Ever been to the podiatrist and been told to swipe here for another $400 orthotic shoe insert?
Well, other than legitimate structural deformities in your body, it may be wise to do away with
your reliance on such items, and instead, replace them with some good ol fashioned smart training.
Wanna know how?
After getting through some of the what in regards to flat feet, I’m going to bring
you some simple drills to have you walking and feeling like a whole new person.
Pes planus, more commonly referred to as flat feet, is the occurrence in which an individual’s
natural arches of the foot are either non-existent or “fallen”.
What this results in is the foot sitting in a pronated position.
This might not seem like a bad scenario, and it isn’t when you’re a child, but would
you like to live in a house with a pronated infrastructure?
Of course you wouldn’t.
And the same should be said for this situation.
You see, you’re supposed to have an arch in the foot.
If you’re lacking one, then your first point of contact upon the ground, i.e. your foundation,
suffers big time.
But if you do have an arch, then your stability and even shock absorption capabilities are
up for grabs.
Which is ideal as you make your way around this planet’s rugged terrain.
For example, the medial longitudinal arch, or, your MLA, which consists of bones like
the calcaneus, talus, and a few metatarsals, is highly crucial for absorbing the impact
that you create when running or jumping.
So if you’re MLA is not present or not doing its job, then a whole host of issues can arise.
For starters, without an MLA, your foot exists in this flat, pronated position.
Because of this, it initiates a cascade reaction that tracks right from your feet, all the
way up to your head.
Before I show you what I mean, it should be said that this scenario can occur due to a
number of factors ranging from congenital reasons to being overweight to overworking
the areas of the body that are responsible for keeping the foot in check like your tibialis
posterior tendon to even more simply…. never developing the muscles that enable you to
be more in control of your foundation.
In short, you essentially are either born with it, or you acquire it over time.
In either case, let me show you what can arise.
As I was saying before I cut myself to the part 2 title screen, a flat foot can cause
many issues.
Which indeed makes sense, of course.
I mean, if the foundation of the house is upset, then the rest of the house is going
to be, too.
But, let me take you through what can happen when flat feet or pronated feet are in existence
for too long.
And let’s do this by looking at this image.
So, here’s the flat foot.
As you can see, it is caving inwards.
Or, pronated.
This causes the set of bones that sit above this area to become disrupted.
And in this case, the tibia and fibula.
These guys begin to live in an internally rotated reality.
Which then causes the knees to also internally rotate.
Over time, this can result in your knees taking some wear and tear upon the many bits of tissue
that live in and around your knee joint.
If we follow the body up, next in line for assault are your femur bone.
These can also exist in an internally rotated reality, which means your hips that are next
in line, can be in what is known as anterior pelvic tilt.
But it doesn’t always just stop there, this cascade effect can keep going up the chain
and result in the lower backs position becoming altered, your thoracic spine changing to accommodate
what is going on below, followed by your neck, with even your shoulders, elbows and wrists
coming along for the ride, too.
This is all because your body has been forced to adjust to your foundation, i.e. your pancakes
down below.
As you can see, just because your feet aren’t doing their job, a fair bit can go wrong.
And this isn’t even taking into consideration the wear and tear on your shoes, or ramifications
such as bunions developing, or even the effect that flat feet can have on your performance
capabilities in the gym.
For instance, a common issue that occurs when someone possesses flat feet is the tendency
for the knees to cave inwards, more commonly referred to as valgus collapse, during exercises
like squats and lunges.
This is an issue as it means you are not using optimal areas of the body to complete the
movements such as your glutes.
But this is another topic all together, so let’s save that for another time perhaps.
I should state here that what I’m talking about in regards to flat feet resulting in
alteration of the body’s other segments, wear and tear, and potentially pain in all
the regions, is not always the case.
People can possess flat feet, yet never experience what I’m talking about right now.
However, a lot of the time, flat feet can lead to scenarios such as I’ve discussed
so far.
Which, in my opinion, does synthesise questions like is your chiropractor really trying to
help you when they perform their weekly snap, crackle and pop?
Or are they simply providing you with a temporary fix for the pain that you feel in your neck?
I mean, when following your site of pain back down the line, it can sometimes be as simple
as targeting an area of the body to remedy the situation.
Other times it can be more complicated.
But when it comes to flat feet, that is, acquired flat feet, and not so much true bone deformities
flat feet, the fix can indeed be quite simple.
So in saying that, let me now bring you a simple step-by-step process to getting on
top of your pancakes.
Like any good exercise program, this approach consists of the release, the stretch, and
strengthen protocol.
Which is my absolute favourite for when it comes to dealing with upset areas of the body.
After all, there’s no use simply masking the pain, it is far better to face and deal
with the issue.
Before showing you the drills, please keep in mind that I am not telling you to throw away your orthotics.
Nor am I saying that it is unwise to visit a podiatrist.
I am simply enlightening you on the fact that sometimes there is more to the story than
meets the eye.
Orthotics do have their place.
If you support your feet in the right way, plus follow it up with a proper release and
strengthening protocol, your body will benefit immediately.
But, enough talking, let's cut straight to the gym.
So with the foot release drill what you want to do is use either a baseball or a golf ball.
I'm going to use the golf ball because I find that it just gets into those nooks and crannies in the foot.
So coming down to the ground, the ball is going to go on the ground with your shoes off, you're going to place your foot onto the ball.
You want to put enough weight into the ball so that you can feel the pressure.
You might feel a bit of pain or discomfort, but bear with it and try to relax as much as possible.
When you're pushing into the ball, take your time and look for those painful areas.
Make mini circles with the ball when you do stumble across one of the areas, maintain your breathing rate, and just try to relax.
The more weight you put into the ball, the more painful it can be.
Work on just rolling the whole foot from front to back, pausing on the painful areas, performing small circles, and breathing throughout.
Another thing you can do when you find those painful areas is pause and open up the toes as much as possible.
And then just letting it relax back over the ball after a few reps.
Once you've completed a region of the foot, move on to another area.
So following that foot release drill with the golf ball, we're going to use the baseball now on the calf.
So place the ball on the ground, your calf on top of it, and support your bodyweight with your hands.
Again, the more weight you put into the ball, the more pain you may experience. So just pay attention to that and only go to your level.
Similar to the foot release, roll over the calf nice and slowly, pause on any painful/niggling spots and try to bend the ankle as much as possible through it ranges of motion.
You can adjust the angle of your leg so that you hit all areas (posterior and lateral compartments of the calf) during this, too.
Following up with those release drills, we're just going to go through a few stretch and mobility ones now.
The first one is going to be using a weight plate, but you can just use anything that is raised up off the ground.
So place the foot on the plate and push forward into it so that your knee aims to travel over the toes.
You should feel it up the back of the leg.
Let it relax, and when you feel comfortable, go through it again (i.e. perform repetitions of this movement).
You want to pay attention to the positioning of the knee. Meaning, keep it aligned and over the toes and not caving to either side.
Now moving across to the mobility drill using a wall or something to just give you a bit of feedback during it.
Position the front foot so that you are about half of your own foot away from the wall
And position the other foot just at the heel of the foot closest to the wall.
So now from here, you're trying to get that knee to go towards the wall.
But you're also going to pay attention to maintaining contact upon the ground with both of the feet.
If you find this a little difficult, you can adjust it by bringing the feet closer to the wall.
Really try to push into it in the sense of repetitions without lifting the heels off the ground.
Once you find the spot where your front knee hits, adjust the back foot backwards to increase the intensity.
So now we're going to finish things off with some strengthening and activating drills.
And with this first one we're just going to try and make the foot into a tripod.
So basically that is going to consist of your big toe, your pinky toe and your heel (i.e. the MTPJ).
So your aim is to maintain that contact upon the ground with these three points.
So from here you just want to try and create the arch by pulling the toes towards the heel.
Go through 10 or so of these whilst maintaining that contact.
Now advancing that movement using a towel, we can look for the arch to be created with the towel being scrunched up.
Do 15 or so reps per foot.
With this one you're going to be balancing on one leg with the aim to keep a straight line from the hips right down to the foot.
You'll feel it straight away. Your feet will try to collapse inwards, so just keep trying to fight that.
So this pronation is going to be trying to happen, so essentially aim for supination -- i.e. the opposite.
Maintain this as much as possible whilst also keeping the body aligned.
To advance this, we can use a weight and hold it to the side that we area standing on.
Keep fighting that collapse, and when you feel comfortable, switch the weight into your other hand.
So for this last drill today you can do it basically anywhere and it is great to build that awareness and strength.
Once you're in the squat position, attempt to somewhat supinate the feet (or, evert),
torque the knees out as much as possible whilst also keeping your feet on the ground.
When you do torque the knees out, you should feel the muscles in your butt come on, which is good.
And from here, you're going to squat down whilst maintaining that knee torque and foot contact.
Don't go below your capability depth where the knees will collapse, keep an upright torso, and just go to your ability.
15 or so reps for 2-3 sets should suffice.
Hey guys, Hayden here. I hope you found the information in this video helpful.
If you wanna learn anything more about the stuff discussed in this episode, be sure to check out the links in the description.
And let me know if you enjoyed the episode.
You can do that by hitting that like, comment, and subscribe button. That will really help me out.
So I guess that's it for this week. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.