Feed Your Shoe Fetish

The Importance of Cultivating a Fashionable and Functional Shoe Collection.

We spend a lot of time thinking, plotting and planning how we’re going to exercise our muscles, be it to look good in a bikini or perform better at our favourite sport, yet few of us ever give much thought as to how we can develop stronger, more resilient feet.

The truth is, more of us could benefit from considering more closely the types of shoes we wear, particularly during exercise, apart from how good they look, of course. This is especially true for those of us who spend hours each day in high heels.

In fact, if more women adopted a mindset that considered the features, dimensions and characteristics of their entire shoe collection, in addition to factors such as style and colour, it is safe to say that we’d experience far fewer of the injuries and other common biomechanical issues that afflict so many of us today.

HIGH-HEEL HELL

The major issue for most women is the amount of time we spend each day walking around in high heels or wedges. There is significant research available that shows the damage done to the spine, hips, knees, ankles and feet by these shoes, mainly through the way they alter our posture and gait while walking.

Spend too much time in them and you also start to reshape and realign muscle and fascia in your lower legs, which has a knock-on effect all the way up your posterior chain of muscles. The most common issues are a shortening of the Achilles tendons along with a thickening of this tough tissue, as well as a tightening of the calves and the misalignment of the plantar fascia in your feet.