These are powerlifting shoes. The base of the shoe heel is made out of impact and deflection resistant plastic. The inside of the shoe provides a soft arch and a heel cup to wrap snugly around your feet. Sure it makes my squat easier to do. But the main thing it provides is support.See, my left foot is flat and the arch in it compresses when I put my body weight on it. This puts my hips and whole body out of balance. Whereas my right leg is nice and sturdy and rigid, my left leg almost seems shorter in length compared to the right one because of the arch compression.
Imagine sitting on one of those chairs where one leg is missing its metal cap at the end. It's unbalanced and you can teeter back and forth in the chair, and maybe have a good time. Now imagine putting a four hundred pound weight on that chair. The chair might tip over. One of the legs might break.
That's exactly what was happening to my body when I squatted in bare feet. My body was unbalanced especially when I was down in the hole at the bottom of the squat. My right knee was kind of kinked and skewed inward which caused me nagging pain. This was because my left foot arch was deflecting downward and causing my squat position at the bottom to be unbalanced. This was causing my right knee pain which I talked about in previous posts.
I always knew this was happening, but my ego was preventing me from getting the shoes. I saw on youtube this guy:
So I thought this guy was a wimp because he needed his fancy powerlifting shoes to squat while I just squatted in bare feet.
But now that I've done squatting in the powerlifting shoes, my right knee pain has subsided. The shoe's arch has a nice soft supporting arch and the plastic heels are nice and sturdy. Also whereas my right knee was popping when I was coming out of the hole, now knee popping is almost non-existent.
So what's next in my wimpification? Who knows? Maybe I'll break down and start lifting with a belt and start using wrist wraps for my bench press.
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