Beyond Your Achy Feet: Custom Orthotics can also Resolve Back, Hip, and Knee Pain

Walking and running are things we do everyday, and as a result, can be pretty easy to take for granted. However, every basic action your lower body takes requires a team effort from your hips, knees, and feet. Injuries to the lower body are quite common, with studies showing 54 percent of injuries in sports alone being in that area. Many factors can contribute to getting injured, including your gait, posture, and exercise routine.

Custom orthotics is an effective way to help manage lower body pain. While they are placed in your shoes and provide direct relief to your feet, they can affect positive change in your legs, hips, and back. To learn more, let’s look at common walking and running mistakes, what they can do to your body, and how orthotics can help.

Residents of the Fort Worth, Texas, area looking for orthotics for pain relief or other podiatric needs can get help from Drs. Gary Driver, Glen Beede, Gregory Jaryga, and the experienced team at Trinity Foot & Ankle Specialists.

Common walking and running mistakes

Here are some common mistakes that can lead to injury:

Overexertion

There are several ways you can overdo when walking and running, including moving too fast too soon, trying to do more than your body is able or used to, training too hard, or setting expectations far higher than necessary. Any of these can lead to exerting too much pressure on your lower body.

Overstriding

How you walk or run is just as important as how much or how little, and overstriding can lead to physical harm. This term describes what happens when you land heel first with your foot too far ahead of your body’s center of gravity. This happens because some people think that a longer stride improves efficiency, but it actually wastes energy as well as potentially causing injury.

Improper gear

What you wear directly impacts how you move, and being prepared for the elements and terrain is important to proper movement. Being overdressed or underdressed while active can lead to illness, and wearing the wrong shoes can cause injury as well as being uncomfortable.

The effects on your lower body

Back pain is very common, with 80 percent of people experiencing it at some point in their lives. Data from the American Chiropractic Association indicates half of the workforce deal with it annually. This pain is often due to injuries like a herniated disc or nerve, but poorly fitting shoes and other foot problems can affect your whole lower body, including your knees, hips, and back.

Three factors can influence the type of injury you may get: 

• Impact: the shock of the impact your feet make when you walk or run travels up your legs can damage your knees, straining weight bearing joints in those areas
• Arch support: bad arches lead to improper walking support, which can cause misalignments in the joints and and stress the ankles, knees, hips, and back
• Foot deformity: foot problems like bunions, hammertoes, flat feet, claw toe, mallet toe, and high arches can change how you walk and create joint issues

How orthotics can help 

Orthotics are used to correct a variety of issues, like foot positioning, offering better support, and providing cushioning in areas of your feet that need it. All of these improvements can relieve pain in the joints of your lower body and help you move around more comfortably. We offer custom orthotics that can be uniquely shaped to your foot to treat your specific needs. These can help with a variety of conditions, such as arthritis, bursitis, bunions, flat feet, hammertoes, heel spurs, high arches, plantar fasciitis and many injuries.

If you’re dealing with lower body pain, there are other solutions that may help, but orthotics can not only reduce pain, but improve how you move your feet and joints. If you’re ready to see what orthotics can do for you, make an appointment with Drs. Driver, Beede, Jaryga, and Trinity Foot & Ankle Specialists today.