How to Prevent Blisters & Foot Injuries on the Trail

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Tags: Hiking Foot Care,Preventing Blisters,Foot Care on the Trail,Hiker Trash,AT,Appalachian Trail,AT Thru-Hike,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru-Hike,Thru-Hike,AZT,CDT,Long Distance Hiking,Section Hike,Hiking Foot Injuries,Leuko Tape,Liner Socks,Dirty Girl Gaiters

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Darwin here with some tips and tricks on how to keep your feet happy when you're out on the trail [Music]

[Applause]

all right so in a lot of my videos we talk about gear and things that you can do to lighten your load and keep you happy and healthy on the trail but one thing that I never talk about are your feet your feet are like your most valuable asset when you're doing a hike why they're the ones that are taking that beating every day and getting you from point A to point B on the trail taking the abuse so you need to take care of your feet because a foot injury or some sort of an infection or something in your foot can take you off of a trail and end your hike pretty damn fast so there are a handful of precautions that you can do pre trail to make sure you're going to keep your feet happy number one and probably the biggest one is getting the right shoe or boot spend a lot of time and make sure that the footwear that you're choosing to do your hike with is going to be the best for you don't just get a pair of hiking boots or hiking shoes based on some sort of a review or what you like or what felt good in the store for a couple seconds and then later find out that you made the wrong Footwear choice and you're getting some problems from them take about two or three months before a hike and go try on a bunch of different shoes try on shoes boots different styles and make sure that it's going to be a perfect fit for your foot same with insoles try a handful with different insoles and find out what's going to work best for you choosing the wrong Footwear can give you a ton of different problems on the trail that you don't want to deal with now one rule of thumb that I use when selecting a pair of shoes on size is actually using the thumb rule so I'll actually put my thumb down on my shoe and make sure that I have about a thumbs width between the toe box and my big toe why because when I'm descending I don't want my toes and my nails bumping my toe box so that can cause black toenails which you definitely don't want and it can also cause ingrown toenails speaking of ingrown toenails my buddy knots just beat the fastest known self-supported hike on the Appalachian Trail about a month ago now even though he smashed the record and he finished he dealt with some major ingrown toenail issues now whether that was because he didn't really take care of his feet or because he wore too small shoot but it put him in a lot of pain and gave him a lot of problems he says that he probably could have finished the trail much faster at he wouldn't have had those toe problems that he was dealing with through the last half of that trail so definitely pick the right Footwear because it can make all the difference in your hike so the second thing that you can pick up before you hit the trail to prevent some foot problems are sock liners now I've talked about these in a previous video and I'm a huge advocate for them pretty much what a sock liner is is it's another sock that you wear under your other set to help take down friction between your sock your shoe and say your heel or toe so it helps prevent blisters if you get something like a coolmax up it also helps keep your feet dry and keep them from sweating so much so you don't build up a lot of moisture in your shoe and get really gnarly blisters now typically a blister is something you can take care of on the trail but there are people that have been taken off the trail because the entire bottom of their foot is just one giant blister ouch so if you haven't done it already you might suggest picking up some sock liners and then the third thing that you can pick up before you hit the trail to make sure you're keeping your feet happy are gaiters again I talked about these guys and a lot of my videos and what a gator does is it keeps little pebbles rocks sand out of your shoe creating more friction and creating more problems if you get a little rock in your shoe and you're hiking on it all day it can really rub into your foot either create a hot spot a blister or even worse it can cut you open so just having something as simple as a gator like one of these dirty girls that's super light and you barely even notice through there can definitely save your feet in the long run so pick up some Gators okay so not only can you pick those things up before you hit the trail to help prevent future foot problems but I think every hiker should have these things in their pack just in case they do have some sort of foot issues that way you can take care of it while you're out there so number one and I don't talk about them a lot but I always have my pack our nail clippers super simple super easy this should be a duh to most people but keeping your toe nails trimmed is definitely going to promote good foot care and it's going to prevent you from getting things like black toenails and ingrown toenails now again I don't know Knots was carrying a pair of toe clippers but if he would have had some he might have been able to trim back those toenails and keeping that injury to a minimum there's nothing worse than the feeling of descending a mountain you're coming down something real steep and your toenails are just smacking into the foot box of your shoe it really hurts and it creates a lot of problems so keep a pair of nail clippers in your pack because you might need them the second thing that every hiker should have in their pack is some sort of a leuco tape or a moleskin now as most of you might know I'm a big advocate for leuco tape I absolutely love this stuff it lasts forever it does a really good job of staying on a hot spot and not going anywhere but if most skin is your thing definitely pick that up because it's going to be better than nothing so the whole point of having something like leuco tape or mole skin is it acts as a second skin so if you have one of those hot spots a cut or a blister you can take this stuff put it over the area so you're not creating more rubbish and more friction to make the injury worse last year in 2016 on the trail I used a lot of this stuff I actually broke one of my pinky toes and I use this stuff a lot to pretty much bandage my pinky toe to the toe next to it to kind of use it as a splint so I didn't necessarily use it for blisters which it's great for but I did use it for my feet on the trail so I definitely always make sure that I have this stuff in my pack and then last but not least is a sewing kit so not only is the sewing kit great for repairing gear out in the field but what I use it for is a needle and thread is great for popping a blister and there's a little thru-hiking trick if you take your needle and thread and you thread it through the blister cut off both sides of the thread and leave the thread in there it'll help the blister drain and won't allow it to seal back up so it'll let it heal a lot faster then you can take some leuco tape slap it over the top and you're good to go so again make sure that you have some needle and thread in your pack because you never know when you're going to need to kill one of those blisters alright so now we have some pre hiked things that we can do to make sure our feet are happy we have some items in our pack to make sure that we can take care of foot injuries if they do happen but what are just some great practices that you can do to keep your happy while you're hiking so my number one tip is let your feet breathe both in 2015 and 2016 and pretty much anytime snuggles and I are out on the trail we stopped during the day to take a break whether that's lunch or filtering water or just taking a breather we take our socks and our shoes off and we let our feet breathe we let them air out and we let them rest again people your feet are like your most valuable asset on the trail so take care of them take that little bit of time to let them breathe so they're not getting too soggy too sweaty and too cramped up in your shoe just letting them breathe and air out for like 30 minutes will make a massive difference on the rest of your day of hiking so not only is it good to let your feet breathe but also switch your socks and liners every single day now one trick that I've been doing for years is I always carry two pairs of socks on me so the pair that I'm wearing that socks and liners and a spare pair that's in my pet and every day I switch them back and forth why so my feet don't get used to the same rubbage the same creases the same stitching all the same things in the sock so I'm not creating overuse injuries my feet aren't getting familiar with that sock plus it helps keep foot funk to a minimum now another thing that you can do is the socks that you wore that day you can take them to a creek or some sort of a pond if you're by one and wash and wring them out and that brings me to my third trick and that is drying your socks out so if you've been hiking all day in the rain if you've been doing a river or creek crossings or if you simply just wash your socks out at the end of the day you can take both of your trekking poles stick them in the ground and then take your sock and fit them over that let them dry all night long that way you're not hiking in wet damp sucks one great way to cause some sort of a foot fungus or swamp foot or something like that is hiking in nasty wet socks so dry your socks out all right and then the last thing that you can do to keep your feet happy out on the trail is keeping the swelling down now when you're out on the trail and you're pounding them up against rocks climbing mountains descending every day they're swelling they're getting a lot of bad lactated blood in them and they're going to swell up and cause you problems so a couple of things that you can do to keep that swelling down or number one throughout the day or even at camp when you get there put your feet up find some sort of a tree a shelter wall take your socks and your shoes on and elevate your feet get your feet above your heart that way all that bad lactated blood is running back down to your core your core is burning out the lactaid and then whenever you stand back up you're getting fresh blood back in your feet and that will keep the swelling down and keep them super happy for that next day of hiking so even though most of the stuff should be common sense for most hikers before snuggle I hit the trail in 2015 snuggle is actually found in read a book called fix your feet a foot care guide for athlete's snuggles read that and it taught us a bunch of great tips again most of this stuff should be common sense but if you want to check that out I'll leave a link in the description box below and you can go check that book out snuggles really liked it and took a lot from it all right guys so hopefully some of these tricks and tips will help you keep your feet happy and help you finish your hike without having some sort of gnarly foot problem so what are some tips and tricks that you guys have for good foot care out on the trail leave them in the comments section below and let me know your thoughts if you haven't got to change it go over and check me out on Instagram I've been posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that snuggles and I have going on throughout the week plus some pictures from some past hikes if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

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