You wouldn’t tolerate a rocking coffee table in a restaurant for more than 5 minutes without placing a folded napkin under the offending table leg – so why would you let your feet act the same way without taking action?
If specifically engineered orthotics are used from an early age and all through your life, who knows what you are preventing. If you start wearing specific orthotics at a later age when you already have deformities in your joint shapes, then over time with the new forces, the shape could reverse, as per Wolff’s Law.
Wolff’s Law, Davis’s Law – Laws of Remodelling
Julius Wolff was a German anatomist and surgeon (1836-1902), who stated that bone in a healthy person will adapt to the loads it is placed under. A bone will remodel itself over time if the load is increased and the converse is true as well, that when the load decreases, there is no stimulus for continued remodelling.
The same concept is stated by Davis’s Law in relation to soft tissue, such as muscle bulk remolds itself according to imposed demands. I regularly see changes in calf muscles and leg images related to muscle bulk and check for these shape changes as you wear your orthoses over the years.
I have a saying if there is no change, there is no change. The change and difference comes in the first few weeks of wearing new orthotics, then your muscle rebalances and strengthen the shape towards their original design over the next few months. This is the importance of reviews as it gives a checkpoint review to assess if there is a need to boost your body posture and shape.
If used all through your life from an early age, who knows what you are preventing.
I tend not to dwell on what is out of shape because the whole picture changes when you change the forces with orthotic controls.
