All the Reasons Your Feet Are Amazing, and How to Show Yours More Love

Runners World
By Cassie Shortsleeve August 6, 2019

If your running shoes fit, your toenails aren’t falling off, and your socks aren’t bloody, it’s easy to ignore your feet. But your lowest extremities really are worth awing over. “The foot is an amazingly complex structure from both a mechanical and architectural viewpoint,” says Adam D. Perler, D.P.M., a podiatrist in St. Petersburg, Florida.

With each step, your feet are subject to heavy loads—one-and-a-half times your body-weight when you walk, between five to seven times your weight when you run.

“Over a lifetime, the average person circumnavigates the Earth’s circumference more than five times,” says Perler. “There are very few complex mechanical things we can engineer that would be able to withstand so many cycles without complete failure or breakdown.”

All of that is incredible, and reason enough to show your feet some more respect. But there's also a tactical reason to pay attention to your puppies. They are your body’s foundation, and you know what happens if the foundation is faulty. Plus, experts say foot ailments are often initial signs of serious medical conditions like arthritis, diabetes, nerve and circulatory disorders, and more.

Routine maintenance goes a long way. Here are six ways to treat your feet right.

The Surprising Plantar Fasciitis Treatment You Probably Haven’t Heard About

Runners World
By Robert Annis February 19, 2019

Last fall, I got to chatting with Peter McAllister, M.D., neurologist and Chief Medical Officer of the New England Institute for Clinical Research, when the talk turned to toxins—botulism toxin, to be exact, or better known as Botox.

Commonly thought of as a way for the Real Housewives of Anywhere to claw back the hands of time, Botox is actually FDA-approved for a variety of other, more serious medical maladies, including limb spasticity after stroke, overactive muscle disorders, excessive sweating, and chronic migraines. For the last several years, McAllister, one of the world’s leading authorities on Botox’s therapeutic uses, has been using it to treat one of runners’ most common complaints, plantar fasciitis.

Just as Botox is used to temporarily smooth out wrinkles (injected underneath the skin, it paralyzes the muscles allowing them to relax), it can also relieve the pain and pressure on the inflamed ligament that runs underneath your foot. McAllister says he’s treated about 150 plantar fasciitis patients with promising results.

5 Cutting-Edge Arthritis Treatments All Runners Should Know About

Runners World
By Cassie Shortsleeve March 19, 2019

Running doesn’t cause arthritis. Really: A study published just last year in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery found that veteran marathoners had about half as much arthritis as their non-running counterparts. Not only that, but a more recent study published in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, shows that regular exercise actually helps prevent cartilage damage caused by arthritis by minimizing the inflammatory molecules that cause the pain and stiffness.

But the population is far from immune from the condition that’s marked by joint pain, inflammation, and a gradual wearing down of cartilage (the smooth connective tissue that protects your joints). “Runners get up to five times their body weight of force through their joints with each step,” says Florida podiatrist and podiatric surgeon Adam Perler, D.P.M. “This adds up to over two tons of accumulative pressure each day exerted on normal functioning joints.” And that’s just part of the reason we pavement pounders can wind up with an arthritis diagnosis—injury, genetics (some people are simply born with more durable cartilage), and alignment issues can also play a role in arthritis.