Standing Ergonomics

We are proponents of a new and cutting-edge concept in footware. Well, it is not really "new" because for hundreds of years, shoes were actually made more ergonomically correct that they have been for the past 50 years or so. The conventional thinking in foot wear is that you need to have an arch support and that heels are bad for you. We are here to tell you that both of those ideas are absolutely false and may actually be causing more problems for people down the road.

We have found that, by far, the best combination for proper support of the human structure when wearing shoes is: 1)No arch supports (flat on the inside), 2)slightly elevated heel, 3)wide forefoot area (no squeeze on the front of the foot), and 4)no bending up of the toe area (the banana effect).

When you can find a pair of shoes that provides all these things, you achieve "shoe nirvana"! Not only will your feet feel much better, but your body will feel much stronger and more balanced when you are standing, walking, and running. Your posture will naturally become much more upright.

** If you have extreme foot pain that can only be relieved by wearing some type of arch support, then that is a major sign that the structure of your body is overloaded with harmful joint restrictions. To get to the cause, you need to free up the restrictions with Structural Correction. If you keep wearing the arch supports (even if they are prescribed by a doctor) and do not address the underlying structural restrictions, you are most likely going to continue developing more and more problems down the road that will require more invasive treatments aimed at treating the symptoms like drugs and surgery.

Arch supports are like margarine. Doctors used to tell everyone to stop eating butter and eat margarine instead. After 30-40 years of that, they suddenly changed their mind because they found that the hydrogenated oil in margarine was a major toxin that led to heart disease! We believe arch supports and orthotics are in the same boat as margarine.

Sometimes a shoe can be easily altered to achieve a better fit. You can take out or cut out the arch support and you can add a heel wedge to elevate the heel slightly.

We perform complimentary shoe evaluations, recommendations and alterations for our active patients.