ghmerrill wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2024 7:18 am
Cmillar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2024 7:01 am
- try to wear 'zero-lift' (that is, flat barefoot style shoes) as often as you can (ideally, all the time)
Definitely not a course for everyone to follow. In general, you'll find that podiatrists and foot specialists are not supportive of this approach and will provide detailed reasons why. Just use a search engine to see the issues.
Sorry, but beg to differ. They're living in the dark ages of information.
The proof is...you just have to try it for yourself. Give yourself a few months. You'll never go back to 'regular shoes'.
A million years of evolution didn't produce humans meant to walk around in shoes with heels.
Heels, stiff leather shoes, narrow shoes, and cowboy boots are helping to contribute to a rash of health problems (not just back problems, but digestive problems, etc. etc.) And, that leads to a rash of mental problems as well (lack of confidence due to inability to move to the best of your ability)
ie: Ever seen an old cowboy try to walk after taking off his boots? Pretty hilarious....but not funny. Very sad.
Life-long ice hockey players, and a lot of figure skaters, literally have to retrain themselves as to how to walk naturally without pain. Figure skaters are better off, because they know the importance of doing ballet exercises in order to maintain a naturally functioning calf muscle, because ice skates inhibit ankle mobility and therefore harm calf muscle development which is of utmost importance to natural mobility and freedom from injuries.
If you're in any city in Canada, sit on a streetcorner for an hour and watch people stroll by. It's pretty easy to spot someone who spent most of their life in ice skates. They walk very stiffly, due to literally no ankle mobility, weak calf muscles, and all their movement initiated from the thighs and buttocks. They're very prone to back injuries and other ailments from lack of proper mobility once they hang up the blades.
The healthiest populations of humans in the world don't even wear shoes of any kind. Or else, they wear very flat shoes just to cover the soles of their feet from stones or pebbles.
The world's greatest instrumental soloists are very picky about what they wear on their feet. For example, Hillary Hahn is really into yoga to stay in proper physical form, and she practically dances while she performs. There are numerous other examples of musicians being pretty picky about what they wear on their feet while performing.
So, I'll stop here. The evidence for the positive effects of wearing shoes that conform to how we're naturally designed to move is overwhelming. And the evidence of the number of injuries due to wearing improper shoes or boots is also overwhelming.
). One was when I was wheeling a bike to a different location and it slipped on wet leaves and went down on my left ankle. It didn't break it, but it was a severe sprain and I just ignored it and went on with life. But that ankle (and alignment of the foot) has never been quite the same since.