But if you can stabilize and strengthen this foot, this is not a bad thing.

Here's three things you have to do to fix this.

But first, did you know that some of the best athletes in the world, like Usain Bolt, have flat feet?

In fact, it's well known nowadays that certain genetic populations around the world just have flatter feet than others.

Now years ago, all doctors cared about was the height of the arch.

They would tell their patients that the flatter their feet, the more risk of eventual pain and dysfunction they would have.

But clearly, someone forgot to tell this last part to Usain Bolt, who's considered by many to be one of the greatest sprinters of all time.

Nowadays, most practitioners, like myself, who treat athletes are not as concerned with the height of someone's arch, but rather the function of their feet.

Instead, what we want to do is be proactive and not allow any more flattening of the foot than what someone's genetics already has in store.

Which leads us to our point number one.

The first step in fixing flat feet is getting out of bad shoes, specifically ones with a narrow toe box.

All they do is smash your toes together.

Here's why a narrow toe box shoe is so bad for someone who has flat feet.

Let's take the insole out and he's going to step on.

Now this is what his foot looks like within this narrow shoe.

His foot has to be completely within the insole.

Now when his toes are smashed in, it's very easy to over pronate and lose control of that arch.

So I just want you to pronate down.

Let's see how easy your full foot can rotate over.

So he has a very poor ability when his toes are smashed together to maintain control of the very small arch he does have.

However, if you were to take this out and actually spread his toes out the way that his foot should be aligned in a shoe that has a wider toe box, now all of a sudden, because that ray of the big toe is spread out, he has greater control of the arch he does have.

Now if you try to sort of rotate down, the foot cannot rotate too far.

It's more controlled when the toes can spread out.

So the shoe that you put on your foot has a dramatic impact on the position of the first two and therefore your ability to control this medial arch.

So if you're someone that has flat feet, wearing a narrow shoe is the worst thing you can do because you are instantly decreasing your ability to control the inside small arch that you do have.

Now I'm sure some of you are wondering by now, what does this mean about orthotics?

Do I still need one?

The simple answer for many is no.

In fact, podiatrist Dr. Ray McClanahan explains that after you get someone out of bad shoes that encourage additional flattening of the foot, many are able to build their natural foot support system without any orthotic that props their arch up.

When we get a foot to function this way, the arch is built to maintain itself.

So what kind of shoes do we want to wear instead?

We want shoes that allow your toes to naturally splay out.

These are going to be shoes with a wide toe box called a barefoot shoe, like the Barefoot Drop Zero shoe that I just designed recently with Tear.

It's got a very wide toe box so your toes can naturally splay out and allow your foot and the inside arch to function as naturally as possible.

So now that we have you out of these bad shoes, we need to strengthen your foot in this more anatomical aligned position.

One of the best ways to do this is with a squat.

Here's an example of what we can do.

Here's the cues that you need to use to maintain a better foot position when you squat.

What we're going to start with is rooting the foot to the ground.

So you're going to jam your big toe down and open your hip out to the side.

Now watch when you do that.

Naturally jam the big toe down, open the hip out to the side.

The foot naturally moves into a little bit of an arched position, whereas for a lot of people their toes come up because they're in bad shoes and their feet sort of rotate in because their hips are not engaged.

So this is a weak position, but a strong position is toe down, open the hips out to the side.

So being able to connect your hip all the way down your foot is a very important part of maintaining an arch and strengthening the arch that you do have.

Again, these heights of the arch is not what we're concerned about.

We're concerned with the function of the arch that you do have.

And the best way to do that is to strengthen this function through a squatting motion to start.

So big toe down, open the hip, slowly go through your squat, maintaining that position.

If I see those toes moving at all, we know that we're too far back onto the heel and it's easy for the arch to collapse over.

So start first with just body weight.

Being able to maintain this external rotation torque.

And obviously as you can, progress up and load.

The more that you can progressively overload and build capacity with your feet like this, the better it will be or the more easy you'll be able to maintain an arch throughout the rest of your day and any other activity that you're doing.

The third and last step to fixing a flat foot is to strengthen your heel raise because a lot of people who have flat feet have a very poor ability to get up onto their toes.

So what I want you to start with, the most simple way, is just to start doing some heel raises up and back down.

Now once you can build enough capacity to be able to do 20 of these in a row, here's what you're going to do.

You're going to strengthen that capacity with other movements like a toe raise and a squat.

So here's what you're going to do.

You're going to get up on your toes and then maintain this position while you squat.

Go slow at first, only go through the range that you can and still maintain that toe position and then come back up.

Once you can do a full depth squat all the way up on your toes, we're going to load it.

So we're going to start by holding a kettlebell or a u-bell like we're using right here.

So come up on the toes, maintain that position, control down, pause in your bottom position and come back up.

You can even, like Dre has done, do this with very heavy load but again we must start at square one which is just your ability to raise up onto your heels and back down and then eventually add this into your movement repertoire.

But if you can do this, you have very strong and stable arches even though they may not be as high as other people, they are exactly what you need which is a functional foot.

Again to reiterate one more time, the most important part of fixing flat feet is getting out of bad shoes that hinder your foot's function.

That's where the Barefoot Trainer Drop Zero that I just developed with Tyr and other barefoot shoes come in because they allow your toes to spread out and your foot to become functional as it was designed, become strong and control the arch that you do have.

You can find your Barefoot Drop Zero today on Tyr.com.