If you experience daily chronic back pain, you may want to consider different shoes. Many people attribute their back pain to being on their feet too long or sleeping in a bad position and don’t consider the shoes they are wearing. On the soles of your feet are pressure points that can affect all parts of your body. Consider the problems that can occur from shoes that have a bad design or just don’t fit properly. Especially for people who work on their feet all day, the net effect from the wrong shoes can be severe back pain.
High Heels – Why Torture Yourself?
If you are a woman that wears high heels to work, you are setting yourself up for a back ache. Under normal circumstances, standing upright doesn’t cause a lot of stress on your body since it is a normal posture. There are a couple of muscles in your legs, the calf and shin muscles to be exact, which work together to maintain your posture. This is why you will sway slightly while standing for any length of time. This swaying is caused by the muscles working to keep your body aligned properly and is normal.
Wearing high heels causes your heels to be raised up and your toes to point forward which seriously limits the ability of your calf and shin muscles, or plantar muscles, from doing their job properly. In order for your body to compensate for this, other muscles, many in your back, must take up the slack. This extra work from your other muscles can tire them out and put them out of alignment. This is why serious back pain can be experienced after an extended time in heels. Not only do they cause discomfort in the short term, but permanent damage can be done over time.
Are Your Shoes Too Tight?
Tight shoes can also cause you to experience back pain for many of the same reasons that high heels do. Even if you are wearing orthopedic shoes that were designed well, if they are not a proper fit they can cause you pain. Never mind the pain in your feet, but your back muscles can become strained because you are not properly distributing your weight. Since you shoe is compressing your foot, the foot is not positioned in a natural position and the plantar muscles again are limited in what they can do. In order for the muscles in your body to work effectively together, they all must be doing their job properly. When you limit the work some muscles can do, you are effecting many other muscles in your body.
Just Need to Break Them In?
I am sure that many of us have been taught that shoes need to be broken in before they will really be comfortable. Nothing could be further from the truth. A properly designed and fitted pair of shoes should be comfortable from the moment you put them on. If there is any discomfort when you are trying on a shoe for the first time, they are probably not good shoes. If you intend on keeping them and “breaking them in” you are more likely to cause issues with your back and leg muscles. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really care for back pain. I would rather avoid it at all costs. Buy a pair of shoes that is designed to let your body work the way it is designed to, not fight against it.
Although there are certainly a lot of factors that can go into back pain, wearing the proper shoes can eliminate many of them.