Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Rising onto the toes decides: if the arch lifts, strength is missing — if it stays flat, it is the shape.
Also known as: flat foot · fallen arch · splay foot · pronated foot · collapsed arch · heel valgus
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Three foot faults that mostly appear together and are therefore named together: the valgus foot describes the heel deviating outwards, the fallen foot the flattened long arch, the splay foot the sunken cross arch with the metatarsal bones spreading apart. Decisive for placing it is mobility: if the arch lifts on rising to the toes or when sitting, the fault is mobile — then strength is missing, not shape. If the foot stays flat even then, a fixed shape is present. In children up to about six a foot that looks flat is the rule and not a fault; the arch forms with walking, and a fat pad additionally deceives. Complaints arise less at the foot itself than further up the chain: the inward turn of the lower leg loads knee and hip.
Rise barefoot onto both balls of the feet and look from behind: if the long arch lifts and the heel turns inwards, the chain is working. If the foot stays flat, the fault is fixed. The test takes five seconds and separates the two cases better than any footprint.
Sitting, draw the ball of the foot towards the heel without clawing the toes — the arch lifts a few millimetres in the process. Ten repetitions, several times a day. In small studies the thickness of the small foot muscles increased measurably over weeks.
A shortened calf lets the heel leave the ground too early and presses the load into the arch. The test is the lunge at the wall: does the knee come ten centimetres past the toes without the heel lifting? Less counts as limited.
A mobile flat foot in a small child forms out by itself in the great majority of cases by school age. Insoles changed nothing about it in comparative studies. Watching is called for if the foot is stiff, if only one side is affected or if it hurts.
Soft, cushioning insoles spread pressure and measurably relieve a painful forefoot. Shaping insoles hold the foot as long as it stands on them; that they lastingly change the shape in adults could not be shown. Both are usable — only not the same thing.
Low values over a long time cause a dull ache in bones and trunk-near muscles, morning stiffness and weakness when rising from a chair. This is often blamed on posture.
If it is not the arch that hurts but the foot that burns or goes numb, it is about the nerve, not the statics. In diabetes that is the usual route, in a B12 deficiency likewise.
Not for the arch but for the mix-up: a suddenly painful, reddened big-toe joint is more likely a gout attack than a splay foot. The value separates the two.
If the arch collapses quickly and painlessly with a warm, swollen foot, blood sugar belongs here — Charcot foot begins exactly like that and is often taken for a sprain.
The counterpart of calcium at the muscle fibre: calcium contracts, magnesium releases. With tension and night cramps it is therefore the first thing asked about — the studies are mixed, the mechanism at the muscle is not.
The arch of the foot carries what stands on it. Every kilo less unloads it several times over with each step — that is not dietary advice but mechanics.
The shape of the foot does not change through something swallowed. What measurably increased is the thickness of the small foot muscles under regular exercise — the short-foot exercise and walking barefoot on uneven ground. That is the whole list, and it costs nothing.
For tendons and ligaments there are pointers from small studies when 15 g are taken about an hour before loading. Without the loading nothing happens — it is the pull on the tissue that sets off the rebuilding, not the building block alone.
Effective when deficient; effects on sleep and stress plausible but moderate. Too much causes loose stool.
In pregnancy the ligaments soften — those in the foot too. Many women need half a shoe size more afterwards, and that usually stays.
When walking, several times the body weight acts on the foot, when running far more. Less weight is therefore the one adjustment that acts on every single step — without anything changing at the foot itself.
For everything to do with statics, the method with the most data. What matters is not the kind but that it happens at all, and regularly — the back holds what it does daily.
It is not the session that works but what continues at home afterwards. After four to six appointments you can judge whether anything is moving.