When your feet contact the ground, it begins a chain of movements throughout the body which plays a major role in how you handle forces.
Thus, small undesirable deviations within the feet can affect how the knees, hips, pelvis and back move. Over time these deviations can irritate and overwork muscles, causing imbalances throughout our body.
Two examples of this are overpronation and oversupination: Whilst walking, the foot uses pronation (where your foot naturally rolls inwards) for shock absorption when you land. This is followed by supination (where your foot rolls outwards), to allow you to push off and drive forward with power.
What is overpronation?
This is when we have excessive pronation, which causes the arch to flatten, turning the foot inwards. The leg and knee follow suit.
What is oversupination?
This is when there is excessive supination, which impacts our ability to absorb shock. This is usually a higher, rigid arched foot, where most the of forces are on the outside of the foot.
What about high heels?
This is commonly linked with back pain, as high heels increase our anterior pelvic tilt, resulting in lordosis (curvature) of the spine.
If you have chronic back pain that has not improved with localised treatment, a podiatry assessment would be worthwhile!
Our podiatrist Josh is available for consultations at our Boronia clinic Tuesday afternoons & Wednesday mornings.