It’s no surprise that a good pair of baseball or softball shoes can protect your ankles and feet from injuries caused by rolling and sliding, as well as inflammatory conditions, such as plantar fasciitis. But did you know that SQAIRZ shoes might just lower your risk of elbow surgery? We asked Chad Miller, co-founder of Slugger Science and the Louisville Slugger Hitting Science Center, and Chuck Wolfe, Director of Human Motion Associates, to explain how SQAIRZ shoes guard against injuries throughout the body—including one of the most common suffered by pitchers.
How do the designs of popular athletic shoes contribute to a player’s risk of injury?
Chuck: Most athletic shoes are narrow at the ball of the foot. That’s going to compress the metatarsal heads, which can cause a tightening of the muscles, a tightening of the tissues, and it can invert the forefoot quite a bit. It makes all the sense in the world that if your shoes are too narrow in the forefoot, you're not going to be able to stabilize very well, and stability is an important part of injury prevention.
How do SQAIRZ baseball shoes help?
Chuck: The wider toe box should allow your big toe to stabilize on the ground. Biomechanically, that is absolutely correct, and there was an important study that showed college baseball players gaining exit velocity after switching to SQAIRZ. So we know the outcomes, and we’re about to begin a new study to better understand the why.
In general, why is the big toe so important when throwing a ball?
Chad: You can't really throw until your big toe hits the ground. Let’s say my big toe is up in what’s called the varus position. This will delay the internal rotation of my hip, which delays the internal rotation of my shoulder. My fingers are basically dragging behind the ball, which puts direct stress right on the ulnar collateral ligament, or UCL, in the elbow. By simply getting the big toe on the ground and having consistent ground contact, the whole kinematic sequence becomes more efficient, making the transfer of energy more efficient throughout the course of throwing the ball. With SQAIRZ baseball shoes, we can clean up the throw for a more consistent release point.
Does this chain of movement mean that an unstable foot could cause injuries in the upper body?
Chuck: If the foot can’t load, stabilize, and unload properly, it's going to affect the ankle, the tibia, and the femur, which will then affect the knee and continue into the hip and upwards. I work with one of the leading neurosurgeons in the country, who sends me a lot of referrals for patients with back issues. So many people with back injuries have foot and ankle dysfunction.
Chad mentioned stress on the UCL joint. Could unstable feet lead to elbow injuries, as well?
Chuck: Over the past ten years, I've been studying elbow injuries in throwers, especially pitchers and have done a deep dive into the Tommy John injury, as a UCL injury is commonly called. Typically, the site of the injury isn’t the source of the problem. The source is a joint level above or below the elbow that's limited in motion and there’s compensation that occurs as a result. I would say that 90 percent of the time I start by looking at the foot. Sometimes I start at the hips because I’ve spotted something going on there, but the hips don’t tell me the full story. I can’t fully understand hip function if I don't know what's going on with the foot, so it always comes down to foot function.
It sounds like the compensations that increase the risk of injury also impact speed.
Chad: When you’ve got problems that go all the way up the chain of movement, the top half of your body compensates for what’s happening in the lower body. If you’re inefficient on the bottom, you’ll be inefficient on the top. What’s cool about SQAIRZ is how a pair of shoes can improve what’s happening during the entire order of operations of a swing or throw.
Do players know they’re compensating for that lack of stability in their feet?
Chuck: Athletes are probably the best compensators, so one way or another, an experienced athlete will find their way around a particular dysfunction. At the very least, this means suboptimal performance—they’re not performing at the highest level. The more critical problem is setting themselves up for injury. We have to mitigate that as much as we can.
When you’re analyzing a player’s feet at the start of a throw, what are you looking for?
Chuck: Ideally, you want to see the ball of the foot and heel parallel to the ground. The most common problem I see is a forefoot that’s tilted with the big toe up—abducted. That’s because of a movement someone is unconsciously doing or because of tightness in the muscles or tendons. So we have to get those contact points on the ground that gives you the foundation you need for the foot to load and unload.
How much of an improvement do you observe in foot position when a player switches to SQAIRZ baseball shoes?
Chad: SQAIRZ’s wider toe box gets your foot into that neutral position—with the big toe, pinky toe, and heel on the ground—which puts the body into an anatomical stack. That means that the shoulder is directly above the hip, the hip is directly above the knee, the knee is directly above the ankle. This also helps keep the chin over the belly button, improving the center rotational axis, so the player is moving efficiently, is balanced, avoids weird positions, and doesn’t need to compensate.
With SQAIRZ baseball and softball shoes, you can achieve new velocities while safeguarding your joint health. Join SQAIRZ nation when you make the switch to enjoy exclusive rewards!