PRONATION

October 24, 2006

PRONATION

Feet pronation is one of the most frequent problems in running. It is a foot position on support rotated in opposite direction of supinated foot, with the bottom to the lateral and the top to the medial side. Landing on the ground side is the medial rear (the heel) part of the foot. During such landing the ankle joint is shifting to the medial side.

The questions here would be the following:

Why are runners landing this way?
Are there any benefits they gain?
If not, then what is the reason to continue to do this?
Is this about genetic predisposition or habit or just not enough developed muscular strength and wrong movement?

All of these questions need to be answered and could be answered to a certain degree, but the main thing is what can we do with that? Are we going to buy orthodics and stabilizing shoes or strengthen our feet and change our patterns of movement? Obviously feet pronation is not a pleasant thing at all, causing you pain, discomfort, wearing your shoes off, etc. What are you going to do?

I would like to start from the first question of why we are doing this. This is not an "act of God" or Evil, but our own choice and it should be clear from the beginning. The reason for this matter could be weak feet, ankles and some specific anatomical structure of the leg, ankle and foot. The latter one is called genetically predetermined factors or mom's and dad's fault.

People are trying to "correct" it by using orthodics, shoes with motion control and cushioning, but it doesn't help, as you know well from your own long experience. The question: "Why not? "is always there, but the answer is pretty much simple. If you continue to land on this part of the foot and reproduce this pattern of movement your ankle and foot will be still overloaded by your body weight. Neither orthodics nor "special" shoes can't reduce this load and take it away. Strengthening your feet couldn't help either because there is no muscle attachment to this part of the foot. Just look at anatomical structure of the foot to get a clear picture on this matter.

So what choice do you have to reduce or get rid off this problem? - That's right, change your movement!
The first thing is to learn to keep your body weight on the forefoot or ball of the foot during landing and being on support. It is a conscious procedure you need to go through, no matter if you are walking or running. Do you want some examples to prove how it works? Here they are: look at ladies wearing high heels all the time or dancers who are always on balls of the feet - there is no problem with feet pronation. I am not proposing to wear high heels for men or get everyone to dancing studios, but get an idea of how to move proper, which comes down to the point of how to use your own body weight.

The next thing to do would be to start strengthening your feet and ankles. The range of exercises for this purpose is very wide from local strengthening by your own body weight, free weights, rubber bands and partner's resistance to different kinds of jumps. It is just about your level of fitness progressing from low to higher levels and you are on your way to get rid of this problem forever.

Dr.Romanov

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Comments

I have had classic severe overpronation for the past couple of years now. I was genetically susceptible to it from my dad's side and basically triggered it through overtraining. Over the course of two years, I tried motion control shoes, morton's toe stuff, orthotics, arch sleeves, ankle braces, and all sorts of different ways of running. In short, the best solution that I've come across is to wear orthotics during day to day walking and adjustable soft ankle braces during running. If you do decide to start running/doing drills on the balls of your feet, be careful because doing so specifically directs stress to an overpronator's ankles and arches. I run on the balls of my feet, so I agree that it can ultimately be the right solution, but I know exactly what I'm doing when I do so. And as a result, I've been training daily for the past few months without injury.

Matt

Posted by: Matt Sonnenschein at October 25, 2006 04:19 PM

The less time one spends on support, the less prontation that will occur.

Pronation is good---it is what allows us to absorb impact. Over pronation is the result of too much time on support plus anatomical structure. The anatomical structure will not change, so all we can do is reduce the time on support.

If you were to see my feet, you would say, "How can you run with those things?" I struggled for years with overpronation-related problems until I increase my stride rate, mostly eliminated ground push off, and minimized my time on support.

Posted by: Hex at October 25, 2006 10:25 AM

I would agree, but from my own experience strengthening of the hips important too. If hips are weak the upper leg tends to roll in and pulls the foot in too, exacerbating pronation problems.

A bit like tracking problems on a car: unless the tracking is corrected the tyres will continue to scruff and new tyres will quickly wear out.

I used to get bad ankle/foot pains, was prescribed orthotics which helped for a bit, but it is only since concentrating on strengthening the hips and loosening tightness in the hip flexors that I feel I am really on the road to cracking the problem.

Posted by: nick pearce at October 25, 2006 07:19 AM