Gary Ward on Spiraling Foot Mechanics for Optimized Gait, Achilles Tendonitis Prevention, and Improved Athleticism

Today’s show is with biomechanist Gary Ward.  Gary is the author of “What the Foot” and founder of “Anatomy in Motion” (as well as the “Wake Your Feet Up” and “Wake Your Body Up” courses).   Gary is known for solving unsolvable pain in minutes, not months, and his passion for the foot hugely influenced his interpretation of human movement. Gary’s foot wedges and training system have had a massive impact on my approach to training athletes in a single leg setting, and between Gary’s influence, and that of running coach Helen Hall (a student of Gary’s), my approach to gait, running and the foot is forever changed for the better.  Gary has been a previous 2x guest on this podcast, speaking on the topics of human movement principles, pronation, “duck feet” and much more. In my ever-running interest in the foot and lower leg, and its role in human movement, I have been very interested in the role of the rear-foot in the past few years.  Initially, I found that I was able to rid myself of plaguing Achilles tendon issues by mobilizing my calcaneus bone, which tuned me into the importance of looking beyond “foot stiffness” as a cover-all in lower leg performance.  From there, I’ve become increasingly more interested in the role of the rearfoot in not only injury prevention, but also athletic performance situations. On the show today, Gary Ward is back to take us on a deep dive into concepts of forefoot-rearfoot opposition and the role of the heel bone in pronation, supination and gait mechanics.  He’ll go into how a well-functioning rear-foot plays into the gait cycle, and how this also works with the ability to get into the ball of the foot well in athletic movements.  Gary will give some practical examples on how to check one’s rearfoot function, and we conclude the show getting into some nuts and bolts of squatting mechanics in light of 3D human movement. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:37 – A recap on foot opposition, and how the twisting and spiraling of the foot works into human movement 22:03 – Gary’s take on how rearfoot mobility and foot opposition plays into the ability to get to the ball of the foot well in athletic movement 37:39 – How pronation and supination changes as ground speeds increase from walking to sprinting 49:10 – How to check for limited range in the rear foot, and how to get the rearfoot moving 58:52 – How the body will compensate upstream if it is getting too much or too little movement in the foot 1:04:12 – How arch height in barbell squatting impacts the athletic result of a barbell lift, and if the arches should flatten in a barbell squat 1:10.09 – Squatting and effortlessness in human movement “The rearfoot is the calcaneus and the talus” “When the calcaneus moves down, the navicular moves up” “If there was a midfoot bone, I would say the cuboid is a midfoot bone… out of the 26 bones, we’ve got one midfoot bone.  Otherwise, what we are really looking at is the forefoot opposing the rearfoot, and it does it in all three planes” “The lowering of the arch is an opening of the joints at the base of the foot” “If you roll pressure towards the inside edge of the foot, then you will initiate an eversion in your rear foot, but if I take the 5th metatarsal head off the ground, then what you lose is the opposition” “There’s only one way to get the shin forward, and keep the heel on the ground for too long, and that’s to maintain a pronated foot position” “If your foot does not pronate at the time it is supposed to, then the body will continue to pronate the foot until it reaches the amount of pronation it needs” “You do need to get that (calcaneus) eversion to get into that toe rocker of the push-off phase” “The eversion you are looking for in the rearfoot, should happen the moment where you get the tripod on the ground” “The focus in the industry is always towards the stiffening side” “95% of the muscles in the foot are actually supinators, so we have to pronate in order to stimulate 95% of the muscles” “What interests me is not how much pronation, but the quality of the pronation… the quality of pronation will always be most optimal when the foot has a resting position of neutral, so everyone who does not have that resting position of neutral will always be compromised to some extent” “The pressure change when you pronate, will move anterior, and medial (forward and towards the big toe)” “Placing a finger, in front of the calcaneus in the back of the arch, you should feel pressure on that finger when someone bends the knee” “I get it nearly every week at least, people are in context with Achilles issues, Sever’s disease, bumps on the back of the heel and they are always on the level of the TCJ, and it’s simply too much talo-crural movement and not enough rear-foot accompaniment” “More length in the plantar fascia through better rearfoot movement is likely to take pressure off excess lengthening in the Achilles” “(With getting calcaneus movement) You can roll a sock up and place it in the back of the arch to see if they can compress it a little bit, it’s not about flattening it to the floor, it’s about “can I get more contact on it”” “What you’ll find is that the heavier the weight, the less pronation there is, the more there is a rapid, knees-in movement at the very bottom…. so you have this whole extensor chain is able to light up; the heavier you get, the more and more of a requirement that is” “Teach you to pronate, teach you to supinate, teach you to flex and extend your knees, teach you to anterior and posterior tilt your pelvis, make sure you can have a pronating leg and supinating leg, and go and experience that, and then go squat…. You need to continuously remind your body of how it should move” “Don’t you think the idea of a squat feeling effortless is overlooked”? “The 5th rule of movement is that the brain is hard-wired for perfection” Show Notes Calcaneus Tilt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yulwH_9e21k High Jumper pronation video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7qIo_xOLqA Olympic lifter with inwards knee travel in squatting (see 3:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdY78tvKlxA Helen Hall COG video https://vimeo.com/244973290 About Gary Ward Gary Ward is the author of “What the Foot” and founder of “Anatomy in Motion” (as well as the “Wake Your Feet Up” and “Wake Your Body Up” courses).  He is known for bringing individuals out of pain when all other options had failed.  A former ski-boot fitter, Gary is known for solving unsolvable pain in minutes, not months.  His passion for the foot hugely influenced his interpretation of human movement. Increasingly sought after by all types of practitioners in the fitness and therapy industry, he teaches an evolution that start with the foot and results in whole body integrated movement solutions.