A Yellow Pages Orthotic?

There was an article a month or two ago about the future of the printed Yellow Pages. It's a well-established fact that fewer people consult the Yellow Pages for information and are increasingly turning to the internet. Truthfully, my books at home go directly into recycling.

I came across an interesting blog entry about Matthew Upson, a British soccer player, about a novel use for the Yellow Pages:

...Upson simply had to get fit, find a way of curing a mysterious calf injury that wrecked the beginning of his Upton Park career.

Running out of options, he finally phoned up a specialist in South Africa he'd heard about on the grapevine, a kinesiologist who, as it turns out, deploys an unusual method to construct the orthotic inserts that realign the body when placed inside someone's shoe. "He uses the Yellow Pages to build them up and then wraps them in masking tape," Upson explains, removing a wedge from his training shoe to let me have a look. "Taking out just one page would knock you off balance. That's how delicate it is. He'll gradually reduce the number of sheets as my body realigns itself. Now I fly him over whenever I need to see him. Before, I was constantly overusing my calf because my body was so far out of line. One side of my jaw was cracking, my neck was hurting, one groin was constantly tight. It all adds up to a pretty cloudy picture of how I was moving. I think it started after my cruciate operation at Arsenal. When you start running again, you're bound to protect that side a bit. It's only natural."

I'd have to wonder how durable such an orthotic device would be!!!

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