Foot Tips
Katriona’s tips:
- Shoe-fit is critically important for reducing injury risk.
- Stretching the calf muscles daily often resolves aches and pains, and Katriona believes that through stretching the calf muscle complex regularly you can even prevent injuries.
Running shoe advice:
Podiatric Management would highly recommend that:
- your running shoe should be at least 1cm bigger than your foot. Shoe sizes vary tremendously between brands and therefore you should have at least a thumb’s gap between the longest toe and the end of the shoe.
- changing your running shoes every 400 miles/650km.
- if you run more than 3 times a week, you should alternate two sets of identical shoes. Alternating your shoes allows the material to rest and will not compress as quickly if you run in only the same pair.
Stretching advice:
Before strengthening muscles one must have the flexibility for normal range-of-motion/movement. Katriona believes that flexibility/normal range-of-motion must be present before trying to influence the body’s biomechanics. Often increasing joint and muscle flexibility organically improves the body’s biomechanics. The whole body must pivot through/over a stable ankle joint when walking and running. Clinically Katriona often finds restrictions within the ankle joint complex. This restriction can be compared to driving your car with the hand-break on; quite simply, neither the foot nor the lower limb can function properly if the calf muscles are too tight. If you run or do sport regularly or have some musculoskeletal pains, it is crucial to stretch these muscles regularly.