FROM HIGH HEELS TO FLATS

Don't sacrifice your body for fashion

It is no secret that excessive use of high heels will lead to not only foot and lower leg conditions but it will have a negative impact throughout the whole body. Walking in high heels shifts the natural posture of your spine and creates an increased lumbar lordosis (natural curve in the lower back). It also shifts excess weight into the knees and does not allow your calf muscles to elongate fully back to their natural length, therefore creating a shortened position of the calf muscles over time. Not to mention the changes in the feet from being scrunched and jammed into tiny shoes that are usually quite narrow towards the forefoot.

Some of the common conditions that develop as a result of wearing high heels too often.

Even Victoria Beckham has hung up her high heels in exchange for more natural footwear.

More and more celebrities and ladies alike are moving towards flat shoes to save their overall health. Read more about it here. Just disregard the part in the article where Doctors suggest a one or two inch heel. This is rubbish and makes no sense!

I personally cannot remember the last time I found it necessary to put a pair of heels on.

Barefoot is how I spend most of my time these days. I am lucky enough to work in my own studio space where myself and all my clients remove their shoes as they walk in. The best footwear you can have is none at all.

If you are looking to wean yourself off the heels and try to return yourself to a more natural state of being then here are a few suggestions to get the ball rolling:

1. Spend more time barefoot

2. Invest in some comfortable flat footwear that will compliment your usual attire

3. Spend time every day rolling out your feet...instructions can be found here 

4. Find confidence in who you are without feeling you need heels to achieve this

5. Date a shorter guy ;-p

If you need help with your posture or suffer from foot or leg pain, whether or not you are a high heel victim, then we can assess you and design a specific programme that you can carry out at home to move you out of pain.

Ditch the heels today!

DON'T PAY TWICE FOR FASHION!

Don't let fashion be your downfall.  I see way too many women out there teetering around in high heels with zero ankle stability, things like this are bound to happen...especially when you add alcohol to the mix.

Whenever I'm around town I always see so many people in restricting outfits, it's no wander most people have movement problems.

You have the ladies who wear heels far too regularly (and far too much of a heel), causing shortening of their calves, altering their posture resulting in added pressure to their knees; lower backs and necks, ultimately changing the way they move.

You have the ladies who wear long, tight, inflexible pencil skirts which decrease your stride, increase tension in your adductors and hip flexors and weaken your glutes.  Add high heels to the pencil skirt and then you'll really find yourself in a pickle.  Try walking up stairs in high heels and a pencil skirt and tell me you don't get knee pain.  It's almost impressive these girls can walk around all day in these outfits.

Then you have both genders who can don the tightest of office clothing - shirts that restrict their movement through their shoulders and back; tight trousers that encourage dysfunctional chest breathing and cause an inability to move well through the hips.  

There are solutions out there for all you corporates and fashion gurus, try and choose clothing that has a bit of give in it and is flexible.  If you can find some nice smart pants you can squat in then you're onto a winner, test them out in the changing rooms.   Make sure your shirts or jackets aren't disabling your shoulders and please girls try and wean yourself off heels.  At best, if you can't bring yourself to say no to the heel then spend as much of your time at home barefoot to try and counteract the negative effects of wearing the heels.