Your toes probably get very little attention – until they start to hurt.
Bunions, hammertoes, plantar fasciitis, chronic foot pain – all affect millions of adults around the world, and many of those cases have an surprisingly common denominator: foot wear that crushes, tightens, and distorts the shape of the foot.
Correct Toes is a toe-spacing device designed to combat precisely that.
It simply works by gently encouraging the toes back into their naturally suited alignment, and begins to accomplish so by reversing the damage caused by years of wearing too-narrow shoes.
Below we will explain what Correct Toes actually does, who might find this helpful, and the best way to go about adding it to your routine.
How Correct Toes Helps Restore Natural Positioning
The foot’s architecture is unbelievably complicated it contains 26 bones, 33 joints, over a hundred muscles, tendons, and other connective tissues.
When the toes are compressed together by locked in footwear, that structure begins to fall apart.
Correct Toes is a piece of soft, silicone spacers that goes between all five toes at the same time, helping them to subtly splay outward toward their original positions.
It does not hard arch support or strike the perfect arch with a rigid orthotic but instead seeks to work with the foot’s original mechanics.
The biomechanical basis for toe splay
Toe splay the term for spreading out the toes when standing and walking is an important factor for stability, forward propulsion, and even better load sharing within the foot.
Biomechanics research clearly points to a less stable foot when toe splay diminishes under load, and an increasingly elevated pressure point in the forefoot.
When your toes can spread in their natural way, the entire foot behaves more like a tripod, sharing weight evenly across the various parts of the foot.
Correct Toes passively allows the toes to splay out, under the correct conditions, which you just wear the device and let your feet do the work.
Silicone—better for long term use than foam
All models of foam toe separators compress easily, and are no good within a couple of days.
Correct Toes is a late 100% silicone compound, flexible, long lasting, skin friendly, and able to be used to some extent while involved in walking, yoga, or simply packing around the house.
This long lasting quality is great for long term use, and make one more practical purchase.
Foot Problems Correct Toes May Help Address
A lot of people use this device after being diagnosed with an existing foot problem, which makes sense for pain reasons.
One of the most iconic foot problems relating to toe misalignment is bunions.
This is when the big toe drifts in toward the second toe, the bone enlarges out of the joint at the base of the toe, and the whole joint drifts over time.
Moving the toe back toward neutral with Correct Toes will hopefully stop this from progressing further and become a little less painful.
Hammertoes and Overlapping Toes
Hammertoes the technical terms for an abnormal downward bend in part of the toes most often affects the smaller toes are at either end of the foot in the same way.
For alleviated discomfort, Correct Toes gently stretches and separates these toes, and allows them a chance to cross settle back into their more natural, healthy resting positions.
Overlapping toes, which respond even more favorably, tend to cross sit now vacant space and glom back into a more natural position.
Plantar fasciitis and wider forefoot pain
For individuals suffering from plantar fasciitis, the actual source of discomfort is much deeper than just the toes themselves.
The plantar fascia is a sheer band of tissue that runs from under your toes all the way to the heel on the bottom of the foot.
How your toes are aligned affects the force dispersion through that tissue every time you take a step, and an issue like plantar fasciitis can be worsened or improved by the degree of alignment of the forefront of the foot.
Correct Toes will quite possibly help relieve some of that overall load expression if the feet are placed correctly for this device, as part of an overall foot health regimen that should also include ball rolling, calf stretches, and some stretching.
Through an integrated routine, different footwear types, and the use of Correct Toes, the health and stability of the foot can be significantly improved.
How to Use Correct Toes Safely and Effectively
Jumping straight in with any corrective device over it wearing the sleeve for every waking hour is rarely a good idea.
For a heel that has been held in its maladjusted position while you have grown into it for years, progression is inherently slow.
In beginning with 1/2 hour of wear per day, and simply slowly increasing from there, this is the normal recommendation.
Using the device causes some discomfort initially, but moving quickly to pain indicates that you should slow down.
It is like stretching a tight muscle that long hasn’t been used to that extent also.
the effects of the correct shoes
There is a vital step in this process.
The endorsed shoes the idea is to reposition the feet to contain as little restriction as possible.
That means just shoes with a true foot shape and a decent toe box.
Pointed shoes or narrow shoes will undermine the correction you will receive from your spacer.
Some people find that, by committing to wider toe box shoes like Altra , Viovarefoot , or the Lems brand, directly before beginning to use the separator, problems seem to disappear even quicker.
The use of Correct Toes as a part of a broader foot health routine
Going beyond the use of the device in individual isolation,heel stretches, toe strengthening exercises, ball rolling, and massage not only promote the use of the device better, but also aid in the maintenance of a more balanced foot shape in the long term.
To improve toe strength an exercise like drawing the towel closer with your toes, or manding clenching small objects with your toes will have an enormous repurcussions for hand working muscles.
Calf stretching is another important step in recovery from camber heel positions.