Trekking is fun and exhilarating. But for people with flat feet, it’s a miles-long ordeal. Walking for hours on uneven surfaces makes their feet feel like they are on fire. The feeling soon turns into agonizing pain and later snowballs into knee and back pain. Even if they use hiking poles to reduce the stress, it isn’t of much help.

That said, trekking with flat feet doesn’t have to be a painful experience. If you understand its basics and follow some measures, you can have a rewarding, albeit exhausting, experience.

But before we proceed, let’s learn something about the part that holds the foot: the arch.

The foot’s arch is the area along the bottom of the foot that runs from the ball to the heel. It helps us walk, run, jump, and hike. Besides, it plays a vital role in balancing body weight and maintaining the correct posture.

What else does the Arch do?

The arch helps distribute the body weight to the weight-bearing parts of the sole and acts as a spring when we run, jump, or climb. It also helps absorb shock upon impact. When you are trekking, it prevents the feet from going numb as a result of improper blood flow to the region caused by bumpy grounds riddled with rocks and roots.

What Happens When You Trek with Flat Feet

When you trek with flat feet, the arch doesn't distribute your weight to the weight-bearing parts of the sole effectively. This causes imbalance and excruciating pain and puts a lot of strain on the knee. This is why many people with flat feet struggle a lot while trekking and don’t enjoy the hike as much as they should.

How to Trek with Flat Feet

For trekking enthusiasts with flat feet, preparation is key. This means choosing the right type of trekking boots, wearing customizable fallen arch support insoles such as SelectFlex, and walking long distances every day a few weeks before the trek.

The right boots can significantly reduce stress on the sole and knee and provide you with much-needed comfort while protecting your sole from roots and rocks that come your way while trekking. Make sure you choose boots with ankle support to prevent your ankle from rolling to the outside.

Combine your trekking boots with customizable fallen arch support insoles, preferably SelectFlex, for additional arch support. SelectFlex is a unique type of dynamic energy-returning insole that won ISHN’s award for Best Protective Footwear. It uses patented energy-returning, arch lifting technology called the PowerLift Arch, providing the wearer with 3 energy return levels to support the arch with dynamic alignment with every move.

Besides the type of boots and insoles, you should get into a walking or running routine a few weeks before the trek. This will not only help enhance your cardiovascular health but also strengthen your feet muscles. This will help you walk for longer durations without breaks on the trek.

Many trekkers with flat feet take frequent breaks to give their feet much-needed rest. This helps them prevent muscle soreness and strain. You should also regularly stretch your arch and lower calves during the trek.

Bottom line

While trekking with flat feet is challenging, you can have a comfortable experience reaching the summit should you follow these measures.

If you want to buy arch support insoles online for your next trek, contact us today.

Got a New Year’s resolution to get more exercise? That’s great! But let’s make sure to protect your feet! Starting a new sport or fitness program is a great way to drop weight or to improve your cardiovascular health. But when you try a new exercise or start exercising more, you put lots of pressure on your feet. And that can lead to sports injuries (National Safety Council)…unless you follow these three important tips for safely exercising!

How to Start a New Sport or Exercise

Whether you’re starting a new running program, or jumping into deadlifts and squats, caution is key. With any new movement, your body needs time to adjust. Don’t expect to get off the couch and run five miles on your first day.

Instead, start low and slow with your training. In your first week, mix running and walking and don’t go more than a mile. If that pace feels comfortable, you can slowly increase your miles or speed the next week. (The safest way to train is to limit your increases to 10%. Whether that means you run 10% farther or faster is your choice.) If walking is your new exercise of choice, check out our blog on how to start a walking workout (Very Well Fit Magazine).

Why is slow and steady the best way to try a new exercise? It gives your body (and feet!) time to adjust to new movements and time to build up the muscles that will support your activity. If you rush into a new sport at full force, you risk an overuse injury which could send you into your Podiatrists office with problems such as shin splints or heel pain.

Choosing Sport Specific Shoes

Maybe your exercise resolutions have you getting serious about one sport. If that’s the case, it’s important to wear the right shoes for your chosen activity. If you’re playing tennis or basketball more than three times a week, choose shoes specifically designed for those sports. (The same is true for cleat-based sports, such as soccer or football.)

But what if you’re just walking or hitting the cardio equipment at your gym? In this case, cross-training athletic shoes are the way to go. These are athletic shoes with forefoot flexibility, so you can run if you need to. They also have lateral support, so you can step from side-to-side in Zumba class or on the elliptical. Finally, they have good support to protect your feet from the impact of any exercise.

Consider Orthotics to Prevent Exercise-Related Injury

Sometimes the structure of your body (biomechanics) increases your injury risk. That means even the best athletic shoes won’t protect your feet when you exercise. If your feet are flat, if your arches are too high or if your legs are different lengths, you may need extra support. Customizeable Orthotic insoles such as SelectFlex could be your solution. SelectFlex are an entirely new type of dynamic energy returning insole that won ISHN’s award for Best Protective Footwear.  SelectFlex insoles use a patented energy returning arch lifting technology called the PowerLift Arch.  The PowerLift Arch provides the wearer with 3 energy return levels to support the arch with dynamic alignment with every step. 

This can improve your efficiency when starting a new sport, especially running. Want to learn more about keeping your fitness resolutions with the help of cutomizeable orthotic insoles? See how SelectFlex can help you meet those 2022 fitness goals!

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In addition to a slew of other health issues, carrying around extra weight on your body can cause some serious problems with your feet and ankles. As weight balloons, it will cause your body to shift how it distributes its balance, meaning that you have extra stress on your feet. Having your weight unevenly distributed can result in a lot of pain. This pain is present even when doing your simple, everyday tasks, like walking for a short distance.

1) Extra Weight Can Flatten Your Feet
Your feet have tendons and ligaments that bundle the bones together and hold them in place. Obesity can stress these ligaments and tendons, causing them to tear and break (Medical News Today). This can cause fallen arches and flat feet. When the arch of your foot lowers, it can cause your feet and every step to be painful. It lowers the effectiveness of their shock absorption, creating pain with every step. By using shoe inserts that can make each step more comfortable, you can stop this process in its tracks.

2) You Might Tear Your Plantar Fascia
An important part of your body is the plantar fascia, which connects the heel to your toes. Extra weight can cause stress during your daily activities. If you are overweight and are experiencing pain in your heels, you may have a case of plantar fasciitis. Investing in comfortable insoles for the inside of your shoes can help you avoid or correct this painful foot affliction.

3) Bone Spurs May Affect You
Carrying extra weight on your body can make your bones rub together. To prevent this from happening, your body may create some foot bone spurs. These are outgrowths from the bones in your feet (Mayo Clinic). Because of the stress that weight places on your joints, it is more likely that an overweight person will suffer from these. Being obese can affect them negatively, adding to the pain, stiffness, and tingling in your lower extremities. Talk to a doctor about effectively managing the pain caused by your bone spurs.

4) You Can Develop Localized Arthritis in Your Ankles
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports (CDC.Gov).  that up to twenty percent of Americans suffer from arthritis. The two main forms of arthritis are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. While arthritis can affect anyone, the instance of arthritis in people of larger weights is greatly enhanced. Arthritis in the ankles is a form of osteoarthritis. It happens when your cartilage wears down, that flexible and durable tissue that protects your bones from rubbing together at the joints. Obesity can cause your cartilage to wear away faster. While osteoarthritis is a stress injury, rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune issue where your body attacks its own joint tissue. Studies have shown that chemicals found in adipose tissue (fat) can cause rheumatoid arthritis to get even worse (Arthritis Foundation).

5) Diabetes Can Greatlyt Affect the Health of Your Feet
In addition to your weight distribution, your feet need adequate circulation and blood flow to stay healthy. Diabetes, which disproportionately affects those of larger weights, can cause a reduction of the flow of blood to your feet. If you develop sores on your feet, they can quickly become ulcerated and difficult to treat. Numbness in your extremities is an important reason to seek the aid of a medical professional. Over 70,000 amputations are done of feet and lower legs every year. It is important to your health to stay up to date on all medications and get a regular check up to catch issues before they get worse.

With so many issues that can affect your feet, it is no surprise that you will want to find relief. Give yourself appropriate and adjustable arch support and minimize foot pain by using orthotic insoles by SelectFlex®. They are committed to staying current on all the trends in orthotics and can bring you customizable arch support.

Introducing SelectFlex
SelectFlex can increase comfort and reduce pain in the feet by correcting alignment, supporting the arch, providing more ankle support and cushioning the feet. In other words, it can help promote more normal gait and mobility. I invite you to learn more about SelectFlex Arch Control Insoles. We have worked with an orthotics company and our own engineers and product designers to develop a shoe insert that closely imitates the function of certain ligaments in the foot. Our adjustable PowerLift® Arch can provide as much as 89 percent more arch support than other inserts at about one-quarter the cost of custom prescription orthotics. You can find out more about us here:  (Welcome To SelectFlex) You can also text us at (844) 600-0082. I hope you will want to find out more about how our product can help you with your peripheral neuropathy. On behalf of SelectFlex, we look forward to serving you.

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