02 Dec Why Timely Foot Posture Correction Is Important
Feet are the foundation of your body. If you have foot pain, feet pronation, plantar fasciitis, collapsing arches, or heel spurs, your foundation is affected. You can improve foot health with active foot correction exercises.
Most don’t realise this, but foot posture affects the joints, muscles, and tendons of the feet as well as other parts of the anatomy. Improper foot posture can cause an array of problems such as foot, ankle, shin, knee, hip joint, sciatica, spine, and back pain
About Orthotics
Orthotics are arch modification devices placed in shoes. They are useful only when you are wearing regular shoes and aren’t suitable if you are wearing beach footwear or designer shoes.
Orthotics provide the feet passive support, and this is a disadvantage in a way. It means that your muscles aren’t supporting collapsed foot arches, and external aid is doing that work. While orthotics provide support and comfort to the feet, they aren’t a long term solution as they do not help improve your muscle strength. Can you do something else that intrinsically helps to fix your fallen arches?
Sure, some simple things can help. For example, if you perform foot correction exercises, it will help make those muscles strong and supple. The opposite holds as well. Allow your muscles to languish, and they will lose their strength in no time and even weaken further.
In sum, orthotics take over the job of foot muscles, and the latter can suffer progressive weakening. Over time, it becomes difficult for collapsing arches to recover and muscles in your feet to become stronger. In fact, it increases foot pronation (collapse of foot arches), which leads to several problems such as metatarsalgia, heel spur, plantar fasciitis, torsional problems, back pain, etc.
Why Foot Posture Correction Matters
Foot posture correction is the solution to reduce these foot pains and problems. These exercises can help you regain full control over your feet and related pain problems in the short and long term.
A podiatrist will examine your feet and assess the condition of the foot muscles. They will prescribe a programme of graded exercises that suits your feet situation. After completing that exercise module successfully, you progress to the next level of activity. If you sincerely follow the instructions and the routine, you will regain control of your foot arch muscles. It means that you can do away with orthotics and be free from foot-pain in a short time.
What’s the Timeframe For Foot Posture Correction to Work?
No fixed period can be assured for feet correction to happen because individual feet pain severity and posture problems vary. However, if you have partially collapsed arches and the pain is mild, it becomes easier for you to regain control over your feet. Recovery timeframes will be longer if there is severe deformation and chronic weakness of feet.
Six to eight weeks of exercises at progressive levels provide positive results in mild to moderate foot posture problems. In cases of severe deformities, it takes far longer for weak feet and muscles to recover. If your feet suffer from extreme muscle fatigue, you need orthotics to prevent complete arch collapse and associated pain.
Do You Need to Wear Orthotics?
The posture correction exercises focus on reducing your dependence on orthotics and wean you away from it. However, if your podiatrist prescribes you to use orthotics, you should. We will ensure that foot strength and endurance increase, and your dependence on orthotics decreases.
If you have noticed any problems with your feet, contact a reputed podiatrist immediately. For information on our services at Sydney Sports Podiatry, feel free to contact us at either one of our locations.
Thanks for reading,
Sydney Sports Podiatry
1300 474 306