Ugly Elf

A friend sent me this link, and it broke my heart. That poor bastard. That poor, poor bastard. He wore padding and support and followed all the Conventional Wisdom (CW) he could find and he kept doing all the way to the surgeon’s office.

My friend thought I could relate. And yeah, I can! I can’t tell you the number of times I was told I needed surgery. I’m actually glad I didn’t have insurance at the time so I couldn’t afford it. I had horrible pain in my feet, knees, hips, and lower back.

I’m so glad I stumbled on articles for foot exercise (Like these, and those for dancers). Even before learning about the barefoot movement it put me on the path I’m on now.

When I started, despite that the whole exercise program was put together by a conglomeration of foot doctors and spine doctors, my physical therapist (who is also my aunt) told me I was crazy, I was going to destroy my feet, and I’d need surgery just to walk again within a year. My brother the surgeon agreed. My doctor at UO did not. She didn’t think it would help, but she was sure it wouldn’t do any harm either.

The science of feet has progressed a long way since then. Marks Daily Apple did a great write up on this back in Oct 2009.

It’s been a long slow road by now I sort of have an arch, but long ago ALL the pain went away: feet, knees, hips, lower back; they’re all fine. After years of exercises the two things that helped me the most were walking barefoot whenever it was warm enough to do so, and wearing Vibram Five Fingers all year long.

Keep in mind, if you have damaged feet there is a tendency to continue walking in a damaged way. This is a guaranteed path to injury. It’s up to you to retrain your feet. You have to engage your arches with conscious effort. Whether you have healthy arches or flat feet, there is an easy observation that will help you on the path to walking properly: how do you walk up and down a steep slope. It’s not surprising to find that you walk on the ball of your foot when walking up a steep slope. What’s a little surprising is that you walk on the ball of your foot when going down the steep slope as well. So why do you walk on your heel when you’re walking on a flat surface? The answer: shoes! (Thanks again Mark.)

Here’s one last observation to help you get on your path to using your foot the way it was meant to be used. When you’re trying to develop the front foot strike, rather than focusing on getting the ball of your foot to land first on the descending foot, focus on strong use of the toes on the ascending foot–the back foot which is pushing off. When your toes are strong and engaged, you’ll hardly use your heel at all. I’ve also found this is just about impossible in conventional shoes.

Again, I love my Vibrams. Especially the KSO Trecks which I wear with toe socks! Socks prevent blistering on long, weight-bearing hikes. You don’t want blisters between your toes.

Ugly Elf warning: you will never get a date wearing Vibram Five Fingers. I’m sorry. It’s true. I am a single, single man. Everyone says they look like gorilla feet.

The failure of Conventional Wisdom (CW) on this one is interesting to me in two ways.

First, the doctors who first “rebelled” against orthotics did so for good reason. They were foot doctors and spine doctors who were in Doctors Without Borders and similar programs. Volunteering in third world countries in areas that were so poor the average person couldn’t afford shoes. What the docs discovered was that no one had foot or back problems, the opposite of what they expected. And then they started to ask why. I can’t find the article where I first read about this. I’m leaving comments on: if you find it, please give it to me and I’ll update this. ‘Nough said.

Second, bicycle racing. Pro cyclists don’t use seats with cushions and padding. They have those extremely hard little seats. When you start using them they bruise, they hurt, then you get used to them and the seat is fine. They don’t use more padding (or shocks) because the padding causes fatigue. The body is never able to adapt, the muscle are constantly exhausted by having to compensate for the up and down, the tendons and ligaments wear and injure, but do not adapt or strengthen. The same thing happens to your feet and legs with padded shoes. Everyone who works on their feet thinks they need padding and cushioned support to stand all day. They complain endlessly about the pain. If you go bear foot, or something similar like those little flats girls wear, or vibrams, you get a lot of muscle soreness at first, but your body adapts to what is now exercise rather than portable-sponge-floor and you’re fine. The pain goes away. Why is there a disconnect between the science applied to athletes, and the lack of science that holds up the orthotic and shoe industry? Especially now with the research from Havard which is so complete and thorough, so unequivocal , and clear and understandable.

So why do so many people have so much trouble seeing the truth when it’s presented to them so clearly? Why do people still want magic shoes that will fix the broken feet they were born with, rather than just admitting that their feet are fine and the shoes are broken? It’s the kind of bad reasoning that infects every facet of human life. Scientists may now have some clues as to why. Apparently, when some people listen to trusted authority sources the parts of the brain responsible for skeptical reasoning just shut off. All too often when a trusted source tells you something like grain is good, wear supportive shoes, cholesterol is bad, people are unable to consider the merit of the argument, or even examine whether or not there is good science (or any science for that matter) and instead simply except the statement as fact. I’ll come back to those topics later, or you can just head on over to Mark’s where he’s done a better job than I ever could. It’s his day job after all.

I’m not saying you should deny everything told to you by anyone in a white coat; I am saying you should consider the merits of what you’re being told. Keep the skeptic on. Be vigilant. (But don’t get paranoid.)

OK, the old-man-on-porch rant is done. The Ugly Elf returns you to your regularly scheduled programming.