Overpronation does not exist

So, I have a personal hypothesis, with no research or studies to back it up whatsoever. This is just me thinking out loud.

If only the foot had something that structurally prevented it from overpronating. From an engineering standpoint, something that was attached to the medial aspect of the foot would serve well to prevent overpronation. The area occupied by the big toe would seem ideal. Something like the big toe, that was able to abduct and splay out, would possibly reduce overpronation. Something similar to the big toe, that wasn't inhibited by shoes from splaying, might work really well!

I saw a nice article in one of Jen's posts.
http://www.thebarefootrunners.org/t...-natural-foot-health-by-my-awesome-lmt.14772/

Myofascial Treatment for Natural Foot Health. By Aaron Gustafson LMT, CAMT II
http://www.transcendbodywork.com/Myofascial_Treatment_for_Natural_Foot_Health.html

"Exercise: Align and Anchor Toe.
Feel the correlation between big toe positioning and pronation.

Have your client stand comfortably, ask them to pronate and supinate their medial arch. Once they’ve found both motions, ask them to supinate, while supinated, abduct their big toe into straight alignment with the first metatarsal ray (see picture). Gently anchor their toe to the ground with fingers from both hands - thumbs on the toenail, first fingers on the sides of the toe, hold their great toe right where it is on the ground- ask them to pronate. Most folks instantly feel the support of aligned bony structure- it’s very difficult to pronate further through this positioning. As the therapist, notice how the force of their body weight is expressed through the end of their toe. When aligned, notice how the weight and force is felt through the tip of their toe and toenail. Experiment with moving them back toward tapered-shoe position, or bunion deformation, feel how the force starts to come through the side of their toe, or their callouses or bunion if present!"
 
So, I have a personal hypothesis, with no research or studies to back it up whatsoever. This is just me thinking out loud.

If only the foot had something that structurally prevented it from overpronating. From an engineering standpoint, something that was attached to the medial aspect of the foot would serve well to prevent overpronation. The area occupied by the big toe would seem ideal. Something like the big toe, that was able to abduct and splay out, would possibly reduce overpronation. Something similar to the big toe, that wasn't inhibited by shoes from splaying, might work really well!

I saw a nice article in one of Jen's posts.
http://www.thebarefootrunners.org/t...-natural-foot-health-by-my-awesome-lmt.14772/

Myofascial Treatment for Natural Foot Health. By Aaron Gustafson LMT, CAMT II
http://www.transcendbodywork.com/Myofascial_Treatment_for_Natural_Foot_Health.html

"Exercise: Align and Anchor Toe.
Feel the correlation between big toe positioning and pronation.

Have your client stand comfortably, ask them to pronate and supinate their medial arch. Once they’ve found both motions, ask them to supinate, while supinated, abduct their big toe into straight alignment with the first metatarsal ray (see picture). Gently anchor their toe to the ground with fingers from both hands - thumbs on the toenail, first fingers on the sides of the toe, hold their great toe right where it is on the ground- ask them to pronate. Most folks instantly feel the support of aligned bony structure- it’s very difficult to pronate further through this positioning. As the therapist, notice how the force of their body weight is expressed through the end of their toe. When aligned, notice how the weight and force is felt through the tip of their toe and toenail. Experiment with moving them back toward tapered-shoe position, or bunion deformation, feel how the force starts to come through the side of their toe, or their callouses or bunion if present!"



My experiences over the last few days bare this out...

When first starting to run barefoot, I tried landing with a rolling footfall that rolled from the outer fore/midfoot to the in er pronation.


It didn't work for me, just wasn't comfortable, though I could not place why.

So I gave up on the 'foot roll', even though I saw many top Kenyans and Ethiopians doing it.

Then I decided to do something about my scrunched deformed toes after studying a little about the little floating bone thats like a kneecap on the ball of of the foot...it gets displaced when the big toe is pushed over into a cramped position, and if your toes are permanently in this position from decades of shoes, then the whole foot is not functioning properly.

So I corrected my toe position with an orthotic...within a few days I am now naturally rolling the foot and with the big toe splayed it is not uncomfortable, moreover, that foot roll seems to add a lot of extra cushioning and stored rebound energy.

Before I needed about a mile to 'warm up' before my knees stopped hurting, and assumed this was due to arthritus...because the pain went away after a good warmup... However, with the foot roll working I don't need any warmup, I can take off running totally cold and there is no stiffness or soreness to work through.

Seems like what happened is that before, with my big toe misaligned even while running barefoot, that a pronating foot roll was uncomfortable because my big toe was not arresting the pronation, so the a foot roll landing would keep rolling into an uncomfortable over pronation.

Now with the big toe splayed, the foot roll is working properly.


I will have to rebuild my mileadge slowy from scratch till my feet are use to the new toe position and the new foot roll, but it seems very promising.

The big toe position is much more important than I had previously imagined.
 
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