5 Benefits of Custom Orthotics
Our feet are highly complex structures that play a huge role in our overall alignment and balance. Each foot contains 26 bones and hundreds of muscles, ligaments, tendons, and blood vessels. Any alterations in your foot structure and alignment can affect other joints in your body and even in overall health. Custom orthotics are medical devices worn inside the shoes to correct foot alignment issues. Many are unaware that custom orthotics have numerous benefits that extend far beyond simply treating foot pain. Here are just a few:
1. Provide support for your feet
Custom orthotics provide support for the anatomical arches of your feet, giving you more stability while standing and walking. Although over-the-counter inserts may provide some stability, they are not conformed to any individual foot, so they can not provide optimal balance and support over your entire foot surface and address individual foot issues (such as overpronation or underpronation).
2. Reduce or Eliminate Pain
Conditions such as "flat feet", arthritis, plantar fasciitis, or misalignments in foot structure can cause significant pain in not only your feet, but other parts of the body. This is due to increased strain on your ankles, knees and lower back as your body struggles to adjust its biomechanical balance to compensate for foot alignment. Custom orthotics can alleviate or eliminate this pain. Custom orthotics can also protect diabetic individuals from developing foot ulcers.
3. Protect your joints
When walking, running, or jumping, the actual force applied to the joints of your feet, legs and spine when your feet hit the ground is equivalent to several times your weight. Over time, the wear and tear on the body’s joints can cause pain and soreness, especially for overweight individuals, those who walk on hard surfaces, or those with foot problems such as overpronation and collapsed arches. Custom orthotics can help support the force load of your body, distributing the pressure more evenly across the surface of your feet. Orthotics can also absorb impact to help you stay active throughout the day.
4. Enhance athletic performance
Wearing custom orthotics specifically designed for your athletic activity can help to reduce the force load of the technical demands of a specific sport. This can help you produce more efficient and precise movements, improving your athletic performance. Custom orthotics can also help distribute your weight more evenly across the surface of the foot, improving your balance. They provide foot protection, absorb shock and create better motion control, improving foot and leg movements and even reducing muscle fatigue. For best athletic performance, your athletic custom orthotics should be designed for your specific physical activity.
5. Prevent Injuries
Our feet take a beating during walking or running. Those who spend a lot of time on their feet are especially susceptible to injury. Custom orthotics can help prevent and treat many types of injuries to the tendons, muscles and joints, as well as stress fractures. They have been proven to prevent injuries and conditions such as medial tibial stress syndrome, plantar fasciitis, and knee pain. According to research findings, custom foot orthotics reduced the risk of injuries by 28%, and reduced the risk of stress fractures by 41%. In contrast, over-the-counter shock absorbing insoles did not produce similar protective effects.
If you currently have custom orthotics that need to be refurbished, visit our Products page, and select the repair type you would like. We'll email you a pre-paid shipping label. Then, just drop your orthotics in the mail, and you're good to go! We'll return them to you like NEW!
