How To Choose The Correct Shoes For Your Lifestyle

How Do I Choose The Right Shoes For Me? A prop­er shoe can help keep your feet healthy; not only do wrong-cho­sen shoes affect the health of your feet, but they can also con­tribute to the health of your hips, legs, knees, and back. Although there are a few spe­cial­ized shoe styles, the major­i­ty of run­ning shoes fall into one of two cat­e­gories: neu­tral shoes or sup­port shoes. Under­stand­ing how your body responds to run­ning is key to dis­cov­er­ing what works for you. You should look for any abnor­mal­i­ties or weak­ness­es in your ankles, knees, and hips because these joints will absorb the major­i­ty of the impact forces as your feet strike the ground. The Orthot­ic Shop advis­es that you can deter­mine your demands with one straight­for­ward test that only requires a mir­ror and some honesty: Stand bare­foot in front of a mir­ror where you can see your entire body. If it’s pos­si­ble, stand on one foot and squat down slight­ly. Sim­ply, you can car­ry out the test by stand­ing on both feet if you can­not stand and/or squat on one foot. Take note of any move­ment in the area of your knees, ankles, and feet when you squat, as well as your gen­er­al bal­ance. Your foot’s arch should remain the same, or should it col­lapse? What direc­tion does your ankle roll—inward, out­ward, or neu­tral? How is your knee? Are you bal­anced, and is it easy for you to stand on one foot? Make any nec­es­sary notes, then car­ry out the same pro­ce­dure with the oth­er foot. You prob­a­bly run best in a neu­tral shoe if your arch does­n’t col­lapse, your ankles stay in a neu­tral posi­tion, and you feel steady stand­ing on one foot. The Orthot­ic Shop sug­gests you prob­a­bly run best in sup­port shoes if your arch col­laps­es or you have trou­ble bal­anc­ing on one foot. Under­stand that there is so much to the shoes you wear dai­ly, just as opposed to a sense of style. The shoes you wear are direct­ly aligned with your over­all health, so take time to choose the cor­rect ones for your lifestyle and situation.

Neutral Shoes

Neu­tral shoes pro­vide respon­sive­ness, cush­ion­ing, or both. Whether you pre­fer a quick morn­ing run or are get­ting pumped up for race day, they are fre­quent­ly divid­ed into a few cat­e­gories and work well with par­tic­u­lar sorts of run­ners:

- Cushion

Cush­ion­ing enables the shoe to soft­en its impact for run­ners seek­ing a gen­tler and more pro­tect­ed experience.

- Minimal

Also known as low pro­file, this style best suits run­ners seek­ing a light, flex­i­ble shoe and a “near to the ground” feeling. Run­ning shoes that are respon­sive pro­vide a boun­cy bounce and ener­gy return from the shoe.

- Speed

This style is for the run­ner want­i­ng to set a per­son­al record (PR) at their upcom­ing race. It is quick, light­weight, and sleek.

Support Footwear

Sup­port shoes should pre­vent harm­ful rolling, twist­ing, or oth­er strain while yet allow­ing your joints to move as they nat­u­ral­ly would and are avail­able to pur­chase at Orthot­ic Shop. But how much assis­tance do you require? Return­ing to the out­comes of your test: How hard was it to bal­ance your­self on one foot? How far inward or out­ward did your knees and ankles roll? Your lev­el of sup­port will also depend on your med­ical his­to­ry con­cern­ing foot, hip or ankle pain or injuries. Sup­port shoes typ­i­cal­ly fall into one of two categories:

- Regular Support

These shoes typ­i­cal­ly pro­vide some sup­port beneath the arch and into the heel to pro­vide some assis­tance when your foot and ankle start to roll.

- Max Support

To pro­vide strong guid­ance to some­one with sig­nif­i­cant arch col­lapse, knee mis­align­ment, or even a his­to­ry of pain, these shoes fre­quent­ly con­tain a medi­al post or wedge (a denser, stiffer part in the mid­sole).

Wrapping Up

The right shoes make your phys­i­cal activ­i­ty man­age­able and help to keep you safe from injury. You will feel more com­fort­able being active if you choose the right shoe that fits you well, suits your activ­i­ty type, is appro­pri­ate for any prob­lems with your feet, and helps pro­tect your feet, legs, knees and joints. Dur­ing your search, you’ll prob­a­bly encounter some of this ter­mi­nol­o­gy relat­ed to shoe anato­my; if it con­fus­es you, just take a step back. To avoid ana­lyt­i­cal paral­y­sis when learn­ing how to choose run­ning shoes, you may need to speak with a podi­a­trist about appro­pri­ate footwear for every activ­i­ty you do, or you can rely on the per­son­nel at your neigh­bor­hood run­ning store or an inter­ac­tive shoe finder.