Custom Orthotics in Kansas City

Our chiropractors can completely Customize your Orthotics in Kansas City to help establish proper loading and weight distribution of your feet when standing, walking, and running.

Our custom orthotics are more than simple inserts for your shoes. They aim to reduce problems that stem from an improper gait and other biomechanical issues. As a result, custom orthotics at F.I.T. Muscle & Joint Clinic can help alleviate conditions such as knee pain, back pain, plantar fasciitis, foot pain, achilles tendinitis, heel pain, shin splints, and more. 

Custom Orthotics can correct many of the biomechanical issues that lead to pain and injury. Specialists build custom orthotics in Kansas City using various materials such as foam, plastic, leather, and fiberglass. These materials cushion and support the foot while correcting motion errors and structural imbalances in the body. They also work as shock absorbers during exercise and physical activity. 

The feet and their relationship to proper biomechanics throughout the body are extremely complex. That’s why custom orthotics are a better solution for our patients than over-the-counter (OTC) orthotics. OTC orthotics are catered to the general population. On their own, most people can’t diagnose themselves or understand the underlying causes of their gait issues. That leads them to purchase OTC orthotics that may not treat their unique condition. This could cause further issues and even future injuries. 

F.I.T. Muscle & Joint Clinic is proud to offer top-of-the-line custom foot orthotics, which we handcraft specifically for you. Our initial assessment is unique. We utilize a broad range of biomechanical evaluations for your orthotics, including videos, photographic analysis, motion-induced ink pedographs, and foam casting.

We start by speaking with you about your pain and concerns. Instead of general appointments, we cater each session to you, ensuring that we put time and effort into finding the best orthotic solution. During this time, we’ll also ask questions that may include where your pain stems from, how long you’ve had pain, and what you hope to achieve with custom orthotics in Kansas City. From there, we perform a series of unique tests and assessments to find the underlying source of your issues and pinpoint any biomechanical errors. 

With the gait analysis, we can better understand a patient’s movement patterns and muscle compensations that could lead to injury. Movement patterns create habitual motions that influence everything the body does, including physical exercise, sports training, and daily activities. But when there are gait problems and other biomechanical errors, those movement patterns become less effective and require compensation from larger, global muscles that don’t provide stability for the ankle joint. This may cause pain and conditions such as back pain, foot pain, plantar fasciitis, and more. Custom orthotics in Kansas City can help our patients and their movement patterns to avoid unwanted compensations that could lead to injury.

With our gait analysis and other assessments, our medically trained chiropractors gain insight on muscle compensations that could cause injuries down the road. This is important because when the body compensates a muscle weakness using a smaller muscle, the body compensates with recruiting larger muscle groups to overcompensate for the small stability muscles.

For example, small muscle movers—such as the hip stabilizers, and medial quads—may become inactive or weakened.  As a result, the body recruits larger muscle groups to provide function and movement. However, larger muscle groups are not meant to stabilize the joints and are explosive muscle groups, not endurance muscle groups. When those stabilizers weaken over time, this causes wear and tear. Without time to properly recover, broken down stabilizer muscles can limit training ability, and may become an injury in the making.

Custom orthotics aim to correct biomechanical dysfunctions to improve overall movement patterns. Problems with the body’s biomechanics often stem from the feet, including fallen arches and excessive pronation or supination. Pronation is when the ankle rolls inward, causing the midfoot to bulge in as well. Pronation may also flatten the arch. Supination is the opposite, meaning the foot rolls outward and could lead to an arch that’s too high. Biomechanical dysfunctions can also stem from further up the chain, usually caused by the hip.

When they become excessive, both supination and pronation can create an extra strain on muscles and other soft tissue structures higher up in the body. This may lead to problems such as foot pain, shin splints, hip pain, and more.