I went to a local running shoe store the other day looking for some trail runners to hike in. They did a foot scan. While I don’t have the results of the actual scan (I thought they were emailing it but guess not), I do remember a good portion of it.

Everything was different side to side. Everything. An athlete used to tell me I had Frankenfeet because I had an epic sock tan line. I guess he wasn’t that far off.

What does this mean? Nothing, really. My feet are fine. I don’t have any foot pain. Nor do I have pain “up the chain” in my knees or hips. My feet are different and my body adapted to this.

This same logic applies to any other area of the body. We are not symmetrical side to side and while we can observe these differences, they probably don’t matter much for pain and injury. Most of these differences have been present since at least skeletal maturity or could be the result of our daily lives or chosen sport. Our bodies adapt to what we do to it. These adaptation serve a purpose and are in no way an indication of possible future pain or injury so lets stop telling people that.