“The dynamic control of functional movement is deeply integrated into the body’s perception of the outside world and that perception begins with your feet.” __Dr. Emily Splichal
Your feet play a pivotal role in walking, running, jumping, and every other activity that requires you to push into the ground. Your feet and their connection to the ground is actually what starts the golf swing and allows you to use your lower body to create speed and power.
A powerful golf swing starts with getting loaded into the trail foot, shifting laterally into the lead foot, rotating your pelvis back, and finally extending your hips up. This sequence is what allows you to utilize the lower body for an efficient golf swing.
Anyone who has seen Scottie Sheffler’s swing knows how much his feet move in his swing.
Feet Facts
- One-quarter of the bones and joints in your entire body are in your feet.
- You have more nerve endings in your soles than anywhere but your fingertips and lips.
- The skin and fascia in your feet have over 100 million sensory nerves and are an extension of the brain.
- Your feet are meant to bend, move, flex, and feel the world under you.
Why Do We Need To Floss Our Feet?
Well, we didn’t always wear shoes. For millennium we were barefoot or close to it. Having a minimal covering to protect the skin from the elements. But in modern times, we started wearing shoes at a very young age. Usually, as soon as you can walk. And to add insult to injury, most of us are walking on flat, smooth surfaces for most of our lives. Shoes essentially encase the feet from all outside stimulation and therefore, over time, make them dysfunctional. Supporting something makes it weak Think about it. You break your leg. You put your leg in a cast for 8 weeks. What does it look like when it comes out? Stronger? Nope. Weak and atrophied. Same thing with feet. If you “support” them all the time, they will weaken.
Instead of having spaces between the toes, shoes tend to crowd the toes together, rendering them weak.
To compensate, modern man has invented to shoe insert. Designed to support a weak foot with an artificial arch, a weak foot that we created in the first place. Brilliant, isn’t it?
Our feet should be giving us Kinesthetic awareness, meaning our ability to navigate space and awareness of how we move across the earth. Why? Because if you couldn’t sense where your body was in time and space as you moved across the surface of the earth (proprioception), you could easily fall. And in those days, if you fell and hit your head or broke a bone it was a death sentence. Your hunter-gatherer mates would have to leave you behind to starve to death or get eaten by a predator.
Your Feet And Golf
When it comes to golf, your feet are your foundation. Golf is not a sport you play sitting down. In 2018 I took the BodiTrak Science Golf Ground Mechanics Course.
The first thing you learn is that every movement in the golf swing starts with the ground. The force pressure mat tells us HOW you move your body, and how you move your body will dictate how the body moves the club. The foot influences everything. It’s deeply integrated into core stabilization, glute strength, and in power and force production.
**What we do with the club is always reflected in the ground.
“The information coming out of this mat is a reflection of every move the golfer makes. So the golfer is not going to be able to change the way they are moving the club or change the way they are moving their body without that showing up in the data that’s being collected from the mat.”__Dr. Sasho MacKenzie
Floss Your Feet
Let’s run (pun intended) with the assumption your feet are less than functional. Having worked in a running shoe store (NY Running Co.)in Columbus Circle, NYC (2012-2014), and examining the feet of hundreds of runners, I can tell you with certainty, that your feet are not functional.
In fact, the modern running shoe not only supports dysfunction but also helps to create it. But that’s another article altogether!
So how do we floss our feet to get them to work better so we can play golf better? See you in PART 2.
Brett The Golf Guy
