Engineer.... I have lost all faith in podiatrists.... their proliferation to prescribe orthotics is just too much of avoidance for the actual cause of whatever biomechanical problem (if any) that you might have.
The science of the foot is obviously complex and especially so where athletic demands are required... but they just seem to fall back on orthotics as the cure to the problem.
I'm not convinced any more... I used orthotics for about seven years until the summer just gone. They seemed to solve one problem, but created others. I saw three podiatrists during that time and all of them enthused about orthotics but none of them tried to suggest anything else as a problem solver.
My experiments over the summer with barefoot running (just 2 x 10 mins per day for six weeks) seem to have fixed the problems. Now, I don't use orthotics, have no knee pains and no blisters.
My Hoka's are a minimalist shoe (only 4mm drop) and I am increasingly convinced that minimal running is the way forward to avoid and perhaps fix biomechanical problems created by poor technique, poor choice of shoes and incorrect foot strike.
Its just my point of view, but worth thinking about...
