What is a flatfooter, you ask?
A flatfooter is someone who is, well, flat-footed. Literally. If you haven’t heard of it, chances are, you are not one of us. You are among the lucky ones with “normal feet” with medial longitudinal arches, which allow you to properly distribute your body weight across your feet palm and counter the forces of the earth when you walk or run.
But isn’t that the case for everybody?
Nope.
Like myself, flatfooters suffer from uneven weight distribution in our feet palms, which makes our legs less stable or imbalanced and more prone to overpronation.
As a result, we have an easier time getting foot pain and a higher likelihood of getting injuries in other areas of the body when we do intense weight-bearing physical activities such as running.
If you are wondering how serious this is, know that at one point in the past, people with flatfeet were automatically rejected from the military. Yes… people like me were once seen as “handicapped.”
Crazy, right?
Thank goodness to some scientists: we now have a better understanding of flatfeet. This led to the development of “commercial fixes” in forms of tailored footwear, insoles and other support.
From my childhood to early adulthood, I have always wondered how some people find running enjoyable. How is it that when I try to run I get pains around my legs after running a kilometer?
It was not until I stumbled upon a running shoes store in Singapore that I found an answer.
I wanted to buy a pair of kicks and told the sales rep about my leg pain. He then asked me to try running on their treadmill. A few minutes later, he told me that I was flat-footed. That’s when I first learned about my condition and that it mattered. I was then offered a pair of shoes tailored for feet like mine: a pair of New Balance v1080 shoes size 42 2E wide, which I excitedly bought.
Since then, I started to enjoy long distance running and participated in races.
Running became one of my hobbies, an excuse for travel, a solution to keeping a sane mind after a busy day at work, and most importantly, an effective way to lose weight and learn self-control.
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