Lately, I’ve had more questions about supportive shoes, orthotics, arch supports, plantar fasciitis, flat feet, and high arches than just about any other topic.
And since so many people are asking, it’s probably time I shared my opinion.
Fair warning: some people aren’t going to like it.
Your feet were designed to move.
Not be held still.
Not be braced.
Not be wrapped in enough cushioning that they never have to feel the ground beneath them.
I know some of those shoes feel incredible. Like you’re walking on a pillow.
But comfort and function are not always the same thing.
In fact, sometimes they’re opposites.
Before anybody gets upset, let’s get one thing out of the way:
Orthotics can absolutely reduce symptoms.
There are situations where they are appropriate. There are people who genuinely need them. If you’re standing on concrete for eight hours a day trying to make it through your shift without feeling like your feet are on fire, symptom relief matters.
The question isn’t whether orthotics can help.
The question is whether they’re solving the underlying reason your feet needed help in the first place.
Because pain relief and problem solving are not always the same thing.
Let’s Do a Quick Experiment
Stand up.
Close your eyes.
Pay attention to where you feel the weight in your feet.
Don’t overthink it.
Just notice.
Do you feel more weight in your heels?
The balls of your feet?
The inside edges?
The outside edges?
One foot more than the other?
Now open your eyes.
Write it down. Yes, I mean write it down. If you don’t, you’ll forget.
Now do 20 buttocks squeezes. When I say a buttocks squeeze I mean tighten the rear end and then allow it to FULLY relax. NO pulsing.
Relax.
Do another 20.
Relax.
Do one final set of 20.
Now close your eyes again.
Where is the weight in your feet now?
Does it feel the same?
Or did something shift?
Compare it to the note you made earlier.
Interesting, isn’t it?
You didn’t stretch your feet.
You didn’t massage them.
You didn’t buy new shoes.
You didn’t put in an orthotic.
You activated muscles higher up the chain.
And yet your feet changed.
Hold onto that thought because we’re coming back to it later.
The Human Foot Was Built To Work
The foot and ankle contain 26 bones and 33 joints.
That’s not an accident.
Those joints exist because your feet were designed to move, adapt, balance, absorb force, create force, and respond to the surface beneath them.
If the goal was simply to create a rigid platform to stand on, we wouldn’t need all of that complexity.
Think about it.
For most of human history nobody had memory foam shoes.
Nobody had custom orthotics.
Nobody had extra-cushioned running shoes.
At best, people may have had a piece of animal hide strapped to the bottom of their feet. And I can promise you it didn’t come with arch support.
And somehow humanity survived.
Our feet haven’t suddenly become frail.
What’s changed is how we use them.
We sit more.
Move less.
Walk on perfectly flat surfaces.
Challenge our balance less.
Challenge our foot mobility less.
And then we wonder why our feet aren’t functioning well.
Your feet aren’t weak.
They’re underworked.
The Real Problem Might Not Be In Your Feet
Last week we talked about how bones are supposed to line up with one another.
When joints stack properly, forces travel through the body efficiently. When they don’t, certain areas absorb more stress than they were designed to handle.
The feet are no different.
As a posture therapist, one of the most common things I see is people assuming their foot pain started in their feet.
Sometimes it did.
But often, the feet are simply where the problem became noticeable.
In many people, the muscles of the low back, hips, buttocks, hamstrings, and calves have stopped doing their jobs efficiently.
When that happens, the feet are forced to compensate.
They become the overachievers of the body.
And just like every overachiever eventually gets burned out, your feet start complaining.
That can show up as foot pain, plantar fasciitis, ankle pain, balance problems, gait abnormalities, chronic pain, and movement limitations.
The feet aren’t always the cause.
They’re often the victim.
In fact, many people are prescribed orthotics before anyone has thoroughly evaluated why the foot needed support in the first place.
That’s a conversation worth having.
Because your foot problem is often actually a hip problem.
Whether you’ve been told you have flat feet, high arches, plantar fasciitis, poor balance, or chronic foot pain, the question remains the same:
Why did the foot need help in the first place?
Let’s Talk About Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common reasons people start searching for arch supports, orthotics, and supportive shoes.
And I understand why.
When every step feels like you’re walking on a thumbtack, you’ll try almost anything.
The plantar fascia is a thick band of tissue on the bottom of the foot. Its job is to help support the arch and transfer force during walking.
The problem is that when the hips, buttocks, calves, and lower legs stop sharing the workload properly, the plantar fascia often gets asked to do more than it was designed to do.
Over time, that tissue becomes irritated.
The pain is real.
The inflammation is real.
The symptoms are real.
But the reason the tissue became overloaded may not be living in the foot itself.
This is why some people get temporary relief from orthotics, injections, stretching, massage guns, ice bottles, and all kinds of plantar fasciitis treatments, only to have the problem return later.
Again, symptom relief and problem solving are not always the same thing.
A Quick Anatomy Lesson Without Putting You To Sleep
Generally speaking, people with very flat feet often have muscles throughout the backside of the body—the low back, buttocks, hamstrings, and calves—that are stuck in an elongated position and aren’t generating enough force.
People with very high arches frequently have those same muscles stuck in a shortened position. They’re already working hard before they’re even asked to work.
Different presentation.
Same chain.
Different symptom.
Same system.
The body is constantly trying to keep you upright.
Sometimes that compensation shows up as flat feet.
Sometimes it shows up as high arches.
Either way, the feet are adapting to what’s happening above them.
My Feet Were A Disaster
People are often surprised when I tell them this.
I know exactly what foot pain feels like.
Long before I became a posture therapist, I was a dancer.
Years of ballet and dancing en pointe left my feet with some serious challenges.
For those of you who have never seen pointe shoes up close, let me paint a picture.
Imagine taking a foot that was designed to spread, flex, adapt, balance, and move through 33 joints and repeatedly asking it to spend hours in positions that are anything but natural.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
My metatarsals and phalanges gradually ended up shoved under, over, around, and against one another in ways they were never designed to exist.
At the time, I thought I was making my feet stronger.
Looking back, what I was really doing was slowly taking away their ability to move normally.
What started as flexibility gradually became immobility.
My feet stopped moving the way they were supposed to.
They stopped distributing force the way they were supposed to.
And once that happened, the rest of my body started paying the price.
By age 16, I had already severely injured my knee.
At one point I was having conversations about a future knee replacement before most teenagers have figured out what they want to do with their lives.
The knee wasn’t acting alone.
The feet weren’t acting alone.
The entire chain was involved.
When the feet lose their ability to move properly, forces have to go somewhere.
The knees pay.
The hips pay.
The low back pays.
Eventually the bill comes due.
That’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about helping people understand foot function today.
I’ve lived on both sides of this conversation.
I’ve been the person desperately looking for relief.
And now I’m the therapist helping people figure out why the problem started in the first place.
To be clear, ballet wasn’t the problem.
Millions of people have never stepped foot in a ballet studio and still develop foot pain, plantar fasciitis, balance problems, and movement limitations.
The issue wasn’t dancing itself.
The issue was spending years forcing my feet into positions that gradually reduced their ability to move and function normally.
That’s a lesson that applies to far more people than just dancers.
The Orthotic Conversation Nobody Wants To Have
Let’s be fair.
Orthotics can absolutely help people.
In fact, I have a client right now who is 22 years old and works as a barista.
Before we started working together, she would finish an eight-hour shift and have nothing left in the tank.
Not enough energy to go dancing.
Not enough energy to enjoy being 22.
Sometimes not even enough energy to go to dinner with friends.
At 22 years old, that’s not normal.
Twenty-two-year-olds should be figuring out how to stay out later, not how to make it through the workday.
If an orthotic helps someone like that survive a work shift while they’re rebuilding strength and function elsewhere, wonderful.
Use it.
But ask yourself a question.
Why did a healthy 22-year-old body need that much help in the first place?
That’s where the real conversation begins.
Many people are prescribed orthotics because they help symptoms.
The problem is that symptoms and causes are not the same thing.
The more support we give a structure, the less work that structure often has to do.
The less work it does, the less capable it becomes.
Then we interpret that loss of capability as proof that it needs even more support.
That’s the supportive shoe paradox.
Of Course They Hurt
This is usually where somebody says:
“But if I don’t wear my orthotics, my feet hurt.”
Of course they do.
If you haven’t asked those muscles to work for years, why would you expect them to suddenly perform perfectly?
You wouldn’t walk into a gym tomorrow and grab a 50-pound dumbbell for your first bicep curl.
You’d start small.
The same principle applies to your feet.
If you’ve spent years in highly supportive shoes, don’t throw them away tomorrow.
That’s a terrible plan.
Instead, start gradually.
Maybe you walk halfway down the block and back without your orthotics.
Maybe you spend an hour without them.
Then two.
Then three.
Bring them with you if you need them.
Use them when necessary.
But begin giving your feet opportunities to do some of their own work again.
Most people would likely benefit from less support and more foot function.
What About Children’s Shoes?
This conversation doesn’t start in adulthood.
Many kids spend their entire childhood in stiff, narrow, heavily supportive shoes.
Then we act surprised when their feet don’t move well later in life.
Children climb.
Jump.
Balance.
Run.
Squat.
Fall.
Get back up.
Their feet are designed to explore the world.
The more we restrict movement, the fewer opportunities those feet have to develop strength, coordination, mobility, and proprioception.
No, I’m not suggesting every child run around barefoot everywhere.
But I am suggesting we think critically about whether every foot needs to be supported all the time.
Why Feeling The Ground Matters
Your feet are packed with sensory receptors.
They’re constantly collecting information and sending it to your brain.
That information helps with balance, posture, coordination, and movement.
When your feet can feel the ground, your brain gets valuable feedback.
When that feedback decreases, so does the quality of information your nervous system receives.
This is one reason many people feel refreshed after walking barefoot on grass, sand, or natural surfaces.
Some people call it grounding.
Some call it earthing.
Others simply call it being outside.
Whatever term you prefer, there is value in reconnecting with the environment beneath your feet.
What We Focus On At Professor Posture
At Professor Posture, we don’t spend our time trying to force feet into perfect positions.
We focus on restoring function throughout the entire chain.
The goal is to help the hips, glutes, hamstrings, calves, and core start doing the jobs they were designed to do.
When that happens, pressure is often removed from structures that have been overworked for years.
The feet no longer have to compensate for everybody else’s poor performance.
They can finally get back to being feet.
Whether someone comes to us with foot pain, plantar fasciitis, balance problems, walking difficulties, chronic pain, or movement limitations, we’re interested in understanding why the problem developed—not just how to temporarily quiet it down.
That’s why so many people seeking posture correction, corrective exercise, balance therapy, gait analysis, chronic pain relief, and movement restoration in the Tampa area end up discovering that the source of their problem wasn’t where they thought it was.
Remember The Self-Test?
Go back to the exercise from the beginning.
You changed how pressure was distributed through your feet without touching your feet.
Think about that.
If activating your buttocks for less than two minutes changed what you felt in your feet, how much influence do you think the rest of the body has over foot mechanics?
Your foot pain may absolutely be coming from your feet.
But the reason for your foot pain may be coming from somewhere else entirely.
And that’s the difference between symptom management and problem solving.
One final note before I let you go.
The same conversation often applies to bunions, hammer toes, ankle pain, balance problems, and many other common foot conditions. We’ll tackle those individually in future articles because each deserves its own conversation.
Until then, pay attention to your feet.
Give them opportunities to move.
Gradually reduce unnecessary support when appropriate.
And if you’re dealing with foot pain, plantar fasciitis, balance problems, ankle pain, or chronic pain and nobody has looked beyond your feet, maybe it’s time to evaluate the entire chain.
Sometimes the problem isn’t where the pain is showing up.
And remember:
Your feet aren’t weak.
They’re underworked.
