325 Protecting Your Most Important Asset on trail: Your Feet
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Why is foot health the most important factor for a successful hike?
Yeah, put the team on my back. Never fold, never clap.
The wolf always roll with a pack.
Now tell me how you like that.
Welcome to the Backpacking Podcast. My name is John Kelly. And with me as always, Jeremiah Stringer, the King of Kentucky Backpacking. And once again, we are having what we would call a barefoot episode. But there's a reason this time. Last week it was not because we wanted to watch Jeremiah put lotion on his feet, which I'm still a little scarred from. But today we're actually going to talk about foot health. Because if there's one thing you need to keep healthy on your body if you're gonna go hiking. It's your feet.
Indeed, man. And uh I'm glad that you could see my feet today. Look at that. I I take pride in the fact that my feet are normal. You see that? You know how some people like have you seen uh the reaction just a few weeks ago, the Shaq. The lady him check showing this lady his feet and she's like a foot massage person and all No. Bro, those NBA players' feet. are mangled. I don't know if anybody anybody that's listening to this, if uh if they played a ton of basketball or like ran track or uh cross country, that kind of stuff, sometimes the shoes like soccer, it squeezes your foot so much that like you get the toe over the other toe and then you get the big yellow tone. Well I have that Well, I have that with my pinky toes.
My pinky toes have always been under my ring toe. You think it's genetics? Uh mine are, 'cause my son's got 'em. Okay. I think some people it's 'cause their shoes too narrow. Yeah. Have you ever looked at a wide receiver's hands, an NFL wide receiver's hands? No. Their fingers are typically mangled and bent weird and stuff because of how many times they busted their fingers and not said anything. Yeah. And I mean there's uh I think it's Tory Holt. Used to be a wide receiver for the Rams back in the day. and his fingers are mangled. I mean, his hands don't even look human. They're so bad.
Yeah, I mean that's your point of contact, right? Just like with backpacking, I mean, your feet are number one because if you get like a big blister and it takes you off trail, that like defeats the whole purpose of getting the right boots and yada yada yada.
So yeah, I get it. And we could start off just by talking about the obvious one that everybody at some point has to deal with and that's blisters. Yeah. You know, blisters blisters basically come from rubbing. Yeah. And it typically happens when you have the wrong shoes, the wrong socks. There's so many things that can go into play with blistering. I remember my first time dealing with blistering was on Kilimanjaro. What happened to you? Uh we were I was fine the whole trip and then we did the downhill.
Oh, okay.
So we took what's called the Mashame route, I think is what it's called.
Mm-hmm.
And uh so it took five and a half days to get to the top, to get to the summit, and it took a day and a half to get down.
Uh, and you get the foot sliding forward. A lot of people lose toenails actually. Yeah, in in a lot of the black toes. Yeah, your feet like slide forward in your shoe wear, whatever you choose. And then your toenails keep hitting the front of the shoe over and over and over. If you do that for a day, they just like Start turning black. You do that for a week. All of a sudden you don't have toenails.
I've lost toenails. I will say not from that trip necessarily. That trip though, my pinky toes. were blistered bad. I never had a problem with blisters until that day. And I thought, man, it it's one day. This can't be that bad. I've been hiking the whole time without it. So I I did the dumbest thing you can possibly do. And it was part of it's cause I was new to this whole thing. I ignored it.
Oh yeah, you can never it's like when your car's making a knocking noise and you're like, ah, it'll be okay. Eventually it cat like basketball. I had to start taping, like taping my big toe. I got this giant callus now on my big toe. Sorry, uh people I do these YouTube videos and people are like, You gotta give a foot warning, bro.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why is foot health the most important factor for a successful hike?
0:00–5:39
2
How can you prevent and treat blisters before they ruin a day on the trail?
5:39–14:40
3
What are the best strategies for dealing with plantar fasciitis on long hikes?
14:40–22:59
4
How does proper shoe fit and lacing technique protect your feet?
22:59–29:57
5
Which insoles, socks, and inserts actually reduce foot fatigue and injuries?
29:57–39:45
6
What causes Achilles tendon pain and how can you keep it from flaring up?
39:45–48:26
7
What foot‑care routine should you follow at camp to keep feet clean and healthy?
48:26–51:05
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Backpacking Podcast
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