1January 2022
♪ Bob and Brad ♪ ♪ The two most famous
physical therapists ♪ ♪ On the Internet ♪ (Bob applauding) – Hi, folks, I'm Bob
Schrupp, physical therapist. – Brad Heineck, physical therapist. – And we are the most
famous physical therapists on the Internet. – In our opinion, of course, Bob. – Today we're gonna talk about the big lie about flat feet and custom arch supports. This is an updated video. We did this before, but we're gonna do it a little bit better this time. – Yep, we're gonna update
and get things ready to go. Here we go.
– By the way, if you're new to our channel, please take a second to subscribe to us. We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, and pain free, and we upload every day. Also, we are always giving something away, go to bobandbrad.com, and
go to the giveaway section and you'll find out that
we are now giving away a couple of these Stretch Easy, what would you call that? Like, an aide, right? A stretch aide.
– That's for stretching out your heel core, and I'll show you, hold onto that once, Bob.
– I'll hold onto that, Brad's gonna show, really cool device, actually
– it's really, it is. – Really good for stretching hamstrings. If you look back, we did a video on how to use this for stretching your entire lower extremity, so.
– Right, yep. – Alright, you can find that also on Facebook.com, BobandBrad, or if you want a short version of us, go to Instagram and Twitter, we got a 60-second version of our program. Alright, Brad, let's
start- let's get started. – Okay, flat feet. Everyone hears the term and they get, "Oh you've
gotta get custom arches, "go get fitted," you know,
"You can go to this doctor "or this store, they have them." You know, $300-500 later,
sometimes they work. And, you know, we're
talking about our experience as well as the research
we've done scientifically. – It's a lot of money for a guess. Whether or not it's gonna work or not. You know what I mean?
– Right, exactly.
– So we'd rather have you try the cheaper or less expensive option first. – Yeah, you know if you got
$300-500 you don't really – Yeah you just like to
throw your money away and burn it.
– Right. You just don't know, because we have people,
Bob and I have both had people come in, they've
had their custom arches, their $300-500 ones. And
they're in the closet because they don't work.
– Yeah. – And then we try and correct the things. – We try and do other things instead.
The only thing I would say, Brad, is maybe if you try an off-the-shelf pair, and they work really well, and then you wanna have something permanent, then you might spend the money. Would you agree with that? – I would. I remember I
had custom arches made by a chiropractor when
I was in my twenties before I knew anything about this, and I had a back problem. And he said, "Oh, well, your back
problem was from your feet." Which, I know now it wasn't, I was just lifting something really
heavy with really bad back mechanics. But, he sold them, my insurance paid for
it, I'm sure there was some influencing there,
– Sure.
– why they were made. Anyways, I wore them for a while. – Then you got rid of them. – Yeah (laughs). Okay, let's carry on. Flat feet. Let's show some people the difference between
someone with a normal or a high arch versus a flat foot. – Alright, we'll do mine first. – Bob happens to be… – I've got high arches.
So if you point things out, Brad? You're looking
for your pen, aren't ya? – [Brad] Yeah. So we're
gonna look right here. Right here. Look at this,
I can put my whole hand in that tall arch right there.
– And there's no weight on it yet, but I'll go
ahead and put weight on it.
– [Brad] Right. And it
doesn't really move. He's got a pretty rigid
foot, we'd call it. – [Bob] I got a rigid foot. – [Brad] And that's a
whole different story. – [Bob] So I don't need an
arch support. By any means. – [Brad] You might need
something to cushion, possibly. – [Bob] That's exactly right. I need a cushioned shoe. – So, now we have a
volunteer from the audience. Come on in, Ryan.
– (laughs) From the audience. – He happens to have… – This happens to be Brad's nephew, Ryan. – Right, say hi, Ryan. – Hello. – And Ryan, what's today? What's so special about today? – Oh, it's my birthday today. – That's right, 15 years old. – My brother-in-law's birthday, too. – Oh really? Maybe we should call them up and they can chat.
– Yeah, there we go. – Let's get on. Now, look at Ryan's foot. Big difference from Bob's.
If you look in here, there's a gap there. He's got some arch. But now put some weight on there, Ryan. And look how it flattens out. And now I can't even
get my finger in there, so that's a real key to a
diagnosing of flat foot, is non-weight-bearing
versus weight-bearing. How much does it flatten?
Now, the thing is, go ahead and put some
weight to there again. The tendons- we got the Achilles tendon, the posterior tib, we've got another of our other structures that get stressed with that flatten.
So
every time that Ryan runs or puts weight through
there, those tendons can be irritated over many repetitions. If you're gonna go run
five miles or whatever, and that can develop
problems anywhere from tendonitis, hip… Oh, we
forgot about the rotation. – [Bob] Yeah, turn the knees. – Yeah, go ahead, put
weight through there. The tibia rotates this direction, which can throw the kneecap,
the whole knee joint can be thrown off as well as the hip. And you can get hip or knee pain, or, like we mentioned, back pain, all because of this. – [Bob] Yeah, all starts from there. You have to have a good base.
– It does need to, you know, often times it
needs to be addressed. But, do you need to get custom? – Right. – This is our options. Oh, wait! But there's more, Bob! – Okay, tell us, Brad! – (laughs) So, I did mention
we did some research.
I did find a couple- more
than a couple articles. I picked out two of them, one was The British Journal of Sports Med in 2015. They took 140 subjects. Half of them had custom orthotics, the
other half had sham or non-custom. And they found out there was no notable difference
with the custom versus the sham or the non-custom orthotics. There was another study by The Journal of Athletic Training in 2011. They concluded there was no difference in the results, if you had custom or across-the-counter orthotics.
– And I've done, I've done the research
on this in the past, too, Brad, and pretty much they
all said the same thing. – Right. It's all… – They will last longer, generally, a custom one.
– Sure, oh yeah, right. – And so… But if it's not helping, who cares that something's
gonna last long? – If they're sitting in the closet. – Yeah, if they're sitting
in the closet, yeah. – So we can look at, wanna bring your foot up there again? There's three options that we have here.
There's more than that, but three common options. You can, if you go to the store or you go online, and you look you'll just
see one of these that's relatively flat, but
they're nice and squishy. Let's put your foot on there, Ryan. And there really is no
support here in the arch. – [Bob] This is more just a cushion. This would be maybe something for me, 'cause this would cushion my shoe. – For example, if you
work on a concrete floor all day long, and you need some cushion, this is the kind of insert.
– But you can see, he can flatten out here. It really doesn't help
at all. Look at that, just flattens right out again. So it's not doing the job. – Right. So that wouldn't be good for that flat foot. They make half of, this is just a half an insert, it doesn't go into the forefoot, which may be good, if we put Ryan's foot on there, and we look, it does offer some support.
Put some weight through there. – [Bob] Very little, yeah. He's kind of, it's
still not correcting it. – Right. So even though… – This one doesn't pass what we call the squish test. So if
you can squish it down like this, it's not
providing you enough support. – Right. And you know, I guess it might. If you wear it and it feels really good, and maybe your arch is
different than Ryan's, it might be good for you.
That's why you really have to try these out. Then the next option,
and this is one I often look for with myself and my patients, is called a semi-rigid. It's not hard, although it's stiff in there and there's a plastic support. But you can bend it, and it flexes, so it's semi-rigid. Now put your foot up on there, Ryan. So right now I can put
my finger under there. Put some weight through there, Ryan. And it's semi-rigid, so it does flatten, but do you feel the
difference on that, Ryan? – [Ryan] Yeah, yeah. – [Bob] You can see it's still providing some support. – [Brad] And this may
not be rigid enough yet. It depends on, I always say put them in, walk around with them, if it feels like good support, it's good support. If it feels like there's a big bump and it's pushing into your foot, I would say no. – Yeah, and what you
want, it should feel good immediately. This isn't something that you work into, that eventually it's gonna feel better. No, it should feel better the day you are at the store.
– Right. I was at a shoe store once with my daughter, she was in high school, and she's flat-footed just like Ryan. And we're putting on shoes and we had, this was the cushion-
not the cushion shoe, but the shoe made for flat-footed person. – Sure. – And she put it on, she goes, "It just feels uncomfortable
right in there." And the salesperson said, "Well, yeah, "that's how it'll feel at first, "but it'll get better over time." – No, no, no, no, no. – I said, "No." I'm not gonna spend money on these and then two weeks later, I'm sure she would say, "It's still…" I mean, 'cause she was running. It was an impact thing
– It might even be worse. – Right. – It might get worse over time. So no, it should definitely feel good at the time, right away. – It was the motion control shoe. – Motion control. – Which have, there's research on that that the motion control shoe, which is supposedly made for a flat foot, oftentimes aren't what
they're put up to be.
So again, try them on,
and they should feel good. – Yeah, it should be
a personal experiment. I mean, it has to work for you just because someone said
it should work for you. Don't agree with that. Try it on. – So I highly advise
going to a good shoe store and actually trying
them on, walking around. And you're gonna be there for a while. It's just not that you
go in, buy, and leave. So, take care of your feet and take some time with them.
– If you're a runner, I always like to run around
the store a little bit.
Some of them have treadmills. – Yeah, yeah. I've always, they should always have a treadmill. I was at one store once, it was a bigger place up in the
mall, up in the cities, in that Minnesota land.
– Yeah? – Yeah, they had a little track. You could run around, it was kind of neat! – Yeah, that's what you should have. – I wish that I was in
the market for shoes that day, but I wasn't. – Alright, Ryan, you have
anything else to say? – Yeah, Ryan. Say happy birthday! – Yeah, happy birthday to myself. – Thank you, thank you. – We were talking on
the way up this morning. We're gonna open up a restaurant. – Okay. – Ryan and Brad's… – Eat'n'Barf. – Eat'n'Barf! – Yeah, we'll provide your own barf bags. – That'll probably be accurate. – This are things you talk about with your 15-year-old nephew and you're getting bored on the road, but
it was funny at the time. – Alright, it's not funny now. Thanks for watching.
(laughing).