Ever bought a house or gone through a home inspection? One of the first questions people ask is, “So how’s the foundation?” A poor foundation, or cracks in it, can be a disaster: if the foundation is off, it’s unlikely the rest of the house is solid, and a poor foundation never just “gets better” on its own.
So how’s your foundation, not your house’s, but yours? I see so many clients with “cracks” in their foundation. When I look at a client’s feet, I often see a loss of arch height, which causes the foot to flatten, the knee to deviate inward, and even the hip to rotate. These compensations can be a big contributor to pain or injury.
The average American takes about 7,000 steps a day, which adds up to over 2½ million steps a year. If there’s a little extra stress on your joints with each step due to faulty alignment, imagine how that accumulates over that many steps.
What causes a flattened arch?
There can be a handful of contributing factors. Often the body is compensating for a stiff joint elsewhere, usually in the ankle, big toe, or a tight calf. But even once those areas are freed up, the arch can stay flat due to atrophy of the small intrinsic foot muscles that support it.
The short-foot exercise
The first step is strengthening the foot’s intrinsic muscles, the small muscles that help support your arch, by performing the “short-foot” exercise: gently drawing the ball of your foot toward your heel without curling your toes, shortening the foot and lifting the arch, then holding briefly before releasing. Practiced consistently, it’s one of the simplest ways to start rebuilding a stronger foundation from the ground up.