For every inch in height of the heel, the body throws itself forward by about 11 degrees

The High Heeled Way

High heel shoes are a pop­u­lar acces­sory to any woman’s wardrobe in and are com­monly worn dur­ing the work­day and usu­ally increase in height in the evening.

They look good wear­ing them but end up feel­ing ter­ri­ble afterwards!

Can the pain expe­ri­enced by women actu­ally be asso­ci­ated with their choice in footwear?

The shock absorb­ing foot is the only con­tact point that the body has with the ground and rep­re­sents its base of support.

Any ele­va­tion of the heels can alter the angle of this base of sup­port in pro­por­tion to the height of the heel.

Research from Dr. Eliz­a­beth Arendt’s paper Com­mon Mus­cu­loskele­tal Injuries In Women states that for every inch in height of the heel, the body throws itself for­ward by about 11 degrees.

This means a 2-inch heel causes the body to lean for­ward 22.5 degrees and a 4-inch heel makes the body fall for­ward by 45 degrees!

No won­der women have dif­fi­culty walk­ing in high heel shoes.

What is more impor­tant is that the body com­pen­sates from the ankle up to the skull in order for the eyes to always be level with the hori­zon. This is a prim­i­tive sur­vival mechanism.

These com­pen­sa­tions lead to many pos­tural dis­tor­tions and adap­ta­tions so you can see where you’re going.

There are three com­mon dys­func­tions from wear­ing heels.

The first is hyper­ex­ten­sion in the lower back caus­ing an increased arch in the spine and a pro­trud­ing head pos­ture. This nor­mally causes lower back pain and neck strain.

Sec­ond, is hyper­flex­ion in the knees with a flat back. This is when the knees are too bent and the lower back becomes very straight caus­ing shoul­der and upper back pain.

Third, is when the knees are hyper­ex­tended so they are nearly straight and the spinal curves are all exag­ger­ated. Hip and knee pain is com­mon here.

When joints have devi­ated from their neu­tral posi­tion the grav­i­ta­tional forces that are usu­ally sup­ported by the skele­ton become sup­ported by the mus­cles instead lead­ing to ten­sion headaches, low back pain, mus­cu­loskele­tal com­plaints and degen­er­a­tive joint diseases.

Most of the pain will be expe­ri­enced in the big toe, knee, hips or spine.

So what can women do about this?

Once a fit­ness pro­fes­sional has assessed your pos­ture you’ll be able to get to work straight away on cor­rect­ing any imbalances.

For exam­ple, hyper­ex­tended knees are com­monly caused by tight and over­worked thigh and hip flexor mus­cles with weak and length­ened butt and ham­string muscles.

Stretch­ing out the tight mus­cles and strength­en­ing the weaker ones will help bal­ance out this over­com­pen­sa­tion so when you do wear heels you’ll feel less pain and be more comfortable.

We all know fash­ion has its price but that shouldn’t come at the expense of your health.

By Colin Ayliffe from coconut fitness