Foot Pronation And Injury
2500 years ago, a Greek soldier named Pheidippides ran over 26 miles to
the king's court at Athens to announce the battlefield victory at Marathon
and then "dropped dead". He never once complained that his "feet hurt!."
Certainly he was exhausted, but we'll never know for sure whether his feet
truly hurt or not. One thing I believe is that, while he ran, his foot
muscles and tendons were stretched to the limit and his joints were overextended.
In other words he "overpronated" all through the run. How do I know this?
Every living person who walks on two feet or one (e.g. amputees) overpronates
ALL the time. Even supinators overpronate. That is the way nature designed
us.
Pronation is a series of motions in the foot designed to absorb shock
and prepare the foot to propel us forward. Pronation begins when the heel
hits the ground. Pronation reaches its maximum when the whole foot is on
the ground and has gone through its entire range of motion. It is at this
moment, when the foot is stretched to the maximum, that the breakdown process
begins. Running compounds this by stretching even further. Inflammation
(biomechanical inflammation) and structural breakdown (e.g. bunions) begins
to accumulate through your life of walking and running. This repeated stretching
and trauma builds upon itself to eventually become INJURY. We are not all
affected the same way. Some of us develop arch or heel pain (plantar fasciitis),
some develop unstable ankles, some develop runners knee and of course many
other symptoms can develop especially low back or hip pain resulting from
a "functional shortage".
A variety of factors dependent on time and trauma dictate how
we will respond to "biomechanical malalignment" (which we know as pronation
problems). We all have biomechanical malalignment, a human machine designed
to break down over time. Each of us is vulnerable to the "natural condition"
of our own biomechanics.
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