Understanding foot-function
To understand foot function, we need to go back to our Palaeolithic ancestors.
To understand foot function, we need to go back to our Palaeolithic ancestors.
For many thousands of years, these lean individuals moved around hunting and gathering. The ground might have been soft mud and sand on the shoreline, where they were foraging seaweed and shellfish.
Sometimes it might have been rocky terrain, the foot angling this way and that, as they picked their way carefully across a slope of blueberries. On other occasions, they might have been walking on crushed vegetation, out on a vast grassland plain or deep inside the forest.
Assuming that these early people survived infancy, and avoided death by injury and infection, the evidence is that they remained strong and fast until their late 60s and 70s.
And they did it all without arch-support, because:
THE FOOT IS A SELF-SUPPORTING STRUCTURE
The foot is a mass of 26 bones, a related number of joints and ligaments and great skeins of vital fascia. In addition, four layers of muscles lie across the arch and there are large extrinsic muscles in the leg, attached by their long tendons, that stabilise and control the foot’s movements.
It stands to reason that removing the need for these muscles to operate naturally (because you have provided “support”) will weaken them. This creates a downward spiral of dependency.
So, even though propping up the foot may seem to help initially, it may be doing more harm than good in the long run:
TO PROP UP THE ARCH WILL WEAKEN THE FOOT
In order to explain the solution it helps to understand four important concepts, which are easy to grasp:
The foot must be universally jointed, to adapt to the shape of the ground. For this to happen the foot must be mobile - at heel-strike.
This is the pronated position. Pronation, then, is a natural and good thing.
As the body comes to push off through the foot, it must stiffen and convert into a rigid propulsive lever.
This is the supinated position. Supination is also a natural and good thing.
The foot must also function as a pivot to allow the free forward movement of body weight.
It is surprisingly common to find restriction of these essential rotations.
The weight-bearing foot is a different shape to the off-weight-bearing foot.
Any method of capturing the foot’s contours that involve laser-scanning in a box, or a plaster cast are hopelessly inaccurate. Nor is a foam impression-box suitable.
The orthotics from Evolution are unique. But so is our no-quibble guarantee. If, after one month of wearing the orthotics, your child has rejected them/not benefitted from them simply return the orthotics by Royal Mail Signed For® delivery for a full refund of all fees (bar the initial consultation).