By Heidi Neyra, Owner – Certified Personal Trainer and CCHT
Not many women realize the long-term effects of wearing elevated footwear. But elevating your foot out of alignment causes effects that can create muscle imbalances that typically result in pain or injury.
Your Gait Matters
It’s is first important to understand that there is proper way to walk – strike first with the heel, and then toe off with the big toe. When that alignment is incorrect don’t create the fluid movement pattern that keeps our body happy. Want to know what is the main cause of misalignment in walking properly? High heels and poorly fit shoes.
How High Heels and Poorly Fit Shoes Affect Your Health
Some long term issues of these types of footwear are tight Achilles tendons. When your heel is elevated for long periods this tendon will get tight if you are not actively stretching it. When you take your shoes off after a long day at work or slip on a flat shoe, you will start having inflammation in that tendon due to it being so tight and stressed. It can likely tear if you do too much too soon, or if you repeatedly wear high heeled shoes.
When your muscle gets used to moving a certain way or being in a certain condition, it stretches and strengthens in that position, and now you’re asking it to do something else that it isn’t ready for! Just remember you can’t always live in heels, eventually you need to come down and support your body for long walks and other activities you might want to do. This is where most people injure themselves!
Your Feet Will Hurt!
The other main issue would be ball of foot pain! When you wear heels you put so much pressure on the ball of the foot. Once again you are asking your foot to function in way that isn’t supposed. You have 26 bones in that foot of yours, and all the pressure in one point can lead to bad callusing / inflammation in the ball of the foot, Morton’s neuroma, torn tendons, and maybe even a foot fracture.
We must remember there are always consequences to elevating our feet for extended periods of time. We recommend 80% of you footwear time is done in flat shoes that support curvature of your arch. This will encourage a proper movement pattern and happy healthy feet!
Multiple foot conditions can be treated and addressed at foot solutions with footwear and custom inserts.
What can Foot Solutions do for you?
At Foot Solutions, we do just what our name says; we provide solutions. Whether you have bunions, hammertoes, fallen arches or just plain tired, aching feet (or knees, hips or back,) our staff of skilled fitting professionals will be able to help. During your initial consultation we’ll use computerized scanning technology as well as perform a gait analysis, and foot evaluation to determine exactly what is going on with your feet. With a broad range of footwear and the most innovative Perfetto™ arch supports and custom inserts on the market today, we’ll come up with a solution for minimizing or alleviating your foot and foot-related pain and discomfort.
Visit Foot Solutions of Estero for a free assessment!
239-495-8911 | Footsolutions.com/estero