All About Feet - What Goes Wrong and Why
Feet are fantastic! But... unfortunately significantly ignored by the average person. Seriously, how many times do you think about your feet in a day, especially when they're locked up in a pair of sneakers?
The What
To show how fantastic feet really are, here are a few of my favorite "foot facts:"
There are over 200 bones in the body, and 1/4 of them are in the feet!
Do you have flat feet? This is caused by weak arch muscles. The arch of the foot is not a thing but an action, created by a group of muscles which contract to tighten the arch, like a bow string and an arrow curve a bow.
Reflexology is the stimulation of nerves in the feet, to assist parts of the body that are connected by these nerves. If our feet were perfectly aligned, every step would be like a reflexology treatment for the feet - but we're not even close to that today!
Because of how much pressure feet are under constantly, there are a myriad of things that can go wrong with them. Plantar fasciitis, bunions, bone spurs, hammertoe, and metatarsal fractures are just a few examples. The mainstream health world has plenty of "solutions", ranging from orthotics and weird shoes to surgery, but do they really fix the problem? Why do these issues develop in the first place?
The Why
If you want to understand feet, you have to understand fascia, because fascia is the real culprit. Going back to locking our feet up in sneakers and forgetting about them - we treat our feet like clubs, not complex organisms. We stand incorrectly, collapsing in our arches and forcing the ankle and knee out of alignment. This causes the fascia to grip and build up to keep stability in a leg that is falling out of balance.
Now, here is the single most important thing to understand about fascia: Adhesions that hold cells out of alignment result in blockages to blood and oxygen flow. If the cells aren’t getting what they need, everything goes out of whack. They can’t heal. They can’t detoxify. Muscles can’t exert proper force because they are locked away. This is why all of these issues develop! And this means they can be reversed as well.
The HOW
The fascia may be strong, but it is also malleable. Much of the foot is controlled by the calf, which is why the calf is one of the biggest cause sites in the entire body. It is the farthest away from the diaphragm (excepting the feet themselves), and it twists dramatically in most people, holding the foundation out of whack and blocking range of motion in the leg, as well as locking the mobility of the foot. Releasing these adhesions in the calves gives blockers a more relaxed gait, more energy, and better balance, not to mention decreased pain long-term! Personally, I've even had dramatic improvements in my flexibility.
This lady made fantastic progress with the Block on her bunions. You can see that the toes are freer and more relaxed, improving the angle of the big toe. The tissue appears healthier as well. Over time, the bunion will continue to melt away!
You can even look further up the chain. If the feet are pulling the calves out of alignment, it’s also pulling on the leg, hips, and eventually the spine and head! If we never fix these, we can do all of the work we want up there, but every step we take pulls us right back in to that alignment again. It’s amazing how everything is connected!
Don’t Fail your Feet!
When was the last time you gave your feet TLC? And I don't just mean pedicures, goodness no. I mean actually thinking about and targeting the root cause of your foot misfortures. Guess what? It's as easy as pie, and the key is in the fascia.