New tennis shoes hurt

I will preface this post by saying the best thing I ever did for my feet, my posture and my pain was to stop wearing traditional shoes. I am very hypermobile and have very high arches in my feet and throughout my athletic life I have been slowed down by foot pain and blood blisters on the balls of my feet and big toes (sorry for the details). I had tried all different types of shoes, orthotics and tapes, so in 2008 I decided to start working in only socks most of the day and never turned back. Going barefoot taught me a lot about my own body and how I was creating my own hip and back pain. The feedback I was getting from my feet helped me become aware that I was standing entirely on the outsides of my feet and how that related to the tightness and aching in my hips. From the ground up, I progressively became aware of how one part of my body was affecting the other and I have been able to successfully strengthen my feet, loosen my hips and eliminate almost all of the chronic issues I was having.

Click here to watch the video "Why Feet Hurt"

Being a physical therapist, seeing 14 people a day with different body and foot types, has allowed me to test my posture and movement principles within myself and on my clients. I have helped a lot of people discover how their feet affect their bodies and their bodies affect their feet. I have learned that how you hold your upper body can be the root cause of your bunions and how you use your hips can dictate if you pronate or supinate in your feet. There is very much a trickle up and a trickle down effect on posture, alignment and movement. The shoes you choose will affect all of the above.