficiently flexible to allow the big toe to bend naturally as we walk.
This is where I now can’t hold back from mentioning ‘minimal’, or ‘barefoot’ shoes.
They are wider around the toes, which is called the toe box, allowing the toes to spread more naturally. The soles are also designed to be flexible, allowing more movement through the foot and particularly the big toe. They also have ‘zero-drop’ between the back and front of the shoe, so no heel tipping us forward when upright, affecting our alignment, aka posture. They also always have something around the heel to ensure there’s no need for the toes to grip to keep the shoe on (yes flip-flops, that’s you!). And finally the sole is not only flexible, it’s also thin so that the nerve-endings on the bottom of my feet can feel the ground and quickly tell my brain, and therefore body, how to react.
For me, it’s a no-brainer. Every time I walk in minimal shoes, my feet are getting lots of the movements they’d get if I were actually barefoot, which I try to be for as much of my day as possible.
But you m
What could you give your feet today?
At the very least, give your feet some love.
Spend more time barefoot at home and introduce exercises that help counteract the restrictions of traditional shoes, like spreading the toes, massaging the feet with your hands or by rolling them on a massage or even tennis ball.
And if getting up and down off the floor has become difficult – have a think about whether it might be because of your big toe mobility. If it is, start to spend more time on the ground in tucked-toe movements like knee tapping which is included in this week’s newsletter for this very reason.
You don’t have to change everything.
Just give your feet more opportunities to move more naturally. If you want to learn more – listen to my conversation with Andy Bryant here.
And if you do want to try barefoot shoes?
The key word here is transition.
Your feet need time to adapt, just like any body part does to something new, a new stimulus or new input.
So if you decide to try barefoot shoes, start slowly and gradually increase the amount of time you spend wearing them. I started wearing wet shoes and moved on from there.
The market has exploded over the last 10 years, so there are now some brilliant alternatives to traditional shoes for adults and kids. If you’re feeling confused and would like to try minimal shoes, look at the different brands and speak to the people who own them to decide which are right for you – there’s an event soon where lots of them are under one roof for one weekend.
I highly recommend visiting the Barefoot Expo near Birmingham on October 17th and 18th.
This was the brilliant brainchild of the fabulous Brittany Balinski – Barefoot Brit on Instagram and TikTok, who came on the Make Movement Matter podcast Episode #66.
Giveaway – a pair of free tickets!
Brittany is kindly giving away a pair of tickets for the expo exclusively to my blog readers.
If you’d like the chance to win the tickets, all you need to do is add your name and email address here:
I’ll pick a name at random using a random name generator after the giveaway has closed this Friday at 5pm BST/London time, and will put you in touch with Brittany to get your tickets.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Even if you don’t win the giveaway, I thoroughly encourage you to visit the expo. There’s no better way to trial the whole range of shoes and learn more about the importance of taking care of your feet.
Love your feet and the rest of your body will thank you!
