Whoa! Dangerous shoes ahead....

Holy smokes ! Can you believe this?

Take a look at these BRAND NEW, just out of the box pair of Brooks Cadence shoes. We do not usually see many manufacturer defects from this brand. Looks like someone might have been asleep at the “upper goes on the midsole” machine

Check out the varus cant to the rearfoot of the right shoe. Now look at the forefoot valgus cant to the left shoe. This would not be a great shoe for someone who has too much rear foot eversion and midfoot pronation on the right and and uncompensated forefoot valgus on the left, but we do not think it was designed for that specific, small niche market.

Think of the biomechanical implications on a "neutral" foot. Placing the right rear foot in varus would effectively halt or slow pronation in the rear foot and midfoot of that foot. This could be a good thing for an over pronator but, in a neutral foot, this would cause them to toe off in supination on that side resulting in low gear push off and biomechanical insufficiency, not to mention the increased external rotation of the lower extremity and lack of shock absorption from 1 of the 4 mechanisms of shock absorption left (mid foot pronation, ankle dorsiflexion, knee flexion, thumb flexion, contralateral drop of the pelvis). Now, imagine if that same person had internal tibial torsion. Talk about placing the knee outside of the sagittal plane ! Can you say macerated meniscus?

And now the left shoe. Look at the valgus cant! If you had and uncompensated forefoot valgus, where the forefoot is everted with respect to the rear foot or a forefoot varus, where they had adequate range of motion to allow the first ray to descend, then this could be a good thing, otherwise they are toeing off in too much pronation. This could be a real problem for a midfoot pronator or someone with large amounts of external tibial torsion, because they commonly toe off in too much pronation and low gear to begin with, as this shoe would accelerate pronation from midfoot to the forefoot

The bottom line? Look at your patients/clients shoes, as well as your own before purchasing them and examined for manufacturer defects. The upper should sit squarely on the midsole and the shoe should not rock or tip from side to side.

TGG