I receive so many emails with questions about orthotics and I will share this recent one with you, including my comments:

‘Hi Benita, It’s taken me a while to get into the program but I’ve switched to your system of Bunkies and stretch tests now and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. My physio suggested I have a gait analysis done and the orthotist confirmed that I’m neutral but says I should consider an orthotic custom moulded to my foot to eliminate “slight pronation” which showed up on the foot scan. Could there be any benefit in an orthotic even if I’m neutral?’

My comment

If the foot scan shows up ’slight pronation’, all it tells me is that the muscles on the inside of the ankle are not strong enough to keep the foot in a the neutral position. This athlete has 2 choices:

1. Support the foot with an orthotic which will ‘correct’ the pronation. Keep in mind though that once you support muscles they become lazy since they do not need to work anymore which means they end up even weaker. Orthotics are excellent for patients who are too old or for specific reasons not able to strengthen their muscles anymore, but not for athletes who need their bodies to be as strong as possible.

2. Strengthen the weak muscles until it is able to support your foot in a neutral position. Test your Bunkies and find out which muscle lines are not as strong as they should be, and then use the Bunkie as an exercise to improve your strength. With ‘pronation’ your weakness is most probably on the medial line and I suggest you keep doing that Bunkie regularly for a few months to build up your strength.

Be aware: A runner who choose ’support’ over strength will not be able to perform optimally.

There are many functional exercises you can do to strengthen the ankle;

1. The ‘ballerina exercise: Stand on one leg, with the foot turned out 45 degrees. Make sure your hips are facing forward. Lift up onto your toes as high as you can and hold the position for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 times 1x day.

2. Walk barefoot on soft surfaces like sand or soft grass

3. Walk on the heels while lifting the big toes as high as possible

4. Stand on one leg on a ‘balancing sponge’. Bend and extend your knee, making sure that the knee stay in the neutral position as you go down. Do 10 repeats each side.

Tags: ante-pronation shoes, Lyno Method, orthotics, over-pronation, stabilizing shoes

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 31st, 2010 at 09:39 and is filed under Lyno Blog, Running, Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.