Forget about reading palms, try reading the soles of your shoes! By analyzing the bottom of our shoes, we can gain some pretty neat information about our physical body. If you have a pair of shoes you have worn for a few months you may be able to see uneven foot patterns, meaning that the bottoms of your shoes appear to wear out more quickly on the inside or the outside. If these uneven foot patterns exist, it might alert us to problems in our walking style or misalignments in our body.
So, what does it mean if one of these uneven foot patterns applies to you?
If you overpronate, it can mean that your foot rolls inward toward the arch of your foot too much. This can prevent the foot from getting a good, stable push-off when you step and disrupt the body’s natural alignment. This can potentially lead to injury including hip pain, shin splints, bunions and tendonitis.
Overpronation is caused by overly flexible, flat feet. People can be born this way or they many have weakened arches that can lead to overpronation. Looking at your shoes and examining your foot pattern can help you identify if you overpronate. Other ways to identify this is by examining the space between the floor and your arch, if there is no space between the two then you may overpronate.
If you supinate, it can mean that your foot has highly raised arches and they don’t absorb shock well when they hit the ground. Most of your weight falls on the outside of your foot when you step causing you to push off from your outer toes rather then the ball of your foot. This can potentially lead to injuries including stress on the knee, back and hip pain, stress fractures or inflammation of the sole.
Supination is caused by the structure of your foot which may run in your family or may be caused by weakness in your foot, ankle or leg. Weakness can result from improper shoes, prior foot injury or body misalignment. To identify if you supinate look at the bottom of your shoes and see if you wear them out on the outside edges more harshly then the ball of the foot.
How can you correct the problem?
If you feel that one of these conditions applies to you and/or you have been experiencing pain in your feet you should speak to your doctor about it. You may need more supportive shoes, you may need to wear orthotics or you may need to be doing exercises to strengthen the weakness in your body that is causing the pain. A specialist such as a podiatrist or a physical therapist can make a definite diagnosis and get you on track to having happy, healthy feet.
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