Toe socks. Once popularized by teenage girls, now popularized by trail runners and yoga instructors. But how in the world do they relate to a torn ligament on the bottom of your foot? A major factor in damaging your plantar plate or ball of foot area is your body being set up biomechanically to put too much weight onto one spot of the foot. This shows up in plantar plate injuries on the ball of the foot usually straight down from the 2nd and/or 3rd metatarsal. Why does your body put too much weight there? Well, it could be a few reasons:
- Your 2nd toe is very long. lengthy 2nd metatarsal acts as a lever putting extra force onto where if connects to the ball of the foot.
- You have really high arches. High arches giveyour foot less contact with the ground. Since less of your arch is touching the ground, the ball of foot absorbs more of this force.
- Tightness in your calves and achilles could be causing you to not displace weight all the way through your gait cycle, again putting more weight towards the front of the foot and not absorbed elsewhere.
- Poor footwear choices can make it seem like there’s more weight being applied to the forefoot.
- You weigh more than you used to.
- Im running out of reasons
The Angry orthopod would definitely place the calf/Achilles, posterior leg tightness as the number one culprit, but I believe it’s a culmination of some or all of those factors in various degrees.
How could toe socks help? Well, toe socks and toe spacers help spread out your toes. This spreading displacing your weight to a wider base and can shift an extremely small amount of weight front the front middle of your toes. Also, side benefit, any toe spacing is incredible for neuromas. Any weight that you can shift to your 4th or 5th metatarsal is just stress that’s being removed from the injured area. This is why calf stretching is also super helpful. As your calf and Achilles are able to stretch out and get you further in the gait cycle, you can use more of your calves, hamstrings, and glutes to absorb ground contact forces and less of your forefoot.
So in conclusion. Toe socks. Toe spacers. Both can help spread your toes out, making your base wider and putting less weight and stress on the ball of your foot. While spacing your toes also can promote a tiny bit more of blood flow to your metatarsals. When toes are squished together you will not be getting an ideal flow of blood and fluid through this already pretty avascular region. Embrace the space that comes with toe socks and allow them to wiggle freely allowing more blood and oxygen to move through them. The last benefit I’ll mention is that if you are using a toe taping method, which is probably the best way to heal from a plantar plate tear, you could wear toe socks under the tape which could alleviate you from some of the chafing and raw skin that comes with taping directly onto your skin.