Dynamic stability?

However, it wasn't a permanent solution to my badly behaving left foot. Since then I've had several injuries on that side including a severe bout of plantar fasciitis and both heel and hip bursitis. My wonderful physio Peter is in Australia and so it would make it very expensive to visit him whenever things started niggling and so, since then I have seen a few different people over the years and I've found that everyone has a slightly different take on what I should do to bring my left foot into line. I've been chastised by some physios for being somewhat lazy in letting muscles in my backside become weak and I've done strengthening exercises to try to improve this (I must admit that I don't enjoy doing them and probably haven't done them as religiously as I should), I have been told that I need to improve my posture and so, when I'm standing in a queue, for example, I will consciously tilt may pelvis into the correct position by tightening my glutes and pulling my stomach in. I've seen a couple of podiatrists too and they have given me orthotics to put into my shoes that keep my left foot in a supinated position for longer.

There seems to be a difference in opinion. In general the physios will tell you to strengthen muscles that will stop the over pronation and podiatrists will give support to the foot to prevent over pronation. Is there anything out there that will do both?

It appears that there is! Last Friday I went into town and paid a visit to the Shuropody store where they had just taken delivery of a footbalance machine. The representative from Footbalance was on hand to train the staff to use the machine and so I got in the queue to be a guinea pig for this activity. It took around ten minutes for an assessment to be made and to receive a pair of custom made insoles to wear in my running shoes, or any other shoes that I wanted for that matter.

The first stage of the process was to stand on the machine whilst it took photographs and whilst the representative had a good look and feel around the foot, checking the height of the arch in particular. This was done in both standing position and with feet flat on the floor and knees bent to give a picture of how your foot would look through the running gait cycle.

(Oooh! Those calves must be tight if you can only bend that far!)

Once this was done, the machine and the representative made an assessment of how much pronation is going on.

(Those are the legs of another customer - they're not mine - honest!)

This was followed by a standing on another surface from which a mould was made of the shape of my foot and from here a pair of insoles put into the machine popped out again to fit my shoe and my foot perfectly. I already have a couple of pairs of orthotics that have been custom made for me but these feel different. As soon as I put them into my shoe and started to walk around I knew we were going to get along famously. I could feel the support and comfort immediately. I have very high arches and it feels good to have something in there, rather than a gap. The danger of putting something in there normally is that it feels stiff, rigid and uncomfortable until I adapt or get used to it. I remember my first pair of orthotics giving me terrible blisters but I persevered until the skin hardended and they didn't hurt anymore! These offer dynamic stability. In other words your foot can still flex as it wants and the support is there to guide it. By allowing it to go through the normal movement and encouraging it into the neutral gait it is helping me to strengthen the muscles that have become weak by not using them previously. Could it be that I am doing as I'm told by both the physio and podiatrist?! Yes - and my bank manager for that matter as these are only around £40 - £50 a pop!