I have done some research on foot pain as I have been dealing with plantar fasciitis for a little while now.Ā
I knew that if I caved in to comfort, and put on cushy shoes, that it would be even more detrimental to my feet.
I now have this fantastic podcast interview to help explain my convictions.Ā
I started following our favorite nutritionistās ultra running coach Zach Bitter and recently he interviewed a foot specialist by the name of Dr. Courtney Conley.Ā
Her company is called āGait Happensā and is devoted to helping strengthening the feet of the world.Ā She heraelf had wrecked feet from dancing and lived in orthotics for many years.
Here is a key takeaway from the interview (remember the transcript is conversational):
āI mean, that’s the trade off with cushioned footwear. When you have cushion or a lot of stuff underneath the foot, it’s protection on a manmade surface, right? But you compromise sensory acuity.
You compromise sensory perception. You will not feel what you are designed to feel when you have a bunch of stuff underneath your foot. So when you start running, if you were to take your shoes off and go running on grass, it will be an extremely different experience.
There was a cool study that came out, and the cohort was small. It was only about 20 people, I think. But they looked at runners, recreational runners with chronic heel pain.
And we know that our treatment for plantar heel pain, which is the correct term now, as it’s no longer called fasciitis or fasciopathy, has been to offload {into a} orthotic, real cushion shoe. And what they did in this study was they had everybody take their shoes off, and they were to run barefoot for 15 minutes twice a week for six weeks. And I think it was like 19 out of 20 of them reported with less pain.ā
Less heel pain with running for 15 minutes of barefoot running twice a week? For six weeks?
That is really interestingā¦.
More on this next time!
(hereās the link if youād like to listen to the whole thing, but I will highlight more!) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/human-performance-outliers-podcast/id1363389413?i=1000677675250
Ā
Hereās to balance, strength, and foot happiness,
š Laura
