Orthotics or placebo?

For many years, I have worked in the sporting goods industry and most particularly in the ski-boot and climbing boot business. All along, I've heard from a bunch of self proclaimed gurus about the absolute need for some kind of insoles designed to “position,” “correct” or even “enhance” a sportsman's standing position while practicing a sport. I've tried them all, or most of them, from Superfeet to Comform'able without ever finding the holly grail in posture, comfort or performance. True, I never was in dire need for adjustment to begin with.

My narrow foot would fit most ski boots and I could go without pain, except if the boot was too tight, which is the way I thought for too long that ski boot should be fitted at the expense of my big toe-nails. I still have a pair of Superfeet insoles in my ski boots, but it's more placebo than anything else, and today, an article in the New York Times sheds a brand new light on the wisdom, the theory and the rationale – if there was one – for those miracle wedges. I think it's about time someone wrote that in the “corrective insole” department too, the Emperor appears to have no clothes!