The Parable of the Olympic Shoes

I enjoy strength training and powerlifting. I find it so enjoyable to set a goal and achieve it. What I like even more is being able to push myself beyond where I thought I could go.

A few years ago, I purchased some Olympic lifting shoes. These are specialized shoes that lift the heel up by some distance. The first set of shoes I bought had about a 0.25-inch heel. They felt good and I enjoyed using them.

Although these shoes were fun to wear, I noticed something negative occurring. The day after my squat workout, my knees really hurt. I didn’t like how my knees felt. I tried to make some adjustments but my knees still hurt. I also noticed my hips were getting sore throughout the week.

To me, this didn’t make sense. I could see there were world champion powerlifters using these shoes and finding a lot of success with them. What I decided to do was look into a different set of Olympic lifting shoes. I finally bought a shoe that had a 0.75-inch heel. Initially, the pain in my knee went away, my hips felt better, and I thought I had solved all my problems.

You probably know where I am going with this. After some time, all the pain came back. My knees felt worse, my hips felt horrible, and I was getting really discouraged. I didn’t know what to do. A friend of mine invited me to come to their clinic which specializes in human movement.

After some work, I learned it wasn’t my knees or hips that were causing the issue. It was actually my ankles that were the issue. The Olympic shoes I decided to wear were hiding my ankle mobility issues. So, while I was squatting, my ankles felt good because they didn’t have to move. Unfortunately, my knees and hips had to move more. During the week, my inflexible ankles made my knees and hips work more.

My movement therapist and I made a plan to get my ankles flexible. The first thing we decided was to ditch the heeled shoes. We had to get my ankles flexible. This was annoyingly painful. It took several months to get to this point, but I soon found myself squatting in flat shoes with great ankle flexibility.

My story with Olympic shoes does not stop there. I never took the shoes out of my bag. Why is this an issue? Every time I open my lifting bag, I see my Olympic lifting shoes and want to use them. I know could happen if I wear them, but I still want to use them. In fact, a few nights ago, I almost did. I put on the shoes, got under the bar, and immediately decided to put the bar back. Why? Because I know what the outcome would be.

This caused me to think - why haven’t I taken my shoes out of my bag? The answer is this: Even though I know what the potential outcome is, I still want to use them anyway! I know how they hurt my knees and hips, but that doesn’t matter because some big lifters I have seen use these shoes. It’s almost like I’m letting the world dictate the use of these shoes despite the pain that potentially could come.

Why do I bring all this up? There are many times we know there are people, places, and things that trigger appetites that lead to addiction relapses. Unfortunately, these people, places, and things have become comfortable or something we desire to keep in our lives. We hope that they don’t, but they eventually do because we don’t have enough distance between these triggers and ourselves.

This reminds me of the lesson the Savior, Jesus Christ, taught in the Sermon of the Mount: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24) If we know something can take us away from the Savior, we need to let it go so we can truly serve him!