Do you pay attention to the way you walk? 

If you are like most people, you get up, put on your shoes and go. The act of walking becomes so subconscious that we never stop to check our gait. But your gait says a lot about you; from a chiropractor’s perspective, your gait also says a lot about your spinal health. Being bipedal means that a large percentage of the shock your body receives on a daily basis is processed through your feet. 

Your feet are the foundation

Therefore, foot problems create an adverse ripple effect throughout the rest of the body, especially the spine. Overpronation is a common condition, especially amongst runners; while it is not considered an injury itself, it does make you more vulnerable to a number of sports-related injuries. Pronation is a natural and desirable mechanism of the foot which occurs as the body’s weight is shifted between heel and forefoot. In this motion, the foot rolls inward; when the foot rolls in too much, we call it overpronation. 

Problems related to overpronation

People who overpronate chronically tend to push off their big toe and second toe which subsequently distributes forces throughout the body unevenly. It begins by making it more difficult for your ankle to stabilize the movement in relation to your body’s weight. Your knee then rotates inward, the pelvis tilts off axis and your shoulders drop. Your body becomes a topsy-turvy collection of off-angles. This places a lot of unnatural stress on the weight-bearing joints of your body and contributes to nervous system dysfunction and back pain.

How we help overpronaters at Hayes Family Chiropractic

If you suspect you are suffering from overpronation, it is prudent to consult with a podiatrist or other medical specialist who can provide you with a video gait analysis to determine the extent of your pronation and its ripple effect. At our office in Dunedin, we focus on realigning your body. By using gentle spinal adjustments and postural analysis, we help reestablish natural angles in the body from shoulders to ankles. By combining custom orthotics with specific stretching to correct pronation, you can mitigate much of the pain and dysfunction related to overpronation. If you are ready to get the conversation started, give our office in Dunedin a call to schedule an appointment today.