What if we told you your feet function a lot like a car?
Sounds strange, we know—but hear us out. We recently caught up with Phil Stotter to learn just how much your feet and your car have in common, and once you see it, you won’t unsee it. Performance, control, and wear all start from the ground up.
Phil Sotter, a clinical exercise physiologist, confirms the comparison is grounded in real biomechanics. Whether you're sprinting out of the batter’s box, loading into a golf swing, or stopping on a dime in pickleball, your feet act like a performance vehicle’s control system: power, braking, and steering all start at ground level.
But here’s the kicker—most shoes mess that up. They disconnect you from the ground, dull your feel, and throw off your body's natural mechanics. SQAIRZ was built to fix that—because in sports where every movement matters, connection is everything.
The Foot's Power System: Your Gas Pedal
Your heel is the primary engine of movement. It’s where your posterior chain—AKA, the group of powerful muscles including your calves, hamstrings, glutes, and spinal erectors—begins its activation. These muscles are responsible for propelling you forward, whether you're running, squatting, or swinging a bat or club.
Biomechanically, when your heel strikes the ground, it signals your body to engage this chain. Just like pressing the gas pedal in a car delivers acceleration, initiating movement through your heel gives you controlled power and drive.
Without that heel engagement, athletes lose valuable force generation, leading to slower starts and weaker movements.
The Foot's Braking System: Your Toes
Once you’re in motion, you also need a way to stop or slow down. That’s where your toes—and especially your big toe—come into play.
Your toes act as your body's brakes. They help decelerate your forward momentum, stabilize your balance, and control impact forces. In biomechanical terms, the toes absorb force and assist in redistributing weight when transitioning into stops or direction changes. Without this control, your risk of injury increases dramatically.
Poorly designed shoes with too much curve or insufficient toe box support limit this braking ability, making sharp stops and controlled pivots harder to execute.
The Ball of the Foot: Your Steering Wheel
The ball of your foot is your steering wheel—and one of the most critical (yet overlooked) parts of your movement system.
This is where side-to-side adjustments, balance corrections, and lateral propulsion originate. Think about how a car changes direction—your foot does the same thing, adjusting to help your body rotate, shift, or swerve.
In rotational sports like golf, baseball, and pickleball, this steering function becomes non-negotiable. You're not just moving forward—you’re coiling, shifting, rotating, and reacting in multiple planes. Narrow shoes that constrict the forefoot reduce your ability to steer effectively.
A roomier forefoot (like what SQAIRZ is built with) allows your toes and ball of foot to spread, grip, and steer—just like turning a wide, responsive wheel in a race car.
What Most Shoes Get Wrong
Many athletic shoes prioritize cushioning or aesthetics over function. Elevated heels pitch you forward unnaturally. Soft foam soles deaden your sensory feedback. Narrow toe boxes reduce your foot’s natural surface area.
The result? You lose your “gas,” your “brakes,” and your “steering.”
Worse, you lose connection with the ground—the one thing all movement depends on.
Why Ground Connection Matters
Every athletic motion begins with ground reaction force—your body pushes into the ground, and the ground pushes back with equal force (thank you, Newton).
If your shoe distorts or delays that force exchange, you lose efficiency, power, and balance. When athletes wear gear that blocks ground feel—like thick foam or curved soles—they lose critical information about foot placement, balance, and force generation.
In high-speed, reactive sports, your sensory systems (vision, balance, and proprioception) must work together. If your shoes are cutting off ground input, you're literally half the player.
That’s why proper footwear—especially in rotational sports—matters more than ever.
How SQAIRZ Fits In
SQAIRZ was engineered around biomechanics, not marketing trends. It’s built with a roomier toe box that allows your foot to spread naturally, expanding your base of support and enhancing your ability to balance, brake, and steer.
That wider foundation improves ground connection, which boosts performance and helps reduce injury risk. Whether you're pivoting at the kitchen line, loading into your trail leg during a backswing, or exploding off the mound, your foot needs room to do what it’s designed to do.
Golf, baseball, and pickleball all demand reactivity, balance, and directional control. That’s why SQAIRZ is focused on these three sports—because they start (and are won) from the ground up.
Final Thoughts
If your body is a car, your feet are the control system:
The heel is your gas.
The toes are your brakes.
The ball of your foot is your steering wheel.
SQAIRZ was built to optimize all three.Because in every sport that matters—you don’t just play from the ground up. You win from the ground up.
Now, if only NASCAR and F1 drivers had a roomier toe box.
Or maybe we start designing performance cars with square hoods… for better aerodynamics and toe splay.
We’re only half kidding.