What are the best shoes that promote foot health? | Peter Attia and Courtney Conley

let's talk a little bit about shoes we've yes talked about it a bit at the outset but um I know that it's going to be a topic that anybody who's listening to us right now is going to want to understand hey what can I do for myself presumably as an adult um and I do think there's going to be a lot of people who listen to us who have kids who are going to also say hey if I've taken anything away from this I've taken away the idea that this begins early in life and there I want to maybe even save my kids some of the challenges I've had what can I do for them yeah um I love this question I could talk about shoes uh for a very long time if we talk about kids first I think first and foremost just let their feet feel the ground as often as they can all different types of surfaces um there are way more um shoe and Footwear companies now than there were when I started this whole thing 20 years ago um I think the word is catching on and we're realizing the importance of all of this um with the kids obviously the and this is with everybody the toes need to be able to SP that's a wide toe box for me is a non-negotiable and are we defining that by the insert test meaning to St put your foot on the insert and make sure that when your weight is on your foot you can still see insert it's probably the um easiest way to you know kind of access that but I will caution you that these companies are getting smarter I've called all of them pretty much the last of the shoe I'll grab a shoe I have one so this is oh this is the last of the shoe okay in order to change the last of the shoe it's very expensive so what the the companies will do is they'll change the upper of this shoe so they'll put like mesh so when you go to put your foot in there it feels like you're you have all this room and it's not because the shoe is wider it's just because they put a material on there where your foot can actually expand in it and there's also a very big difference between a wide toe box and a wide shoe those are two very different things a wide shoe which most shoe companies have will give you wi here but it will still taper at the toe and not what we want right because I want remember the tie bar mechanism I have to have that 4 foot to trigger the response of hey I better get stable at push off so that's when I need my toes to be able toplay as well so a wide toe box is mandatory with kids footwear adult Footwear whatever um I mean what are the shoes that have wide would that be considered a wide toe box yes so this is a zero yep okay I'm a big fan of these shoes um there are so many companies out there right now um Vivo be Tois I and I could go on and on and on about those I have a list of them too um so we'll we'll put that list in the show notes so that people can sort of see what you would consider wide you know shoes that make a wide wide enough toe box for yes and I have them listed according to category right like this is a athletic shoe this is a casual shoe this is and we have so many resources for that because it it can get very confusing because people will be like I'm in a wide shoe I'm like you're not you're not in a wide shoe um so that's kind of Rule Number One MH the other thing with functional Footwear is looking at the heel and the toe where they sit so so this is a zero drop this is a zero drop where the heel and the toe sit on the same plane okay that just makes sense doesn't it that's how we were designed to walk most shoes and I won't throw out names here but most athletic shoes most running shoes if you Google the model of the shoe and Google Heel To Toe drop it'll tell you how many millimeters it'll tell you how many millimeters the heel is higher than the toe any anything that's not a zero drop by the way in my world is a high heel interesting now I have started I switched my rucking to a shoe that has an I think an 8 mm drop once I was having all of that Achilles tendonopathy and I have enjoyed that shoe much more so I no longer Ruck in a minimalist shoe probably because I'm carrying a lot of weight and I want more cushion um but i' I I I don't care about I'll throw out the BR I use the go Ruck shoe okay so it is kind of a minimalist shoe you I I can show you what I use later but the reason I bring it up is there's something about having that little bit of drop that's not huge it looks like a zero drop yeah but um it's made it I've never had an Achilles I've never had pain again since doing that is that a mistake no and I think it's it's such a good conversation to have right think about the whole um super shoe like the Nike alphafly for example right that's like the big craze I don't even know what that is it's the shoe that um uh has the car big shoe oh okay right oh is this the super running shoe this is the super running shoe oh yeah yeah yeah I got it that has a that actually gives you a little bit of like presumably it gives you more energy yes so there's like certain characteristics to that shoe it has a carbon plate yeah it has a uh difference in the midsole right it's basically a shoe and the research will tell you gives you a 4% Advantage okay now if I'm running in a race and the guy next to me has this shoe that's going to give him a 4% Advantage don't I want to be able to compete with him well of course I do but I always say you have to earn your right to get into that shoe because it does change things for example because it's going to propel you it might cause you to stride longer with longer strides you have to consider hamstring and achilles possible or potential injuries so guess what you better be doing a lot of hamstring strength and a lot of you know calf work for example um it has an additional stack height on it which can also cause that kind of longer stride again you better be able to handle that so when you talk about shoes like that I call them a performance shoe yeah fine but it's a performance save that shoe for icing on the cake yeah your speed workout you have to do the foundational work yes because use a training shoe get your foot stronger give yourself the best possible outcome when you put that performance shoe on because if you're just relying on the shoe I can guarantee you'll probably end up in my office cuz I see it all the the time so with Achilles injuries for example now you're adding like you know 50 60 pounds okay that takes work to be able to handle that amount of load in a minimal shoe right if you had a history of you know an Achilles tendonopathy if your Baseline capacity isn't where we know it should be then you know if you need to wear that change there is a time and a place for everything so if you are going to wear shoe that has an 8 mm Heel To Toe drop just do the work when you're out of the shoe make sure you have plenty of ankle Mobility because what are you doing you're shortening the poster your compartment make sure you're still doing all of your you know plantar flexion strength yeah that's a great Point um let's talk about um any other characteristics of the shoe so you've highlighted two the width of the toe box and the drop yes let's talk of the Soul yeah right so this is where um I'll I'll give people a little bit of leeway if you will so I like to put patients like I said number one why toebox is non-negotiable but you will get patients that often and other um doctors have said this to me well we weren't designed to walk on man-made surfaces okay fine but that doesn't mean nor were we designed to walk with our toes looking like this hence the wide toe box is and non negotiable but if you're standing on concrete all day long if you work in a grocery store for example if you're in an airport having a little bit of cushion underneath the sole of the foot is going to be more comfortable but this is where you need to um consider both ends here the more stack height on the shoe okay so this is the more cushion it changes the rate of loading it speeds us through pronation this is very important so the more stuff I have it's going to change the rates of loading we've been talking about that all morning how we want to do what to it we want to slow it down we want to control it and now I'm going to put something underneath the foot that's potentially going to speed it up you better have what a very strong foot and very strong extrinsic muscles to control that pronation so you know consider what you're doing in the shoe if you're standing still of you know fine right you want a little bit of cushion but know that when you start walking with that thing with this more stack height with this more cushion you're going to alter the rate of loading so that's where the thinner Soul can come into play um you know if you walk with with the shoe on that allows you to feel things okay so Stephen sashin owns uh zero and he has this ad that I just love he's like I don't wear comfortable shoes and you shouldn't wear comfortable shoes either I think it's really funny but you know he's he's right because when we're walking remember we talked about that calcinus and how beautifully it's designed it is to to handle shock absorption we also have receptors in the heel that tell us hey don't land so heavy cuz it hurts that's such a great point right I've seen the ad I know Stephen well um I think it's important for people to understand that it's okay for your feet to be giving you a signal H 100% I I actually you know this is totally off topic but one of the things I'm also interested in understanding better is the importance of negative emotions right like we live in a world where we've become so sterile to this and nobody wants to feel a negative emotion right you don't want to feel sad you don't want to feel anxious you don't want to feel depressed you don't want to feel angry and it's like understandably we don't want to feel those things but there's an opportunity to understand why am I feeling that thing and if I can understand why I'm feeling that thing maybe I can get to the root of what's actually going on and I actually I think that the way you described that made me make that connection which is gosh we should actually think think through foot pain if we're in the right shoe if we're in a shoe that we deem a correct shoe and something hurts maybe the signal is telling us what's what are you doing wrong right I mean that's it gives us so much information when you can actually feel the ground I mean everything the the propr reception the receptor activity and when we have a lot of stuff underneath the foot I can overstride and land really heavy I'm not going to feel it that's not what we want walking is a grazing of the heel we want to feel what happens when our heel hits the [Music] ground

Channel: Peter Attia MD

Views: 466,084

Keywords: Peter Attia MD, Dr. Peter Attia, Early Medical, The Drive Podcast, The Drive, Longevity, Zone 2, barefoot shoes, minimalist shoes

Id: CjiirAhkR38

Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2024