♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about flat foot correction.
Learn best footwear purchase to stop pain.
So this, I think in most cases Brad,
if you have a tendency towards flat feet,
you need to correct it through your shoe wear.
I mean, it's very difficult to correct through exercise.
- Right, right, yeah.
- Sometimes you can, but most often you're gonna
need some help.
- Yep, you need that mechanical support.
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Now we're giving away, this is fantastic,
this is the Thermatex infrared heating system,
this is the platinum one.
- Yes.
- It's got straps that you can put on and actually wear it.
You can actually use it for your feet.
You could put your foot on top.
- Oh yes.
- You can use it on pretty much any part of the body.
And it gives off heat that's over 2.36 inches?
- 2.36 inches, Bob.
Versus skin deep, it's definitely gonna get into
the joints and those muscles where it needs to be.
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- Right, bobandbrad.com too.
- Yep, I said that.
- Did you?
- Take it away, Brad.com.
- All right, flat feet.
In other words, in the medical field we call it pronators.
If you're pronated foot, you've got a flat foot
and there's different degrees of flat feet
and usually people are kind of aware of it
but sometimes not, so we're gonna clear the air
and so that you have a much better idea right at home,
you don't have to go in to see the doctor or therapist.
- Yeah we're gonna show you a test you can do
on your own.
- Right, simple one, yeah.
So how do you get flat feet, Bob?
- Well, you're gonna tell us about it.
- Well there's three primary reasons:
one, you could be born with it, could be hereditary.
- Genetic or hereditary, one of the two.
- Right, my daughter's that way.
She's not really flat but she's pretty close to it, to flat.
And I was concerned about it for a while,
I talked to the doctor when she was born,
she said don't worry about it, let things just go on
and she's doing well, she's 22 already.
- There's no problems.
- Posterior tibialis muscle or the tendon.
Now that's the muscle that's back here
and it goes underneath the medial, the ankle bone,
the middle one and it supports your arch from collapsing
and if you have a weak posterior tib muscle,
along with some other ones but that's the primary one,
that can allow your arch to flatten over time.
- And you get a little tendonitis there too.
So, can give you problems.
- And then the last one but not least,
probably the most common one as we age is arthritic.
Arthritic changes throughout all the joints bones there,
with weight bearing over time, not wearing proper shoes.
- They begin to collapse and right.
- We see that in the therapy world,
that's not unusual to see that.
So how do you know?
You say, well get on with the program, how do you know?
So we're gonna show you a simple test,
as long as you have, you can use a grocery bag
- Or you can use one of these envelopes that are colored.
- Vanilla envelopes.
- Vanilla envelopes, yeah.
And you can also probably use a white one,
it would probably show up on that one too
but not on the camera as well.
- Get a pan with a little bit of water in there
so your fit can sit in there.
About a half inch of water is all you need.
You can use warm water so it doesn't chill you.
- So you're gonna go ahead and make sure the whole
bottom of the foot is covered
and then I just shake it off a little bit
and then I'm gonna go ahead and stand on it.
- Yeah it's important that you put weight through it.
You don't wanna just do it seated, you've gotta stand up
and then that'll allow...
Oh look at that Bob, nice job.
- So Brad already did his and he outlined his.
Why don't you talk about yours, Brad,
and I'll outline mine while you're talking.
- So what you do is you look where the water
makes a water mark and then I outlined it
and you can see I am not a flat footed person
because here's my arch, okay.
But I got contact here, Bob let's see yours.
- I probably, I'm even probably a higher arch.
- Yeah you can see he's just got very little contact here
and mine's wider.
Now if you're flat footed, let me see this one, Bob.
- This means I have a very rigid foot.
Which is not necessarily good either because this doesn't
disperse the forces as well.
- Nobody in the room had a flat foot.
- Right, we couldn't find anybody with a flat foot.
- But you would have, the outline of the water mark
would be straight all the way across,
that means your whole foot is touching
and you know, that's a good way to confirm it.
Again, you have to put weight on it.
- Right, 'cause there's a lot of people that
they have a decent arch until they put weight on it
and then it just collapses right down.
- Exactly, right.
- You've determined you have a flat foot, now what Brad?
- Well Bob, then what we need to do is
how are we going to correct it or at least
deal with it, manage it.
Characteristics of a flat foot is typically it's not rigid,
it's actually flaccid, it kind of wants to collapse,
it doesn't have a lot of rigidity.
- You have a lot of flexibility.
- Right and you need to compensate with that
through the footwear.
So what you're gonna find is if you go to a store
and if you've got a salesperson
that really knows his footwear,
ask for a motion-control shoe
and what that means and typically in running shoes
and I'm gonna show you this shoe right here
is a motion-control shoe and yeah,
Liz zoom right in on this.
Let's see the best two to compare.
If you look at this shoe,
look right through the arch, it's quite thick
and look at the color of the material, it's gray.
Now that means, if it's gray they've introduced carbon
into the foam which makes it stiffer
and if you try and push your fingernail in there,
it's really rigid and to go to the white
it's a little softer.
- [Bob] And this is white all the way along,
although it does have a plastic piece in there
to help give it some support.
- [Brad] Right, this one is what they call
a stability shoe, if you have a normal arch,
but now this is an easy test, if you do the one finger test.
Take one finger, put it on the toe,
and pull down like this.
- [Bob] Yeah, it's a very stiff shoe,
there's very little motion in there.
- I'll do the same thing here, very easy
and when you get to lighter shoes, like a minimalist shoes
you can wrap it right around with one finger.
- Yeah, you can actually twist it right around,
like this one doesn't twist very well
but this one, actually which is closer to that,
is gonna, you can see you can twist it.
- And this one you can, it's rigid.
So the rigidity of this shoe helps,
so that your foot doesn't collapse and it's gonna maintain,
now I've seen people, can you go down here Liz?
I've seen people, typically in their 70s or 80s
that have flat feet and they've never done anything with it,
on their feet a lot.
Where this part, right here, the ankle has come down
to within a half an inch of the floor
and I'm not exaggerating.
- [Bob] Right, amazing.
- It is really amazing and those people typically
have to get custom plastic AFOs just to support their feet.
Very, you don't want to have that.
- It starts working all the way up the chain,
it starts affecting the ankle, the knees, the hips.
I wouldn't say that outright that you're gonna need
motion-control, Brad, if you have no arch.
I mean, you might but you might need a step down from that.
- That's a good point Bob, 'cause I've had people,
I say go to the store and make sure you--
- Get a motion-control.
- Get a motion-control, at least try them on
and they've come back and they've said
they just didn't feel right.
- Yeah they don't feel right
and that's one of the guidelines we wanna emphasize.
You shouldn't have to break in a shoe,
it should feel good immediately and you should be
in the store like, oh this feels good.
If they're trying to convince you that
it needs to be broken in, that's just a bunch of hoo-yah.
- Yeah I disagree with that.
As a matter of fact, I was just buying some shoes
and that salesman, he tried to pull that on me
and I said hey buddy, this doesn't feel good,
I know if I go home with this I'm not gonna be happy.
He backed off, he was nice.
- Yeah 'cause a lot of times it'll get worse.
I mean, you know, the understanding is like you said,
some shoes have from one to five that are the Rogan shoes.
- Right and we can give them a little, 'cause they were
so helpful with me.
There's a company in the Midwest, Wisconsin, Illinois,
Minnesota, Rogans and they have a system,
'cause there's no factory standards yet.
- From different shoe to different brand.
From Adidas to Asics, they don't have
any standard among them.
- Not particularly, not that relates
and so this shoe sales company has actually
developed their own.
One of the head managers of it, he's a marathon runner
and he's developed this because he was sick and tired
of trying to educate salespeople without a system.
So anyways, that's a--
- He went from one to five, which is one?
The stability?
- I'm not sure 'cause I just know they have a system,
I didn't spend that much time with them.
- So on one end of the spectrum you have very rigid shoes
for people who have a poor arch
and on the other end it would be me, with a high arch
and you want more of a cushioned shoe.
- Right, exactly.
So again, motion-control in theory is what you want
but again, try them on.
- Yeah, it's gonna be a very stiff shoe,
it's gonna be a heavier shoe.
- Yes and they're more expensive.
- They're more expensive and it's gonna be,
like you said, you can't, it's very rigid here
and there's very good arch support in the sole.
If that doesn't work for you, take the step down,
find one that's--
- You may have to try on a number, five, six pairs of shoes
to get that pair that fit right.
- But what a difference it will make because your feet
are very important.
I mean it starts affecting everything you do
and you start--
- Without a doubt, right.
- Right, so anything else, Brad?
- No Bob, I think we beat this to death.
(laughing)
- Beat, all right.
Thanks everybody for watching.
(electronic beat)