Our feet are an important part of our body, impacting the foundation and alignment. Problems with your feet could actually highly impact your body’s structural foundation for a solid and healthy alignment. Luckily, when you can figure out the issue, there are ways to strengthen your feet and muscles to help with your body’s alignment!
Common Problems with Your Feet
Maybe you have flat feet or have a high arch. These can really impact your hips and body’s total alignment.
A low arch or flat foot is a sign that your hips tend to rotate in, which means you need to balance out your body’s foundation. To do this, strengthen your glutes to help turn the hips out. Since you can’t change the actual arch of your foot, you just need to practice exercises and stretches to help with these issues.
A high arch is a sign that your hips turn out and can cause tight leg muscles. It is important to always stretch, especially the hamstrings! You should always seek the advice of a podiatrist for the correct treatment plan. Some issues may lead to other issues with your feet and legs, sometimes even requiring ankle replacement surgery. Your podiatrist can come up with the correct plan to strengthen and help with the body’s alignment and foundation.
How the Feet Impacts the Body
The way you stand and walk (which all starts with your feet) can heavily affect your posture. This could eventually lead to additional foot, knee, and back pain. Custom orthotics can help you find pain relief from the neck to the back and down to the hips.
Feet can also impact your organ health. Nerves in the feet send messages to the brain and when not at an optimal level, can cause your brain to work in overtime. This can cause the structures that hold your organs in place to fail and not work properly.
Now back to the arches of your feet, which has a lot of impact on your body because a poor arch results in poor alignment. This is because your feet are unable to support your body the way it should and is needed. Over time, all of the stress on your feet will cause additional joint issues and painful knees and hips.
The Foot and Ankle Center of Arizona
To seek the proper diagnosis and treatment, always meet with a podiatrist. The Foot and Ankle Center of Arizona offers effective treatments for foot and ankle injuries like ankle sprains, Achilles tendon injuries, Jones fractures, and more. We also offer safer alternatives for foot and ankle pain relief. From custom foot orthotics to non-surgical procedures, the staff at the Foot and Ankle Center of Arizona is there for you for emergency care and specialty procedures, too!