Could a Carbon Plate be Your New Best Mate?

Putting something hard and stiff into your shoe doesn't sound all that comfortable when you have an injured foot, does it? 

So how, in the Foot God's name, is this hard plate going to make your foot feel better?

The answer: Put simply- reduce the bending forces on your injured foot.

When we walk, our foot moves through the gait cycle (heel to toe). Particular bones and soft tissue structures in our foot going through a bending force i.e. they are forced to bend to facilitate walking and running. By stiffening your shoe, we play a game of physics and reduce the amount of bend the foot can do whilst in your shoe with the carbon plate. By reducing bend, we can reduce load and the outcome is there's less of it going through your injured tissue.

These plates are often used in the running community to improve performance to get a bit more 'spring' out of your step. They are simple and easy for us to implement and take out when not needed any more.

Feel free to discuss this with your podiatrist next time your in the clinic!

Song Y, Cen X, Chen H, Sun D, Munivrana G, Bálint K, Bíró I, Gu Y. The influence of running shoe with different carbon-fiber plate designs on internal foot mechanics: A pilot computational analysis. J Biomech. 2023 May;153:111597. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2023.111597. Epub 2023 Apr 25. PMID: 37126883.