Your Flat Feet Might Be the Sign of a Weak Hip

Your Flat Feet Might Be the Sign of a Weak Hip

Have you ever struggled with pain in the heal, arch of your foot or plantar fascia? Do you have flat feet? Have you have been to physical therapy and have tried stretching your calves but it didn’t completely resolve the pain? Have you tried ankle exercises without much success? Do you avoid barefoot walking or certain shoes because they don’t support your arch?

If you have said yes to any or all of these questions, the solution might involve looking higher in the legs for an answer. Your feet and ankles might not the only problem. Other tissues and muscles in the legs effect the way our feet contact the ground. Let’s take a look at how.

Try this test standing in front of a mirror. Place your hands on your pelvic bones as shown. Separate your feet so that the middle of your ankles are lined up with the front of your pelvic bones. Now line your feet up so that the outside borders of your feet point straight ahead. Do you feel pigeon toed? Are your knee caps turning in? Take a look at your arch. Note the position of the arch.

If your knee caps turn in, try to roll your hip bones outward a little bit so that your knee caps face forward. As you do that, look at your arch again. Is your arch higher now compared to where it started? You changed the support of your foot simply by activating your hip muscles. Remember it’s all connected!

You can see now that when certain hip muscles are weak or tight, it affects the arch in our feet and thus causes less foot pain and strain. At Rebalance, we look at the whole body and incorporate exercises to strengthen not only muscles in the feet but also in the leg and trunk to manage plantar fasciitis and foot pain.