Why Excessive Carrying Angle of elbow, Flat Foot, and Knock Knees Not Allowed in Armed Forces?

When your arms are held out at the sides and your palms are facing forward, your forearm and hands should normally be about 5 to 15 degrees away from the body. This is the normal “carrying angle” of the elbow. This angle allows your forearms to clear the hips when swinging your arms, such as during walking. It is also important when carrying objects .

In the forces, firing and load-carrying is an important part of the training and daily life. With excessive carrying angle, aiming while firing and carrying a load can hinder the efficiency of a soldier and can become a matter of life and death during the action. Hence, candidates with excessive carrying angles of the elbow are rejected in the first place itself.

Please Read our post about the Knee Knocking in Detail. What is Knock Knees? How to check it?

Running is an integral part of life in the defense forces. When a person runs with knock knees, there are more chances of him to hit the knees together and fall down than to actually complete the run. Hence, this is an undesirable trait in a soldier.

Flat feet is a postural deformity in which the arches of the foot collapse, with the entire sole of the foot coming into complete or near-complete contact with the ground

The foot has a basic function of shock absorption. When your foot lands on the ground, the arch ensures that the load is first spread to the sole and the heel and then the arch descends to absorb the shock. If there is no arch, the shock is absorbed by the back, which is a problem as it results in back pain during old age. It will lead to chronic heel and arch pain.

Flat feet are a general medical condition due to which you are referred to a nearby military hospital. Many candidates are declared UNFIT due to Flat Feet. However, you can solve this problem by taking time and patience You can try the 3 methods in the following.
1. Use Flat Feet Sole: You can buy this from any Branded shoe company store. You can then use that sole for 3 to 4 weeks to see changes in your flat feet.
2. Elastic Bandage: You can buy this from any medical or general store. It will help in forming the shape of your flat feet.
3.Inclined Rod: Rub your feet against circled wood or Rod. This will also help to change the feet’ shape.
4. Be patient and consistent in doing the above practices. It takes time to change your Flat Feet issue.