[pct-l] Muscle balance between the top and bottom of first metatarsal joint

["Joanne Lennox" <goforth@cio.net>]

Charlie, try this for an explanation of your toe "ledge" problem:

When you built up the duct tape on the bottom of the ball of your foot, you
are actually tightening and strengthening the work of the tendon on that
side.  the tendons are opposing(top and bottom) and this causes the toe
bone to be moved slightly downward, and away from the bone ledge at the
top, thereby giving the the toe more space to bend and move.  Effectively,
it is like adding a small pulley to the muscle tendon on that side making
it action stronger than the top side and repositioning the toe bone
relative to the metatarsal.  This also fits in  with the falling arches and
the hot spot on the heel which sounds somewhat like an incipient hell spur.


An analogous situation is one of the remedies for some kinds of knee pain
and tennis elbow: a "rubber band" is placed on the leg just below the knee,
this helps the tendons on the bottom side of the knee to pull the knee cap
straight down when the knee is bent.  My massage person says that a similar
result can be acheived by massaging the tendons on the quadriceps side
(top) of the knee to soften the action on that side. ( The tendons are
rubbed crosswise).  Obviously any tendon stretching must be done very
judiciously if at all, it is better to strengthen muscle in order to
balance the action of antagonistic muscle action.  Perhaps, the duct tape
which worked at first, started loosening the tendons over time by applying
continuous pressure.  I think that you can strengthen the bottom action of
the toe with the same kind of exercises that are used for raising the arch:
 trying to pick a towel off the floor with your toes,etc.

I can not really know what is going on with your feet; so this information
is meant to be scutinize and balanced with your own experience.  Aren"t the
feet amazing!  It appears that the whole structure is actively acheiving a
very finetuned equalibrium, which itself is shifting and changing with time
and its activiites.  This is one of the reasons I am interested in
thruhiking the PCT, to find and experience the imbalances and limitation of
my particular skeletal-muscular system.  Congratulations Charlie, you are
out there on the edge, and still working the process.

goforth

Gerard Manley Hopkins: " O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
                                      That want the yield of plushy sward,
                                      But you shall walk the golden street
                                      And you unhouse and house the Lord,"
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