Feet.
Seems that we can’t live without them.
With the pain and dysfunction that may accompany age, misuse, and/or injury, it may feel like we like we can’t live with them.
It occurs to me that we can live without functioning feet. All we need do is ask the multitude of people who do just that – those who were born without the use of their feet and those who have lost either the physical form or the functionality of their feet altogether.
But most of us would prefer to live with the benefits feet afford us.
The foot’s primary purpose is to get us between point A and point B. That ambulation may be desirable for completing tasks like housework, getting to and from work, doing chores, or completing employment activities. We also move from point A to B for leisure, such scenic walking or trekking or getting to the concert seats. Additionally, we use our feet to undertake a multitude of fitness activities, be they intentional or incidental.
Feet are also rife with nerve endings, as reflexologists know, but not with circulation which is part of why many find recovery from foot surgeries to take a long time. In the sensory-motor cortex of the brain, feet take up a lot of real estate, speaking to how important they are. An interesting tidbit: this foot area in the brain is directly adjacent to that for the genitals, which might at least partially explain the foot-fetish phenomenon.
Obviously, those of us who have functioning, pain-free feet take them entirely for granted.
Until we don’t.
We take functioning, pain-free feet entirely for granted . . . until we get don’t.
As a yoga therapist, I’m trained to watch folk’s gait and look at their feet with an informed eye. I see all kinds of pain and dysfunction. And when it isn’t already there, I can predict with reasonable accuracy who will have what kind of muscular-skeletal problem, and where it will manifest, be that in the foot itself, or elsewhere. I generally only share such observations when someone asks for help with something to which it pertains. And then there are issues with reduced circulation and nerve damage which we might expect given other disease processes or treatment protocols. . .
Something I do as a matter of course is encourage people to be grateful for their well-functioning body parts and not take them for granted. Feet are high on my list of body-part gratitude practices. Not having the use of pain-free and properly-operating feet is a substantial disability.
Feet are high on my list of body-part gratitude practices.
Toward promoting appreciation of feet, I’ll share my foot story. No need to continue reading if you’re not interested.
As a young 20-something, I strained a foot during my first day on the job. It was not a physically demanding job. I cannot remember whether the strain happened on the day we had to walk to the convention centre for the CEO’s state-of-the-company address or the fire-alarm day during which I had to descend 20+ floors using the stairs. On both occasions I was wearing my 80s power suit accessorized with 3-inch heels, my regular practice in those days. When my doc bluntly told me to stop wearing heels, I was aghast! Never! I think it was around then when the doc prescribed some custom orthotics, too. I did have them made, but they didn’t fit well into the high-heeled shoes that I wanted to wear so they mostly went unused.
Since then, I don’t remember having foot issues until relatively recently. Starting in my early 30s, I had a regular hatha yoga practice. I suspect the Iyengar school’s emphasis on long-holds and strict alignment did my feet a world of good. They became stronger, more supple, and better aligned. A non-athletic person to that point, I began being more active in the aftermath of my mother’s premature death, too. I naturally became less interested wearing shoes for fashion. But I was demanding more of my feet in other ways, like hiking and going to the gym.
I naturally became less interested wearing shoes for fashion.
There was a period in my mid-40s when I started having some knee misalignment and pain. The precipitating event was walking a substantial distance while wearing some ill-fitting footwear with moderate heels. At the end of that trip, I could feel shin splints developing. The pain, especially on steep downhill slopes, was horrifying in that I imagined no longer being able to scale mountains to their peaks because I would be unable to descend. Besides the problematic shoes, the hormonal shifts of menopause probably didn’t help (I have come to understand that connective tissue ages rapidly in the absence of estrogen). It took about a year of various rehabilitation efforts before my knee was pain-free again. My implicated feet themselves hadn’t been hurting.
Then, when I was about 55, I broke my big toe stubbing it hard on some piece of furniture. I had broken toes before, with no long-term consequences. This time, as usual, I simply powered through the discomfort and inconvenience. Although it was winter, I mostly got around with thick socks in Birkenstocks. Uggs with YakTrax (overlaid traction devices), although incredibly ugly and embarrassing, sufficed for hiking.
The toe mostly didn’t bother me by the time the weather was warmer. That is, it didn’t bother me too much until I went to a yoga festival and took part in three very active yoga sessions in about five hours. That toe joint and adjoining area were painful and red and hot and swollen. I could barely walk. And although that subsided, I increasingly found myself suffering greatly with similar symptoms and for longish time periods (that is, I could barely walk for a week!) after strenuous physical activity. As well, my knee was increasingly unhappy.
My medical practitioner was unconcerned for over two years, despite my bringing the issue forward more than once. He said, “Enjoy your exercise.” I wanted to enjoy my exercise but increasingly I was finding it too painful for too long.
Finally and fortunately, a resident listened and looked and saw that an x-ray was in order. The diagnosis was end-stage hallux rigidus (bone-on-bone osteoarthritis in the base of the big toe), with no signs of arthritis elsewhere. Not a great prognosis; there is no reversal of such a thing. The podiatrist told me that most conservative measure was to wear a custom orthotic 80 percent of waking time to prevent the toe from extending. Along with orthotics, he thought a rocker shoe, such as HokaOneOne, would be the best to prevent any undue pressure on that joint. The next treatment was to undergo periodic steroid injections to keep inflammation and pain in check. And finally, he told me of three types of surgery. For my active lifestyle and stage 4 joint disease, he recommended fusion, sooner rather than later due to increasing age compromising proper healing in women due to decreased bone density. Luckily, bone density scans do not show that I have such a problem. But that could change.
Being the natural-healing advocate that I am, I opted to try the orthotic and rocker shoes, or rather, rocker hiking boots. The HokaOneOne hiking boots that I selected after trying on a multitude of different styles, looking something like what astronauts would wear on the moon, have lasted all this time, while I am on my second set of orthotics. The combination of orthotics and these rockers has been phenomenal. Although long hikes with lots of elevation will aggravate my toe somewhat, recovery time is reasonable. My knee feels better, too. So far, I have not had to resort to steroid shots or surgery.
I do not wear my orthotics 80 percent or even much of the time. I am a yoga professional, after all and y’all know we largely go barefoot. But I have had to adjust my yoga practice so that it doesn’t compromise the metatarsophalangeal joint. Lunges and planks are probably the most obvious. The podiatrist jokingly pointed out that adjusted poses require more from the core and large muscles of the limbs. I don’t avoid such poses. The rest of the toes of that foot don’t really get that extension movement, either. So, I make a point of using props like Yamuna Foot Savers to work on foot mobility as an additional practice.
It helps that I don’t spend much time in classes that other yoga teachers are leading. They tend to try to “fix” poses folks aren’t performing in the typical way. This is one of the ways in which yoga therapy differs from yoga instruction. In fact, my listening and being aware of the need to adapt yoga to the person is why many of my clients come to me.
The point of telling you this long story? There’s more than one point.
First, appreciate your feet. Secondly, while you can, work on getting them stronger, more supple, and as aligned as possible when static so you don’t have to think about them when you’re moving. Third, adjust for your changing feet (and other body parts, and brain, and emotions). Don’t give up.
Appreciate your feet.
Get them stronger, more supple, and aligned when static so you don’t have to think about them when you’re moving.
Adjust for your changing feet.
Don’t give up.
Activity is incredibly important to our aging well. We want to help our bodies stay active, not stay active at the expense of our bodies.
Yoga can be so very good. But sometimes it is better than others. For instance, some types of yoga focus a lot on the feet and in others, feet are just an afterthought. If you are taking part in the latter, you may want to consider some cross-training with the former. And know that poses don’t have to “look like the picture.”
You’ll want to consider what you’re trying to accomplish with a given yoga posture or movement and then adapt it to what your feet and other parts of you can reasonably do. Sounds simple. And it is. Just not necessarily easy.
