Why does foot loading matter anyway?
Foot loading signifies how your foot integrates your body weight when you start to apply pressure while beginning to stand up onto your foot (ground force/weight bearing)
Think about how many times you are actually doing this each day, like walking. This might even include times you stand up from sitting too, like from your work desk or bathroom.
Poor foot loading changes what happens at the foot. It changes the mechanical information entering the body—potentially altering fascial strain, fluid movement, sensory feedback, and how forces are organized upstream.
Fascia is living tissue responding continuously to its environment. Movement changes its mechanical environment. Poor continuous loading into the foot may cause structural changes leading to dysfunction (and not just at the foot!)
BETTER FASCIAL FUNCTION, BETTER MOVEMENT
Φ Body brings awareness to where force enters the body because the first area of contact helps shape what happens upstream. By intentionally changing load entry, we change the mechanical information entering the connective tissue system—altering tension, compression, shear, fluid movement, sensory input, and potentially the biological signals that influence tissue adaptation.
For those that want to know more…
Poor or inefficient foot loading could potentially:
Alter force entry — Ground-reaction forces enter through a different location, direction, or timing than intended for the task.
Change the strain pattern in fascia — Because connective tissues respond to tension, compression and shear, altered loading changes where, when and how much tissues deform.
Concentrate stress — Instead of distributing load across multiple structures, certain joints, tendons, fascial regions, or muscles may repeatedly receive disproportionate loading.
Reduce useful tissue deformation elsewhere — Some tissues may be overloaded while others receive relatively little mechanical stimulus.
Alter mechanotransduction — Fibroblasts and other cells respond to their mechanical environment. Change the mechanical signal and you potentially change the cellular signal.
Alter collagen electromechanical effects — Because collagen demonstrates piezoelectric/electromechanical behavior, changing collagen deformation necessarily changes the conditions under which these electrical phenomena occur. This does not establish that one foot-loading strategy generates a superior electrical effect.
Alter interstitial-fluid dynamics — Compression and release during movement contribute to local fluid redistribution. Different loading patterns can therefore change pressure gradients and fluid movement within tissues.
Change sensory information — The plantar foot is densely sensory. Changing pressure and shear at the ground changes the afferent information available to the nervous system.
Change upstream motor organization — Different sensory and mechanical inputs from the foot can influence ankle, knee, hip and whole-body movement strategies.
Reinforce the altered pattern through repetition — Thousands of steps provide repeated mechanical and sensory exposure. Over time, tissues and motor behavior adapt to what they repeatedly experience.
Potentially contribute to maladaptation — If loading repeatedly exceeds a tissue's capacity or is poorly distributed, remodeling may not necessarily be beneficial.
Get meta-Physical…
In Phi Body we like to have fun and get a little meta-physical and overreach with the idea that poor mechanical loading in the feet while weight bearing (standing, squatting) could even interfere a little bit with the body’s antenna-like bioenergetic properties that transmit ions, electrons, auras, biometric fields, and chakra energy. This is because a “tighter, restricted” liquid crystal matrix (fascial network) may result in “noise” or “interference” in the transmission of these energies to and from the body. What do you think? Weird?! Wild?! Cool?!
Yoga, acupuncture and even chiropractic care can help us possibly see the big picture. In yoga, one is instructed to sit straight and tall so the spine can be a better conduit for chakra energy flow. In Acupuncture, the meridians of the limbs and its Acupuncture points can become “stagnate” (blocked) thereby affecting the balanced flow of “chi” energy up and down the body. Even in Chiropractic philosophy, the flow of “innate intelligence” is believed to become obstructed by issues in the spine that can interfere with its flow. “Grounding” or “earthing” practitioners stand or walk barefoot on grass or soil to absorb the Earth’s negative electrons for its proposed health benefits. Tai Chi and Qi Gong/King Fu practitioners are familiar with how body movement can be used to facilitate the flow of “qi”. And in weightlifting, science has shown that foot position can affect how your nervous system coordinates muscle groups.
In Phi Body we take the idea of foot positioning a little bit further, and propose that when coupled with awareness and certain nuanced cues, you can optimize foot (and even hands) interaction with the ground (Gaia or Earth). Further, incorporating these concepts into your daily activities, your current movement practices, and sports you can even promote better body movement.
Check out our website for more info and how you can learn to be a better moving, stronger energetic being!