Fix Your Feet

Those are the very first words of the book in Chapter 1: “Anatomy Made Simple” in which Maffetone walks us through the astonishing bioengineering feat that is our feet. :)

Let’s look at some fun feet facts:

First, some quick math: The human body has 206 bones. Each foot has 26 bones. So, combined, the feet have 52 bones. That’s an astonishing 25% of the bones in our entire body! (Bonus fun fact: We have 270 bones at birth; this decreases to 206 as some bones fuse together.)

Each foot also has 33 joints (which is where two bones come together), over 100 ligaments (which connect bones to other bones) and more than 30 muscles and tendons (which connect muscles to bones). And, other than our spine, our feet also have the most nerve activity of any other region in the body. (Maffetone tells us this “foot sense” is super important, and lost when we wear most types of shoes. More on that in a moment.)

Plus, did you know that it’s normal (and natural) for our shoe sizes to increase two or more sizes over the course of our adult lives? Yep. They’re not “growing” per se but when not constrained by restrictive shoes, “the foot still gets larger with age. This is not true growth but a spreading of the foot due to metabolic changes in the body.”

Then we have the fact, as we’ve already discussed, each foot endures over 120,000 (!!) pounds of pressure for EVERY (!!!) mile we walk. <- That’s a lot of pressure over the 100 year lifespan, eh? And, again, guess what: Nature designed our feet to PERFECTLY manage all that WITHOUT shoes. For MILLIONS (!!!) of years. So, take a moment, look down at your feet and marvel in their bioengineering splendor! Then let’s learn more about what might be getting in the way…

Millions of years of evolution. No shoes.

Then, a couple thousand years ago (give or take) Assyrians started wearing sandals. The Egyptians followed—rocking sandals made of palm leaves and papyrus. Head to cooler climates and throw some deerskin or other soft leather and you’ve got a moccasin.

The basic idea with those first pieces of footwear? Simple function. They protected the wearer from rocks, etc. Then these basic “shoes” became more “costume” than functional tool. And, that’s when we started disrupting nature’s epic bioengineering feat known as our feet.

Although kinda weird to think about, when we throw shoes on our feet that do anything more than protect the bottoms from rocks and scrapes (like those simple sandals and moccasins), we’re messing around with perfection.

As it turns out, Maffetone tells us that all the artificial support in sports shoes actually weaken the very feet we’re trying to help out. Enter: Injuries that are pretty much totally preventable.

And, when we have artificial cushioning, we mess with our gait. Specifically, we tend to overstride which tends to make us have an abnormal heel strike. Which tends to lead to all the injuries we don’t want.

Now, I never really thought about this until I read these books. (And, Katy Bowman’s Don’t Just Sit There.) Thankfully, I have a super curious and equally committed Optimizing Wife who’s made sure our family is rocking the appropriate footwear.

Quick aside into the Johnson family footwear department: Aside from a brief stint wearing some rain boots for awhile, (almost-six-year-old) Emerson has always worn moccasins or Vivobarefoot shoes. Eleanor (eighteen-months old now!) has only ever had her (pink!) moccasins. Alexandra and I both wear Vivobarefoot. (Here’s what I wear on the Trail. Here’s what Alexandra wears.)

Again, it’s kinda funny how so many of our “oops” moves as a culture came over the last couple/few hundred years. God bless the Industrial Revolution for all the amazing things it’s made possible. And… We’d be wise to think about what life was like right before that Big Bang.

Quick Highlights:

Nutrition-wise: Pre-Industrial Revolution, junk food didn’t really exist. Sugar was incredibly rare and the ultra-machine-processed flour as we know it today didn’t exist. Vegetable oils also didn’t exist. Those omega-6 bombs only came into existence in the last 100+ years.

Wind back the clock by eliminating sugar + flour + veggie oils and you’re 80% there on your Optimizing journey. (Seriously.)

Movement-wise: Pre-Industrial Revolution, we moved a lot more. Obviously. Walking was pretty cool and horses were our fastest means of transportation. And, although chairs were invented almost 5,000 years ago, they weren’t really used much until the 1600’s and we didn’t start living in our chairs (at work, in the car, on the couch, etc.) until VERY recently.

Wind back the clock by walking more and finding opportunities to move throughout the day to avoid being active and sedentary!

Sleep-wise: Thomas Edison didn’t kick off the light-bulb revolution until 1879. It’s hard to believe that candles (and their equivalents) lit up our night-time world until so recently. We may take that ubiquitous melatonin-disrupting blue light for granted, but that’s crazy new.

Rewind to the pre-Edison days and our great-great-grandparents were averaging closer to 10 hours of sleep per night. Hitting our 7 to 8 hours is a wise idea. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Technology is awesome. Except when it isn’t. :)

P.S. Here’s another way to think about it: “For millions of years, the human foot has been either bare or covered with very simple footwear to protect the bottoms of the feet. Sandals were the common covering in warmer climates, with moccasins used in colder climates for added warmth. These sparse foot coverings were and are adequate to protect the bottom of the foot from sharp rocks and rough terrain. Foot problems due to being barefoot consisted of the occasional laceration or deep thorn. Today, simple sandals and moccasins are still the most common footwear worldwide.

With the advent of today’s modern shoes came a whole array of foot problems complete with companies that made therapeutic devices and professionals to treat such conditions. Many companies and individuals have benefited, as the shoe industry and these products and services connected with the epidemic of foot problems are big business. Larger shoe companies such as Nike generate annual revenues of more than $10 billion, with those of smaller companies like Reebok around $3 billion.”

Laughing as I type but… Shoes are a pretty epic big business. Maffetone wrote this book in 2003. Update 15 years later: Nike’s revenue is now 3 times bigger at over $34 billion. (Wow.)

All of which leads us to the #1 way to Optimize our feet…

Want to solve your foot issues? Simple. Go barefoot. Seriously. This, Maffetone tells us, is THE fastest way to rehabilitate our feet.

Short story: As we’ve discussed, we THINK shoes are both necessary and helpful. But, quite simply, they’re neither necessary NOR helpful.

All that unnecessary protection (beyond the moccasin/sandal love) messes with our gait (overstriding + heel striking = ouchy!) while weakening all the muscles that *should* be working like they’ve been designed to work for millions of years.

Plus, shoes distribute our weight in a weird way—which leads to even more issues. The most extreme example? High-heeled shoes. All of our weight basically gets squozen (technical term!) into a VERY small area (while our posture gets all wacky with an unnatural, elevated heel).

Don’t need to think about that very hard to realize that that’s probably not a good idea. Yet, we have a culture that puts wearing a “costume” ahead of function and voila, we do silly things.

btw: I’m reminded of the “imagined orders” conversation we had in Sapiens and Homo Deus. As Harari points out, when everyone does the same thing we tend to assume that those behaviors are “natural, inevitable and immutable” when they’re not. Stuff like lawns. Vacations. High heels.

Alright. So, back to being barefoot. Obviously, most of us (even the most intense iconoclastic Optimizers among us!) aren’t going to just throw our shoes into the trash and go barefoot for the rest of our lives. And, even if we *wanted* to do that, we’d still be wise to take the time to transition out of the sub-optimal set up into the optimal.

Super-simple first step: Take off your shoes when you’re inside your house. You’ll slowly wake your feet up and get those muscles and tendons and ligaments and joints working the way they were designed to work. (And, bonus perk: Your shoes carry stuff you don’t want in your house so by taking them off you reduce that unnecessary toxic load AND you get to work out your feet!)

Then, if you feel so bold, go outside in your garden without shoes. Then, if you’re like me, you may want to start gradually walking outside without shoes more. My new thing: I carry my shoes and socks for the first 5 minutes of my Trail workout. It’s actually kinda CRAZY how quickly my feet have adapted to walking barefoot on the dirt/over rocks/etc.

Couple other things I’m having fun doing to strengthen/balance my feet: Balancing on one foot while reading (and putting on my socks, drying my feet after the shower, etc.). And, I’m using a golf ball to massage the bottom of my foot more these days. Basic idea: Gently stand on a golf ball and move it around the bottom of your foot. Works magic.

So… One more time, know this: Maffetone offers a number of things to rehabilitate/strengthen our feet but he says that “nothing is as effective overall as being barefoot.”

P.S. The other day Emerson and Eleanor and I were taking a little walk. All of us were barefoot. The nurse for our 94-year-old EPICALLY awesome (blind) neighbor (who rides her bike in the garage a couple times a day and is the sweetest woman ever; we Love 2.0 her) saw us and noticed we were all barefoot and said, “I’m too old to not wear shoes.”

Now, I typically refrain from offering unsolicited advice these days, so I didn’t say anything. But… I was tempted to start a chat about how we’re all too old to *not* go barefoot!

Maffetone talks about the fact that this is especially important for the older among us. Independent living is contingent on being able to get around. And one of the most important variables to make sure we don’t fall and hurt ourselves is making sure our FEET are strong and that we preserve our “foot sense.” Easiest way to do that? Cruise around your house barefoot. (That’s a pro tip for aging parents, btw!)

P.P.S. Fun story: I took a little 10-minute walking break in the middle of creating this Note. I dutifully put on my shoes and hit the bike trail. Then a teenager literally crossed my path. BAREFOOT. I took that as a wink/challenge from the Universe and proceeded to take my shoes off and walk the rest of the way barefoot. My feet thanked me. I thank that awesome kid.

Rest. It’s a powerful way to heal thyself. Unless, of course, you’re inactive. Then, well, all that rest might actually be the issue! (Hah.)

Proper recovery is a consistent theme of all of Maffetone’s books (and our Notes on them!). We need to avoid overtraining. Remember: Training = Work + Rest. As with most things in life, there’s an inverted U curve/virtuous mean: Too little of a good thing obviously isn’t a good thing. AND… Too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing either.

Where do you tend to fall on the undertraining/overtraining side of things? How can you Optimize just a little more today?

btw: One of the main things that makes Maffetone’s Method so powerful is his focus on building a strong aerobic system. This is super helpful for the feet as well. The more we build our aerobic systems up, the more mitochondria we create, the more blood flows (with oxygen!) to the spots that need it most… And, the more healing and health!

“Chronic inflammation caused by an imbalance from the wrong dietary fats.” <- That’s another consistent theme in all of Maffetone’s books.

So… Got sore feet (and/or an “itis”)? Odds are you have systemic inflammation that needs some love. And, odds are that you—like nearly everyone in the modern world—have an imbalance of your omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids intake. As we’ve discussed many times, we need both but they need to be balanced. Too much omega-6 can result in chronic inflammation. (Wondering if you have inflammation? Measure your C-reactive protein (or “CRP”) with your next blood test!)

One of the quickest way to Optimize? Don’t consume any more vegetable oils. No more soybean oil, safflower oil, canola oil, corn oil, etc. Note: That basically means eliminating all store-bought salad dressings and a lot of the food prepared in normal restaurants. Switch to olive oil and coconut oil and you’ll make a nice little dent in any potential inflammation issues.

There ya go. That’s a super quick look at this great little book.

Here’s to Optimizing—from our feet to our foreheads and everything in between and beyond!