"TENNIS FEET."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19474, 2 November 1926, Page 5

"TENNIS FEET."

Tennis elbow has long been a recognised, if rather uncommon, occupational disease. "Tennis feet" is to-day, in the ever-growing popularity of the game, filling the waiting rooms of orthopaedic surgeons with devotees whose foot and leg muscles have ; failed to keep pace with their enthusiasm.

It would be outside the scops of this article to touch upon the relative advantages of the naked foot, to which the flexible, soft-soled tennis shoe is the nearest approach in use to-day, and the stiff-soled and comparatively high-heeled shoe of everyday wear. What ii» indubitable is the difference between the two.

The human foot has been compared often to an arch. A better comparison would be a bow, held bent and taut by the muscles and ligaments that run from heel to ball. The bony structure of the arch would not pass the scrutiny of any architect. Deprived of its muscular support it will sag, and the result will be the splayed-out, aching, incipient flat-foot that is beginning to be known as "tennis feet."

Muscles and ligaments are living things, and living things grow tired. They will tire less quickly if they are given a little assistance, a little respite from the unrelaxed strain of holding together the twin ends of the bow-stave that is the arch of the foot. The stiff sole of everyday wear gives that, but takes away while it gives, for the muscles, which are (as is the nature of all living things) a lazy folk, forget that there may come a time when their strength will be needed. The bowspring relaxes and the foot flattens into an unshapely and mechanically unsound assembly of bones and muscles. The remedy is, as usual, to remember that the human body can adapt itself almost always to new conditions, provided only that it be given reasonable time in which to do it. Any athletic trainer knows as weil as a doctor the foily of the sudden transition from a sedentary life to hard exercise. And what is true of the body as a whole is true of a part of it. The feet must be "broken ir>" gradually to their new conditions, accustomed to dispense with supporting leather, as the young gymnast is trained to do without the helping hand of his instructor. Given that one condition, there is little reason why any player should be put out of action by "tennis feet."