Stand & Walk Correctly for Foot & Major Joint Health

Inna Chon, a pedorthist & anklebone alignment specialist, approaches the analysis of foot structure & mechanics from the unique perspective of an animator, drawing on her background as a Disney animator. This gives her insights differ significantly from traditional approaches. She developed a method for conducting an Anklebone Alignment Test. W/ her custom orthotics, she aligns people’s anklebones at the same height & teaches individuals how to stand, walk, & run correctly to maintain proper alignment. When standing & walking our feet & major joints carry the weight above them. Thus, it’s important to stand & walk in alignment. Since our body stands on the anklebones, both anklebones should be aligned at the same height for body to stand & walk in alignment. However, just by aligning the anklebones w/ proper orthotics doesn’t automatically make people to stand & walk correctly. Stand & walk correctly means putting body weight straight down on the high medial arch that is engineered to handle tremendous weight all day w/out any issue. When think about how much weight falls on the foot, specifically onto the tarsal joint that forms the arch, we know how important to use proper orthotics to keep the tarsal joint from falling while aligning the anklebones. The average American adult male weighs almost 200 lbs. & adult female weighs 170 lbs. while the average weight for both gender’s foot is less than 1.5 lbs. When walking, the impact on the foot is 1.5 times of the body weight, when running, the impact becomes 3-4 times of our body weight. Even our body moves in alignment, our feet & major joints experience gradual wear & tear throughout the day, about 16 hours, but at a minimal rate. However, the body w/ tilted anklebones exacerbates the wear & tear causing more damage than normal; so extra damage happens in the foot & major joints throughout the day. At night, lying down to sleep removes the weight from the foot & joints for about 8 hrs. During this time, feet & joints rest & heal. This 8 hrs. sleep is enough to heal all the normal damage done in alignment, but not enough to fully restore the extra damage done out of alignment. The next day we are up & running again on tilted anklebones. As a result, each new day begins w/ a bit of residual damage to the feet &major joints. This cycle repeats daily compounding the damage over time & gradually accumulating little by little decade after decade. When this damage surpasses a critical threshold, pain starts & eventually leading to chronic pain in the back, hips, knees, & feet. This extra damage due to the tilted anklebones is the primary cause of the foot & major joint problems. All these problems are mechanical problems the tilted anklebones or fallen tarsal joints (due to not using proper orthotics) initiated. But most people try to fix pain w/ pain killers, which is chemical. As the result, our body gets damaged mechanically & chemically at the same time speeding up the damage. Some do P.T. or surgery still w/out align the tilted anklebones. Every body’s tarsal joint gradually collapses w/ each step all day—even children. People who frequently carry heavy stuffs or engage in intense physical activities—such as soldiers, firefighters, weightlifters, & athletes—tend to have relatively more tilted anklebones compared to others. Also, those who are heavier or pregnant have more tilted anklebones too. Consequently, these groups of people are more prone to have severe foot & major joint problems. Unfortunately, most people do not use orthotics. The orthotics of few percentage of people use are fitted w/out the Anklebone Alignment Test. As a result, those orthotics are unlikely to aligning the anklebones. Then how to tell if our anklebones are tilted or aligned? W/ Anklebone Alignment test (AA test). When we lift a weight on tilted anklebones little away from our body, our body has to compensate. There are 3 compensating behaviors our body has been doing unconsciously our entire lifetime due to tilted anklebones: they are using core muscles, body tilting, & toe grabbing. Compensating behaviors use energy. Thus, when lifting a weight, we cannot use its full strength & full range of motion. As a result, our body can only lift a weight close to our body if not compensating. If we align anklebones, our body no longer needs to compensate; so no waste of energy. This enables us to use its full strength, and also, on aligned anklebones we can use its full range of motion w/out compensating. That is why AA test is done by lifting a weight that takes a noticeable effort to lift to test your strength & w/ an extended arm or arms to test if you can use the full range of motion w/out compensating. W/ proper orthotics, we need to wear shoes w/ level bottoms. Many shoes are manufactured w/ slightly tilted shoe bottoms, usually to the lateral side (the pinky toe side of the shoes). The tilt can be from the inside the shoe bottoms or the outside shoe soles. So, we can’t tell by just looking at them. But AA test can find out how much is tilted; so can level them by adding correct thickness strips inside to the lower side & AA test can verify that. After aligning our ankle bones, we can learn to stand & walk correctly by putting the body weight on the high medial arch.