Author Topic: Footbeds for teenagers; forefoot pain  (Read 1260 times)

jim-ratliff

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Re: Footbeds for teenagers; forefoot pain
« on: January 02, 2013, 12:13:08 am »
Jim, what has your experience been with this? From your comment above, you seem to know a bit about posted footbeds.
Nope, no experience that I can remember with posted footbeds, but that may just be memory loss.
The second best footbed I've had was the InstaPrint system. They put the footbed in some heated gel, you put pressure on the footbed, but not full standing pressure. The footbed conforms well to your foot.
The Harb approach, I realized, is far superior for me.
I have "compensated forefoot varus", which means that with my heel "flat/neutral" the ball of my foot doesn't touch the ground. However, I have enough ankle flexibility to let my forefoot twist down.  Varus/valgus is pretty common (see Scroogle), but nobody in skidom had ever noticed this before. Since the goal of HHS is a supported foot IN THE NEUTRAL POSITION they built up the ball of foot area to get equal pressure without the ankle compensation; otherwise I would not have had any motion left to tip my ankle in the boot.
The InstaPrint system captures the foot impression and some alignment as you remain seated with knees together, but they didn't look at what the ankle is doing.

So both footbeds supported my feet, but only one supported my feet in the neutral position.

By the way, I had taken to using my ski footbeds in my bike shoes, since that eliminated some knee pain I was having.  This year the local Specialized store actually had varus/valgus wedges included with their OTS footbeds. They work well for me (and limit wear on my Harb footbeds).

« Last Edit: January 02, 2013, 12:18:48 am by jim-ratliff »
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