Advice On Effective Foot Care For Runners

Running is great exercise for dads with hugely positive effects for mental and physical health: so looking after your feet is paramount if you want to keep reaping the rewards.

Running puts the body through its paces in ways that few other activities match, and the feet can really bear the brunt of it.

Every stride transmits force upward through the lower limbs, and the cumulative demands of training, particularly when mileage increases or footwear is inadequate, create conditions in which problems develop quickly and compound if left unaddressed.

Here we’ve explained more about what these issues can look like, but more importantly what you can do to help prevent it.

The Bigger Picture

Despite the clear relationship between foot health and running performance, awareness of the importance of keeping our feet healthy remains surprisingly low. 

This is according to recent research in a new foot health guide from UK sock manufacturer, Gentle Grip, only around a quarter of UK adults are aware that the health and condition of our feet can affect our overall health. Furthermore, only a small percentage actually look to take preventative measures or get foot issues addressed early on.

Common Issues Runners Face

Gentle Grip’s guide also gets advice from The Royal College of Podiatry‘s Chief Clinical Advisor, Dr Helen Branthwaite, who goes on to list out some of the problems most frequently encountered by runners. These can include blisters, blackened toenails, calluses, and heel and joint pain – which is often a sign of plantar fasciitis. 

Naturally, if these are left unaddressed, these issues rarely stay contained to the foot, and as the NHS warns, common running injuries can then affect different parts of our legs in ways that are often directly linked to foot mechanics and footwear. 

Here’s what you can do to help avoid these problems:

Make Sure your Footwear is up to Task

The Royal College of Podiatry also makes it very clear that poorly fitting footwear is often a root cause of foot health issues, particularly for runners.

The ways to make sure you get the best fit, as detailed by Dr Branthwaite in the aforementioned foot health guide, are to make sure that your footwear does the following:

1. Fits the full length of your foot and is wide enough across the ball
2. The footwear accommodates the depth at the toes and allows the toes to sit without compression when standing
3. Comes with an adjustable fastening with solid heel support,
4. The sole suited is to the terrain

More Ways To Protect Your Feet

Footwear is the foundation, but there are other habits that make a significant difference, such as warming up properly before a run prepares the muscles and connective tissue for the demands ahead. 

Checking the feet regularly for changes in skin texture, colour, or temperature can help you to spot possible issues and catch them before they become serious.

Keeping your feet clean and dry after running limits the conditions in which fungal infections, such as athlete’s foot, take hold, and rotating footwear between sessions gives shoes adequate time to dry out fully.

Simply be Aware

Foot care should not be an afterthought for runners, it should be a core part of training and practice. The best runners aren’t the ones who push through discomfort, they are the ones who manage the small things so that they do not become bigger issues.