Bad posture is increasingly common. More and more people sit hunched over a desk or a phone creating an imbalance in the spine. While bad posture is easy to develop, it’s much harder to fix. Over time, poor posture can lead to a range of aches and pains that will plague you for years to come.
This article discusses the importance of the feet.
Try a few of these tips to improve the alignment and weight distribution across the feet and you’ll be amazed by the improvements in your posture.
Why are the Feet so Important?
Even if you experience pain in the knees, lower or upper back, it’s highly likely that the problem stems from the feet. With 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments, the foot is much more complicated than many people realize.
The feet can move in multiple different ways and many people develop walking and standing habits that lead to an imbalance in the rest of their bodies.
Supination is when you stand with too much weight on the outside edges of your feet. This can eventually lead to ankle pain, bunions, clawed toes, foot pain, and knee issues.
Pronation is the reverse problem of lifting the feet’ outer edges, placing too much weight on the inside edges. Pronation can lead to stress fractures, inflamed knee ligaments, and chronic lower back pain.
Other common feet problems include pigeon toes and duck feet, which are when the feet turn inwards or outwards. This is usually due to weak muscles in the hips and glutes. By realigning your feet, you will begin to use and strengthen these weaker muscles elsewhere in the body.
How to Improve the Alignment of your Feet for Good Posture
Here are a few ways you can begin to work on your posture by focusing on your feet.
- Walk barefoot
The feet were not designed to constrict and were suffocated by shoes. Walking barefoot can help to restore the natural shape and movements of the foot.
- Try bio-energy shoe inserts
Bioenergy inserts are a special kind of shoe insert designed to cushion the foot using the push and pull of the Earth’s magnetic field. Magneto 500 Plus inserts stimulate the nerves within the feet, leading to immediate pain relief and overall foot health.
- Traction exercises
Using a strap or a belt, use traction exercises to strengthen the entire foot. With posture problems, there is often a weaker area of the foot. By supporting the entire foot, you’ll see immediate improvements in the weight distribution and alignment of the foot.
- See a physiotherapist
If these at-home remedies don’t seem to help, it may be worth visiting a physiotherapist. A professional will be able to assess your posture in detail and provide you with a series of exercises customized to your body.
Conclusion
It’s well worth spending some time caring for your feet. They support the weight of the entire body, and when you use them incorrectly, you risk damaging muscles elsewhere in the body.