Disc Golf Strength, Fitness, and Training routines

[rhatton2]

This is interesting reading - it seems many of the players on the UK tour get PF - I certainly have and it's a bugger. We nearly all play in heavy walking boots the whole year round as it is so damned wet in this stoopid country.

Anyone have any tips on shoe inserts or ways around the problem when boots are the only realistic option to avoid trenchfoot in the great British Weather?

 

[JR]

I have some more time with the exercises that are an upgrade to what Mark Ellis follows and i can say that the new way is much better. Please convert now you will not regret it.

rhatton2 there are lots of different kind of waterproof shoes shape wise so you are not limited to boots by any means. In fact i would recommend against most boots because they tend to have quite flat soles on the inside and a doctor recommended sneaker type of high arch support that is soft for combatting PF. The reasons are spreading the weight evenly throughout the foot instead mostly on the arch of the foot as you have with flat soled boots and the softness (also usually lacking in boots) helps in absorbing the shock from landing and bracing or pushing (my right leg PF is gone and left pushing leg lingers but is not so bad any more).

Only smell and durability is going to be limited in a shoe if it lacks waterproofing either ye olde way of applying grease on top of leather or with more modern membrane proofing such as Gore Tex. With membranes there is always the danger of tearing and many sneaker/trail running/hiking shoes of the sneaker shape design suffer from quickly rupturing membranes even when you do use socks that are designed to be used in conjunction with membraned shoes. Regular socks and especially long toe nails tend to wear the inner lining then the thin plastic bag type membranes.

Luckily there are several manufacturers of waterproof socks. Mind you you will probably be swimming in your own sweat so water salt and skin fat which is better by a fraction and only by a hair than in water alone if you do not count blocking of bacteria and other irritatnts from the outside. I have used my Seal Skinz for years so durability has been fine or i have been lucky. I only use then during winter time when i play fewer rounds. There are other manufacturers of water proof socks such as Cabelas but i have no experience with them because the Seal Skinz have not broken :-D

Trench foot can come from many reasons and moistness is definitely an issue so if the basics of washing the foot and toes throughly before playing and using clean socks do not help you could bring another set of waterproof socks into which you could change between rounds so that you can dry up your feet and start with dry socks on round 2.

Snow is another beast. As Mark and i have suffered from. There cleats make tremendous difference. In very thin snow cleats with spiraled metal wire around rubber frame is ok but they tend to fall off without noticing in thicker snow and say two cm or so thick snow tends to be the limit of the best traction. And still that traction is less than with sturdier cleats made of metal chain plus traingles of metal securing you much better to the snow even in navel deep snow. Yep i have competed in snow that is navel deep when i stood upright and i am not a midget nor was i the only player who had snow up to the navel standing upright. Luckily those places were few and far apart and normally the height was only up to the top of the hip bones. For me less for taller players.

The stressing part of snow playing for PF is when the rear foot slips and you extend the leg back while the tip of the shoe drags on the snow. That stretches the arch straighter than it can go naturally pulling the bottom of the foot tendon too tight overstressing the tendon to bone contact beyond design limits possibly tearing the tendon membrane>PF. Cleats do wonders against that especially the heavy duty ones that the manufacturers recommend not to be used in under an inch or so deep snow. The spiralled metal wire cleats are lighter and allow a hair more foot pivot with twisting the leg less ans since they work best at snow depths where the really effective heavy duty cleats may get damaged by traingl eto ground contact it is best to have both types of cleats. Note that i do not count metal studded cleats as cleats at all. They may work marginally walking on a street but not in disc golf unless the whole sole is studded like in my orienteering rain boots or Icebug sneakers or the like.