Foot Fatigue & Soreness

What is foot fatigue?

Foot fatigue is the term we use to generally describe feet that are sore, tired, and/or achy — often without one specific cause or reason for it. It occurs often with people who are on their feet a lot, such as retail employees, warehouse associates, doctors & nurses, construction workers, and similar. Foot fatigue is often a completely separate issue from other foot conditions, but sometimes it may be an indicator that something else is going on with your feet — especially if the pain becomes sharp and constant.

What does foot fatigue feel like?

Foot fatigue affects different people in different ways, and so it doesn't always feel the same from person to person, but generally speaking you may be experiencing foot fatigue if:

• You experience aching, minor pain, or minor "burning" sensation when you stand or walk, often in the arch of the foot, which often subsides relatively quickly when you sit and take pressure off your feet.
• You find yourself shifting your weight to the outsides of your feet when standing in order to alleviate pressure and avoid soreness on the bottoms of your feet.
• You begin to "shuffle" your feet (dragging your feet) more towards the end of the day because you find it sore or painful to do a full stride (lift leg, plant heel, roll foot).
• You wake up in the mornings with your feet feeling stiff or sore, often throughout the arch and midfoot.
• Your feet show signs of minor swelling at the end of the day which generally subsides after you've been off your feet for a while.

Do I need to take foot fatigue seriously?

Yes, absolutely. Foot fatigue is an indicator that your feet are not getting the support that they need and that you're putting excess strain and pressure on your feet beyond what they are able to easily withstand. While this might simply cause some foot soreness now, and while a massage, foot bath, or even just propping your feet up for a while may help at the moment, ignoring foot fatigue can lead to you developing more serious foot conditions down the road:

• Plantar fasciitis results from injury to the plantar fascia tendon due primarily to overuse and excess strain. Ignoring your sore feet now means a significantly increased chance of developing plantar fasciitis in the future.
• Fallen arches are the result of sustained excess strain on the foot over time, which eventually causes the arch of the foot to collapse. This will in turn lead to the development of flat feet.
• Metatarsalgia & forefoot pain results when your metatarsals and ball-of-foot bear repeated injury. Without proper support, even just standing or walking for extended periods of time days in a row is enough to cause injury.
• Heel spurs result when you place excess pressure on the heels of the feet. As the natural fat padding in your heel wears away (fat pad atrophy), your heel bone begins to reinforce itself, leading to painful heel spurs.
• Sesamoiditis results from injury to the sesamoid bones (the big toe joint at the ball of your foot). Similar to metatarsalgia, sustained pressure on your feet for extended periods of time days in a row can cause such injury.
• Other injuries, such as a sprained ankle, can result if you continue to walk awkwardly in order to avoid aggravating your feet when they're already sore and hurting. This is especially common when walking on the outsides of your feet to alleviate pressure on the midfoot.
• Other issues can develop, too, such as excess wear on your shoes that results from dragging your feet. This, in turn, can lead to balance and stability problems as one part of your shoes wears down faster than others, causing your feet to pitch inwards/outwards/forwards/backwards more than normal, which puts even more strain on your feet.

How to prevent & eliminate foot fatigue?

Preventing and eliminating foot fatigue is simple: We just need to provide your feet with the support they need in order to take all that excess strain and pressure off them. We do this through the use of an arch support.

An arch support is designed to do a few important things for your feet:

1. A good arch support will cradle your heel and support the base of your foot arch, helping to "guide" your feet to making a normal step motion that will help reduce strain on the insides and outsides of your feet from overpronation and supination.
2. A good arch support will help to distribute pressure evenly across your feet (front to back & side to side) so that no one area of your feet bears the majority of the pressure you place on them.
3. A good arch support will provide your feet with cushioning that is designed to help absorb and mitigate some of the pressure on your feet, lessening the remaining pressure that needs to be distributed across the foot.
4. A good arch support will provide your feet with padding designed to absorb impact shock — especially at the heel and ball-of-foot, where your feet strike the ground the most — in order to prevent impact injury and external strain on the foot.

Simply wearing a good arch support in your shoes is often enough to prevent foot fatigue, and to alleviate the symptoms of minor foot fatigue within just a few days. For moderate to severe foot fatigue, you'll want to wear an arch support anytime you're on your feet while also reducing existing pain through simple at-home methods such as:

• Gently massaging your feet to alleviate tension and improve circulation.
• Using ice on your feet to reduce swelling.
• Soaking your feet in a warm foot bath to promote circulation and eliminate tension.
• Using anti-inflammatory medications to help reduce pain and swelling.

In short: An arch support will help to reduce the amount of wear that your feet sustain throughout the day, whether walking or standing. In turn, this means that your feet will sustain less repeated strain and injury, leading to healthier, pain-free feet. Additionally, by preventing or alleviating foot fatigue and soreness this way, you'll also be helping to prevent other foot conditions that might have otherwise developed down the road.