Tuesday 26 May 2009

Do you know your feet type?



I’ve experience some pain at the ball of the feet sometimes last year, at first I thought it is because I’ve wearing high heels to work most of the days, then slowly I realized even when I wear flat to go shopping or what, the pain is still there, just one particular spot on the ball of the right foot.

As I was wondering what is wrong with my feet, I came across this shop in Marina Square “Ergo Lab”, they sell ORTHOTICS AND BIOMECHANICAL INSOLES with ultimate support and comfort. Erm.. not a bad idea huh, so I went in to the shop out of curiosity.

The sales assistant offer the do a foot scan in order to know my feet better before she recommend the suitable insoles for me, so I stand on the machine which looks exactly like a scale, after a few seconds an image appear on the computer screen as below:

According to the sales assistant, I have high arch feet from what we see in the scan image. We clearly see the “footprint” on top, on bottom, but in the middle KOSONG! That means the entire weight/pressure of the body is placed on the front and back of the feet only, no wonder the ball of the foot keep on having pain after some walking.
You see, normaly human feet should look like this, that’s how we learnt to draw the footprint also right? In this case, the weight/ pressure of the body can be distributed evenly on the feet, so the feet are biomechanically efficient and can use any you want to.

For my feet type they called it HIGH ARCH, as thoug there is a high arch between the forefeet and the heel. The band connecting the forefoot and the heel is very thin or non-existant in my case. Hence the feet are not very effective as a shock absorber since the arch doesn't collapse enough to absorb it.

So they recommended me to buy this insole especially formulated to cater for people with high arch, it has this protuded portion in the middle of the insole to make good for the “vacuum arch”, so that the feet will have enough surface to absord the shock as we walk.

It cost me about SGD 49, and to be true it does help when you put this insole in the shoe, you literally feel the insole like some labour working hard to lift up that part of the feet. But most of the time, after you insert in the insole, the shoe become tighter and the discomfort at the ball of the foot has been transformed or transferred to the little toes as the shoe become too small for them.

Overall, I still give it a yes, because the pain in the toe is nothting compare to the pain in the ball of the foot. Lol.. If you are interested to know your feet type, you can do this simple experiment at home:





1 comment:

zewt said...

this is actually quite true... and very important. wearing falt shoes without the arch can give you backpain in the long run... not just the ball or the toe.