After decades of pursuing my passion for helping people by watching how they sit, stand, and walk, and a conversation with Nancy, a neighbor, about her new shoes, this blog evolved from my experience with hip pain, which morphed into an epiphany about feet and health.
Are you feeling pain in your ankles, back, feet, hips, knees, neck, or spine? Are you open to coaching suggestions regarding how your shoes may be sabotaging your feet and health and may be the source of structural dysfunction that results in pain in many areas of the body?
Pain in any area of our body can severely impact our happiness and health. If you feel discomfort, issues, or pain when you sit, stand, or walk, your shoes may be the hidden source of dysfunction, misalignment, and posture problems that can cause aches and pains throughout your body. If you have any pain in your ankles, back, calves, feet, knees, hips, jaw, neck, shoulders, or spine when you sit, stand, or walk, your stylish shoes may be sabotaging you and may be the stealth source of the pain.
Even with my acute focus on my alignment, fitness, and posture, it has finally come to my highest attention and awareness that my sitting, standing, stride, and shoes are areas of my well-being that have been affecting me significantly recently. Even though I am dedicated to being fit and healthy, I have been experiencing significant pain in my right Achilles tendon, left foot, left knee, and hips for over two years now. My doctor says it’s a pinched nerve and muscle imbalances. If you have been experiencing pain in any of the body areas mentioned above, please continue reading with an open mind, because after significant expense, functional training, and research, we discovered new information and insights that may be the key to cracking the code for finding the source of pain and helping you stop it. This blog post is the result of many thousands of dollars and thousands of hours focused on fixing my dysfunction and the pain it caused. Stylish shoes may cause most of the agility, alignment, balance, flexibility, mobility, pain, stability, and strength issues many people deal with.
This is such an important topic that we wrote about it in a previous Morningstar NEWS blog post on June 27, 2014, titled Walking Well or Walking Woes. Then there was a follow-up blog titled What if Wonky Walking Is Wrecking Your Whole Body? Please read or reread these two blogs before you read this one to understand the big picture and come away with a clear picture of the real pain problem and rapid-result pain solutions.
This blog offers new information and is specifically written with Baby Boomers in mind. But it is also important for readers of all ages, because the key to avoiding most pain is finding your weak links and implementing adjustments, modifications, and mastery action-plan strategies now to prevent alignment, functional, and posture issues from getting worse. Over the last several years, I have invested several thousand dollars in chiropractic treatment, doctor visits, exercise equipment, and physical therapy that provided minimal benefit and may have actually made things worse. (Coming Soon: Post on Physical Therapy Warnings.) For several reasons, the system seems to be rigged to keep you in a state of dysfunction and pain in order to keep you looking for quick fixes, silver bullets, and surgery. Changing one area of your well-being, such as your special arch support, insoles, or shoes, with newer special stuff without addressing the big picture and whole body may only provide a temporary patch. My goal is to help you and your family avoid the frustration, injuries, pain, and suffering, while also saving you money and time. By identifying your weak links now and implementing new footwear and functional movement solutions, strategies, and suggestions with a strategic strategy, you can stop the pain and start performing better than you have in many years.
Are Stylish Shoes Sabotaging Your Spine, Steps, and Structure?
Most people are not fully aware of how their feet function in relation to their overall stability, stride, strike, and stylish shoes while walking, which can have a negative or positive impact on their entire anatomy, alignment, physiology, and well-being. Most people buy shoes based on how they feel, how they look, and style factors rather than ergonomic foot function and natural biomechanical design and support. Jogging, running, and walking without optimal body and foot ergonomics can affect the whole body. Most footwear may actually do more harm than good to several parts of the body.
My observations indicate that about 95% of people walk wonky, with an alignment, foot position, gait, posture, shoe, or stride issue. The solutions, strategies, and suggestions in previous blog posts and this one can help you fix all of these issues. The key to cracking the code is developing a full functional foot-fix strategy. Fixing wonky walking woes requires looking at every aspect of exercise, movement, sitting, and walking. To reverse pain and suffering from back, foot, hip, knee, neck, and spine pain, we must look at our alignment, biomechanical movement, posture, shoes, and structural function. Our feet are the foundation that determines our happiness, harmony, and health.
Sabotaging Stylish Shoes vs. Smart Shoes and Soles
Reading or rereading previous blogs on exercise, sitting, and walking will give you key proactive pointers, practical principles, and protective suggestions for great footwear, smart shoe selection, and walking wellness. Implementing strategies and suggestions for smart shoes, weak links, and walking wellness becomes even more important as we age. Our bodies must last much longer than our vehicles, yet most people take better care of their vehicles than their bodies. Being aware of your alignment, foot function, posture, and shoes when walking can prevent pain and problems.
Are Your Feet Happy with Your Footwear Habits?
Most people experience pain and problems because of foot and footwear issues. By learning about biodynamics, ergonomics, foundational movements, and footwear, you can fix many of your pains and problems before they become worse and require major medical interventions:
- Fix your feet first, and you can fix your failing foundation. The footwear and shoes you choose will determine your future health and wellness. Choose wisely.
- Are barefoot and ergonomic footwear claims about a wide toe box and zero-drop soles fact or fiction? My experience shows that the more barefoot and moccasin-like your footwear is, the better your feet will function.
- What if your feet and stylish shoes are causing your back, hip, knee, and spine pain and problems?
- Common sense corner: Taking time to think with awareness will likely bring an aha or epiphany moment. Footwear with any higher heel, a narrow toe box, a pointed toe box, or thick soles is unnatural and can create dysfunction and ergonomic issues like pain and problems.
- Are fashion footwear and high heels causing alignment issues that result in back, foot, knee, hip, neck, and spine pain? What does your common sense say?
- Are fad footwear, stylish shoes, and tight shoes harming your back, feet, hips, and health?
- Is fashion footwear truly beneficial for profitable podiatry practices, orthopedic surgeons, and medical professionals in the long term?
- Are most forms of footwear and stylish shoes contributing to back, foot, knee, hip, neck, and spine problems? The evidence seems to be overwhelming when you dig deeper.
- Is barefoot walking better for your feet and a better way to walk? The answer seems to be both yes and no. The key distinction is how you transition from sabotaging shoes to structural shoes that support biomechanical and ergonomic optimization qualities.
Selecting Shoes for Structural Support and Walking Wellness
To find ergonomic footwear and shoe solutions, strategies, and suggestions that support common sense, start by looking for footwear designed with the following in mind: ergonomics, proprioception, a wide toe box, and a zero-drop sole. I started my barefoot shoe journey with the radical Vibram FiveFingers several years ago. My current choices are Hike Footwear and Whitin. We are currently testing four pairs of Whitin barefoot shoes. There are many to choose from, so please contact me and tell me which ones work best for you.
Call to Action
How do you look when you are walking? Most people are clueless. Are there any indications of arm, head, leg, neck, shoe, or spine positioning that could contribute to wonky walking? A great step to become more aware of your walking wellness is to use your camera’s video feature to record yourself walking from the back, front, and side. Consulting an ergonomic expert on movement and walking may also help you identify patterns and develop a modification prescription for walking wellness. At a minimum, video yourself, apply the Walking Wellness principles in this blog, and search Google for barefoot movement, minimalist footwear, and the benefits of improving foot proprioception for health and longevity.
Mastery Action Plan (MAP)
What shoes are contributing to your pain and problems? What steps can you take now to fix your feet, pain, and walking issues? Will a video of you walking from the back, front, and side help you discover your dysfunction? What resources and role models are available? Will ergonomic and functional movement coaching help you make the modifications necessary to correct sabotaging shoes and wonky walking? Make a mastery action plan (MAP) for footwear solutions, strategies, and suggestions that help support your feet and entire neuromusculoskeletal system. Keywords to look for: barefoot shoes, ergonomic design, minimalist, wide toe box, and zero-drop sole.
Passion and Purpose
The Morningstar NEWS passion and purpose is to share lifestyle prescriptions, such as the importance of ergonomic shoes with a barefoot style, wide toe box, and zero-drop sole, to promote a healthy, pain-free, stable lifestyle and wellness.
“The wide toe box gives your toes the space they’ve always needed, letting them spread naturally with every step.” — Birchbury
“The foot is your only interface with the ground. If that foundation collapses, everything upstream—knees, hips, lower back, neck—collapses too.” — Mark Sisson
“Allow the toes to spread -> get better performance from the ground up!” — Xero Shoes
“Most shoes are sabotaging your ankles, back, feet, hips, knees, neck, and spine. Choose wisely to avoid wrecking your whole body.” — Michael Morningstar
A Future Morningstar NEWS blog will share:
Physical Therapy Warnings, Workout DIY, and Words with Wisdom
Leave A Comment