Shopping for shoes these days can be a very confusing and time-consuming process. There are literally hundreds of different types of shoes to choose from varying in amount of support, heel height, width, flexibility, shape of the sole, type of material, and the list goes on. Then there are all the conflicting opinions surrounding the purchase of footwear. Some people insist that you need to wear orthotics and supportive shoes to help prevent overpronation (i.e., when the arch of the foot collapses) and resultant back pain, while others tout the benefits of minimalist and barefoot-type shoes to strengthen the body. All this differing information makes most of us feel like we are not equipped to make good shoe-buying decisions, and when we finally do bite the bullet, never quite feel confident we have made the right choice, especially if our shoes make our aches and pains worse!
Shoes and Back Pain
Fortunately, you don’t need to feel so powerless when it comes to buying the right shoes. Understanding your body, and the way it works, can help you narrow down your shoe choices and make decisions about footwear based on the individual characteristics of your own body. For example, if you spend all day seated, driving, at a computer and/or watching television, your hip sockets can get restricted into a bent hip position which eventually causes immobility of the hips. This immobility can lead to and back pain (especially if you wear the wrong shoes).
Learning how to assess your body parts, especially your feet, ankles and hips, to see if they are working correctly will help you understand which shoes are right for you. If you have good range of motion in all of these structures then you can encourage them to get stronger by wearing minimalist and/or barefoot shoes. However, if any of these structures lack mobility then wearing unsupportive shoes may actually cause you more harm than good. If you determine that you do lack foot, ankle, or hip mobility it might be a good idea to wear more supportive shoes and/or orthotics in the short term, while you do corrective exercises to help loosen up those areas, so you can eventually progress to less supportive shoe types. To help you evaluate the current mobility of your feet, ankles and hips before shopping for your next pair of shoes watch the video that accompanies this blog to learn “How To Choose The Right Shoes“.
Remember, choosing the right shoes is not just about feet. Your feet are only one part of a kinetic chain that runs throughout your entire body.  Evaluating how all of the parts are working (or not working as the case may be) before choosing your shoes is the key to selecting the best pair for your needs.
Fitness, exercise and health professionals interesting in learning a step-by-step process for helping clients overcome muscle and joint pain can choose to enroll in the industry’s highest-rated Corrective Exercise Specialist certification course from The BioMechanics Method. To learn more about this amazing program click on the image below.
