By Lily Hoog-Fry & John Baker of Swell Movement & Longevity
A high instep, also known as pes cavus, is characterized by an elevated medial longitudinal arch of the foot. This creates a distinctive high-arch resting position, allowing you to easily slide your fingers further than usual under the inside (medial side) of your feet.
To visualize this concept, imagine dipping the sole of your foot in ink. As you press your foot onto a surface, only the parts that make actual contact will transfer ink. For individuals with a flat or non-existent arch, a significant amount of ink will transfer across the middle of the foot. Conversely, if your foot's ink-print shows a clearly defined ball and heel, connected by only a thin or absent strip, you likely have high arches.
We've explored this condition in depth here. In essence, high arches alter the biomechanics of the foot, significantly increasing the risk of developing a wide array of common problems. These include plantar fasciitis, Morton’s neuroma (a painful nerve entrapment between your toe bones), bunions, stress fractures, metatarsalgia (inflammation of the ball of your foot), and ankle sprains. It's quite a comprehensive list of potential issues, highlighting the importance of proper foot care.
Traditional approaches to treating foot pain associated with a high arched foot often involve bracing the foot with arch support. While this can be appropriate in specific cases of structural issues, it's crucial to understand that bracing inherently weakens. Relying on external support indefinitely prevents your foot from developing its own strength. Therefore, unless you wish to permanently depend on external aids and forgo strengthening your foot, this isn't an optimal initial strategy from a mechanical standpoint.
It may come as a surprise, but the way we lace our shoes profoundly impacts their effectiveness. Read on for a review of common lacing techniques, when and why to use them, and how simple adjustments can optimally care for your high arches.
Common Lacing Strategies for High Arches:
Many of us simply lace our shoes and go, without much thought. However, the method of lacing affects not only the correct fit of our shoes but also the forces exerted on our feet, and consequently, on all our other weight-bearing joints.
Manufacturers of traditional running shoes often recommend a common lacing pattern for high arches:
Employ a parallel lacing pattern, skipping crossing laces in areas where you need more space.
This technique helps accommodate the increased depth of the middle section of your foot, characteristic of a high instep.
In simpler terms, pass the lace through the eyelet directly above, rather than across to the eyelet on the opposite side of the shoe’s tongue, before continuing the zig-zag pattern over the top of your foot.
This is often referred to as “parallel” or “Lydiard lacing” (we find the sheer number of variations and names for these lacing techniques, such as “bar lacing, gap lacing, lock lacing,” quite amusing).
While this advice isn't necessarily bad, it currently lacks scientific validation and doesn't offer the nuanced understanding needed to make the best choices for your high arches. Continue reading to discover why.
What Science Does Say:
A study comparing various lacing methods in male runners found that lacing shoes moderately tightly through every eyelet (including those often ignored final eyelets) resulted in reduced forces through the foot and decreased pronation speed (Hagen & Hennig, 2009).
Understanding the implications of "less overall force" is straightforward. But what about pronation? Pronation of the foot is the natural flattening of your arch that occurs with every step. While excessive pronation can lead to knee, hip, and foot problems, it's a necessary movement. Without pronation, it would be impossible for the base of the big toe, or the medial side of the ball of the foot, to properly contact the ground. Therefore, it's more accurate to consider uncontrolled or over-pronation as problematic, while pronation itself is a normal and essential part of foot function.
Why is ensuring the big toe makes proper ground contact so vital? The first ray, extending from the big toe to where it meets the ankle, is designed to bear over half of our body weight during walking, approximately 60%. If the big toe cannot adequately bear this load, it is transferred to other structures not designed for such stress, leading to problems over time. Furthermore, effectively loading the big toe enables us to engage the posterior chain—a term for the muscles along the back of the body—to propel us forward with greater ease. This is why orthotics are crucial for structural or rigid high arches, though such cases are rare, offering benefits like improved glute and thigh engagement. However, if we cannot control the speed of pronation, we repeatedly stress the passive structures on the inside of the foot with each step, increasing the likelihood of ankle sprains, bunions, and big toe pain. This suggests that advice to loosen your shoes through various lacing techniques might be counterproductive, as it ultimately reduces shoe tightness, increasing pronation speed and overall force on your foot.
Additionally, loose-fitting shoes alter how your foot contacts the ground because you involuntarily try to keep the shoe on, preventing heel slippage, black toenails, and hot spots. This often causes the entire foot to land at once, rather than the lateral heel striking first, which disrupts the foot's natural spring mechanism. This can result in toe clawing or shortening of the muscles on the bottom of your foot, perpetuating foot dysfunction and increasing the strain on your foot's fascia, contributing to conditions like plantar fasciitis. It also leads to excessive wear on your barefoot shoes because the load is not evenly distributed across the entire shoe, but localized.
The Context of Different Lacing Techniques Matters:
The scientific study mentioned above isn't exhaustive; it focused on approximately 20 well-trained male runners wearing normal padded shoes. More research, especially involving women, would be beneficial. However, the common advice to loosen your shoes with various lacing techniques currently lacks scientific validation, and there are significant drawbacks to wearing overly loose shoes.
Considering the complexities of individual body mechanics, both approaches can be correct in certain situations. If you are already experiencing foot issues caused by compression, such as a painfully wide forefoot or Morton’s neuroma, employing different lacing techniques to adjust the toe box of your barefoot shoes to achieve a looser, more bearable fit (pun intended) may be appropriate.
Loosening your laces might also be a good choice if you've been diligently training your foot strength, are not currently experiencing foot injuries, and wish to challenge your foot in a different way—for example, by encouraging it to work harder to control pronation and load. Even then, we'd recommend targeted, pronation-specific training with resistance bands first.
However, if you're dealing with issues like plantar fasciitis, stress fractures, or bunions, which require increased force dampening and control, simply changing your lacing style isn't an ideal initial step. While it might offer temporary comfort, it places more demands on already injured structures. In these cases, it's advisable to lace your shoes up more securely.
Another compelling reason to tighten your laces and utilize all eyelets is for activities like long-distance walking or running. This approach enhances performance and comfort by providing greater support and effective force dampening.
Wrapping it Up:
Ultimately, for any of these lacing nuances to truly matter, your pair of barefoot shoes must correctly fit your foot size and shape, preventing heel slippage and avoiding any squeezing that narrows your foot. This means prioritizing shoes with a foot-shaped toe box and other key characteristics of barefoot style shoes. As you continue to move and train diligently in your barefoot shoes, keep these principles in mind when selecting the optimal lacing technique for your high arches, which ultimately benefits your entire body.
