Walk Tall but with Care

The fetish for high heels can injure your feet but you can blend style with good sense

Recently a newspaper carried an article about the ever increasing height of heels, a trend especially popular in the West. Needless to say, that it is becoming increasingly common in India as well, with the short, not very tall and even tall women opting for three and four inch heeled shoes. No doubt they look very elegant, but there is a huge price to pay in the long run. Anatomically speaking, a high heeled shoe causes your foot to go into plantar flexion (sole of the foot facing backwards), placing tremendous pressure on your forefoot.

This causes a shift in the centre of mass; your body adjusts its balance by making the lower part of your body lean forward and the upper part of your body lean backward. This puts increased pressure on the joints in the body, especially the S-curve of vertebral column, and leads to lower back pain, muscle imbalances etc.

While walking also, it becomes difficult to push off from the ball of your feet at every step and this puts more stress on the hip flexor muscles as well as the knee joint, which remains bent most of the time.

Some of the negative effects of heeled shoes are -

•     Misalignment in the body, especially of the lower limbs.
•     Ankle sprains.
•     Shortened and tight calf muscles.
•     Shortened Achilles tendon, which might lead to Tendonitis.
•     Lower back pain.
•     Tight gluteus muscles.
•     Osteoarthritis

A few tips on living well with heeled shoes -

•     Restrict the use of heels to very special occasions.
•     It has been found that a 1 ½ to 2 inch heel is quite bearable, for short durations.
•     Once home, warm-up a little and stretch out your calf, gluteus, hip flexor and lower back muscles.
•     Hit the gym regularly to strengthen your lower limb muscles to withstand the stress.
•     Try to go in for heels with comfortable straps behind, to ensure better foot alignment during multi-lateral movements.
•     Massage the bottom of your foot by rolling a small ball under the ball of your foot for about two minutes. And then yes, go ahead and walk tall.

Sindhu Ramachandran is a lifestyle coach