• Live In-Person Customer Service

    Speak to a real person by calling:
    888-790-4100
    Mo-Fr, 9AM - 4PM Pacific time.

Improving Your Musculoskeletal Health... Starting With Your Feet

Focus on Feet



The survey conducted by GRD Bio Tech, Inc., indicated that chiropractors have a high degree of awareness of the connection between the pedal function, specifically hyperpronation and posture. The survey identified an interest in finding methods to better support posture and more effectively help their patients who suffer from the effects of hyperpronation.

In the field of soft tissue therapy, Dr. Janet Travell made the connection between feet and posture years ago when she determined and published in her Trigger Point Manual3 that Morton’s Foot Structure needed to be addressed. Dr. Travell labeled poor posture a major perpetuating factor for myofascial pain, and she confirmed that Morton’s Foot Structure contributes significantly to a collapsed posture. When Dr. Travell learned of Dr. Rothbart’s work in 1995, she immediately recognized that Dr. Rothbart had discovered the “Third Dimension” of Morton’s Foot Structure. Not only is the first metatarsal short, but it is elevated and rotated (Rothbart’s Foot Structure).

Because hyperpronation originates with a structural problem (retention in talar torsion) that impacts a majority of your patients, paying close attention to foot mechanics and foot structure is a key to overall success in treating musculoskeletal problems regardless of medical specialty.

Improving foot and gait function becomes a fundamental building block in treating the patient. If the foundation is not corrected, other treatment will only yield temporary symptom relief.

Consider something as serious as arthroscopic meniscus surgery. This procedure which requires anesthesia and an operating room with special equipment does nothing to remedy the cause of the problem. Fractured parts of the meniscus and debris are removed, but as soon as the patient starts walking again, the injury process continues because the torsional forces in the knee that caused the damage still remain.

Adjusting the SI joint may only provide temporary relief until the foot foundation is addressed.

Releasing a trigger point without correcting the foot foundation and posture may only provide temporary relief.

If you are concerned with musculoskeletal performance and chronic pain, you must concern yourself with posture, and posture will lead you to your patients’ feet.

The central issue is hyperpronation.

3 Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual. Janet G. Travell, MD and David G. Simons, MD.

Page 4