Footwear is one of the most important things that I could advise patients on and just give you guys advice. Today's topic is really gonna discuss footwear because with proper footwear, you're gonna reduce the majority of foot problems and it's really quite simple: if your feet feel comfortable in your shoes, and they're not causing any discomfort, then that's a pretty good sign that shoes are working for you. (music) What's up, my toes? It is day two in May so this is a second video for Foot Health Month. I am in Downtown Toronto right now. I have a meeting coming up with a pretty big name in in the physiotherapy business. So I'm pretty excited for that. I just thought I'd get down a little bit early, beat traffic, and just do a little walk around while we talk about today's theme "Footwear Advice". The one thing that I really want to talk about when it comes to footwear is making sure you're wearing the right shoe for your foot. What's up guys? So unfortunately I didn't get to film more downtown because it's really loud, really busy and had my meeting.
Announcer: Alright, Toe Bro, quick question: Do you have a foot fetish? TB: Maybe for your feet! I don't know! I just wanted to give a shout out to Vinnie Pham from myodetox. Awesome guy! What he's doing is groundbreaking stuff. He's created something really special with myodetox. He is bringing different healthcare professions and skills into one sort of treatment. He's making every treatment plan very unique for each patient. He really focuses on the assessment of the person determining what's missing, what's limited, what's excessive, and creating some sort of movement based exercise muscle strengthening plan that really is helping bringing function back to people's lives. And so for someone like me who works with feet, and has never had this kind of knowledge or training, it's is amazing for me! It's exciting and I'm really happy to say that I'm gonna be collaborating with with Vinny on creating some cool videos. He's gonna be helping me out, improving my knowledge on how feet work and move and how I can help my patients get back to moving pain-free.
So that's the goal. So here I am, you won't believe it, in Walmart. Today's talk is about footwear and I was having a tough time speaking about footwear choices and what's good footwear and what better place to be in than Walmart where there's tons of shoes? The biggest thing about footwear I find is that it feels comfortable and it fits properly. If you're feeling good in your shoe, if it's not causing discomfort, that's a great sign to me. So number one thing I would look at when choosing a shoe is the width. Does the width of the shoe fit the width of your foot? Unfortunately for women, women's shoes are so narrow and most women's feet don't fit the ideal women's width of a shoe.
So a lot of women are forced into scrunching their feet into footwear that doesn't fit them properly. It's compressing the toes. It's causing bunions to form. It's causing the toes to be crunched up. It's caused a hard skin to grow on the tops of the toes, inside of the toes. It's causing bunions to become sore and painful. That's all because of the width of the shoe. So number one thing we're going to talk about today: width. If we look at this nice, stylish flip-flop, we can see how nice wide and round it is and this is a woman's flip-flop. This is the ideal width and shape of someone's foot being nice and splayed and wide. That allows the foot to grip the ground and not be compressed. If you look at all the kids shoes, nice and round, nice and round.
Even the the girl's shoes nice and round, even the running shoes, relatively round. This is what we want. As we get older, fashion is a huge portion of the footwear we choose. We just don't have that width and like I said, width is a killer. Imagine having your hand, wrapping it up like someone's gripping and squeezing it just like this. It doesn't look very comfortable and that's what feet feel like when you're in a narrow footwear. As we get older and age and we see the footwear changes, we can see a few things that are very prominent. We can see that footwear starts to become narrower; ballet flats are very narrow, very shallow and this narrowness, this lack of width is what causes a lot of problems. Again, when we see how narrow the footwear is, that is not the natural shape of a foot, and this is what's killing women's feet. Anytime that we have the narrowness here, that's what's squishing all the toes together causing the foot to work in not a very ideal shape.
Most women tell me, "But Jon, the shoe here is so wide!" Yes, great. This shoe is wide over here, but over here, it isn't and so what happens, the baby toe gets pushed in like this to make room. So even though the width down here is good, up here it isn't and that's what's going to cause the toes that come in. When you don't wear wide shoes, the most common problems or complaints I see is for women corns on the baby toes, bunions forming or being painful, the big toe being squished, the big joint being very red and sore, the ball of the foot hurting, burning, and that's because nerves and the soft tissue inside the forefoot get all squished together.
These same issues can happen to guys who wear dress shoes. So making sure that your dress shoe is very wide but also rounded. As we can see again, with kids shoes being nice and round, it allows the foot to stretch, expand, grip the ground properly instead of being scrunched up. So the number one tip-width of the shoe. The second thing that I find is really important to footwear is the thickness of the sole. As long as you have good width that's gonna feel make the foot feel comfortable but the padding or the sole of the shoe is also very important. A soleless shoe almost acts as suspension, it acts as a shock absorption. Our feet take a beating, stepping and pounding all day, so the more shock absorption the shoe can absorb, the less stress that goes up the body. So we have to look at the heel of the shoes. So here you have a nice, flat shoe but very firm rubber. This firm rubber will not absorb shock very well, so that's gonna allow just more stress to go into the body.
If we look at a running shoe here, we can see it's very soft, very spongy. This is going to allow the shoe to absorb more shock and less stress, especially on the heel when we're standing or walking. As we go to dress shoes, we go to ballet flats, we go to sandals, we can see that for women's shoes especially, they become very thin; there's not a lot of padding or cushioning here. Same with here; there is not really much shock absorption. There's nothing wrong with that but that just means that when you are doing a lot of walking standing or pounding the pavement, there's more stress, that's gonna go into the heel.
Overtime, repetitive stress on the heel can cause things like stress fractures, can cause bruising to the soft tissue, can just cause more stress on the foot. That's why, again. I always really liked my Adidas Cloud Foam. Anything that has a really soft sole. It really helps absorb a lot of shock when I'm standing all day or running, playing sports, or doing long walks, it makes my foot feel a lot more comfortable. So again, every shoe has its own function. If you're gonna be standing a lot, if you can be doing a lot of walking, having a shoe that has a nice soft shock absorbing sole will just help you a lot. So number one: we have width. Number two: shock absorption, by having a nice soft or thicker sole. The third tip I'm going to talk about is the flexibility of the shoe. The type of shoe you're having really is gonna help dictate how much support you have.
The more flexible the shoe is, the more the shoes have, been that means more your foot can bend. So I'm just going to pick a shoe off the shelf and see what kind of flexibility or movement it has. So you got this more of a street style shoe. We're looking at how much flexibility this sole has. So you see how I can wring the shoe out like that like a towel? That means the foot can move back and forth a lot. If the shoe can bend in the middle, that means your foot can bend. The more flexibility we have in the shoe, the more your foot can move. If we go for something more, here, here's more of a skater, running shoe, it's such firmer. You see it's very hard to twist, very hard to bend; that means the foot is going to move less as well.
Some people can handle flexibility because their foot is strong enough to handle the movement. Some people cannot and that's why they need a stiffer, stable shoe; what you need depends on what your foot requires. That's why something like flip-flops, very flexible, doesn't have much support, so it's gonna cause more stress to go into the foot. More motion of the shoe, more flexibility of the footwear, the more your foot can move. So that just puts, again, more need on your foot to have more strength to control the motion. Okay, so number: the width of the shoe.
The wider the shoes, the more room for the foot. Very, very important. It allows the foot to expand, to grip the ground, to not be constricted, and allow for movement. Number two: we have the sole. So again, the softer, more shock absorbing the sole is, the less stress that goes into the body, and number three: we have the flexibility of the shoe. The more the shoe can move, the more your foot can move within shoe and that again all depends on if the foot can handle or not.
With those three factors, that's really going to decide what shoe is really good for certain activities. We can critique any shoe using those three standards and see how it's gonna be for you. Number one: we've got these dress shoes here. Let's talk about the width of the shoe. If you have a very relatively slim foot, if you have a relatively slim foot and your foot is not very wide, as long as to the edges of your the sides of your foot aren't touching the edge of the shoes, you're okay.
If you have a very wide width that expands, this might not be the best thing for you. Again, it's a little bit narrow here so the more narrow it is, the more the toes can be squished together. As long as you get the right width and style of the shoe that's not causing the toes to scrunch together, you're not gonna get too much discomfort.
Second thing: here the sole is a little bit thicker but very hard, not much soft shock absorption. So this wouldn't be the best shoes to be running around in; very firm sole. The next thing is how much flexibility. Again, very rigid, very stiff, doesn't bend so much. So let's say for example, you needed a shoe to be doing a lot of twisting, turning, jumping, moving in, this might not be the best thing because again, it's very stiff.
Your needs will depend on the shoe that you need. So to tell you the truth, to say, you know, wearing a comfortable, wide, spongy shoe, that's has some flexibility all the time, or gives you that right control is very hard; it's very hard to wear the ideal shoot all the time. I don't expect a lot of my patients or you guys to be wearing running shoes or comfy shoe all the time; it's just doesn't work.
It's not realistic. So what I try to get my patients to do, I would love for you guys to do, is try to wear the proper footwear 70 to 80 percent of the week. You're gonna eliminate the majority of your foot pains. It's really true. We're gonna eliminate, you know, the tightness, the scrunching of the foot, the lack of shock absorption, from not having a nice comfy sole, or from wearing a shoe that doesn't give you enough support, and 70-80 % of the week, if you guys can wear decent shoes, it's gonna make a big difference. So, office people, we're gonna have to get, you know, not the most fashionable shoe. It's gonna be a little bit wider, a little bit more rounded, but it's gonna save your feet, especially for you women. If you guys wear to work a more casual or less fashionable office shoe 70% in the week just for every day in and out, it's gonna save your feet. When it's time for a meeting, when it's time for a special encounter or presentation or special event, put on the high heels, put on the nice shoes.
Look good! Show off those feet but only for that time. Once you're done, you go back in to your normal, casual, comfy, office footwear. If you're commuting and you're required to do a lot of walking, don't wear your dress shoes; wear a running shoe versus a shoe that gives you a nice shock absorption it has enough flexibility to make a foot feel comfortable for your walk. Footwear comes down to choice.
You have the choice of what you want to wear. One thing that is a big issue that comes down to- it's fashion; fashion over function. If you want comfort, if you want your feet to feel good, you're gonna have to give up some of the fashion. It's just something that you're gonna have to give up and you have to you have to decide what's really worth it for you. You're gonna have to decide do you want your feet to feel good and feel comfy and be able to stand and walk or do you want your feet to be looking good and have the whole appearance and have the whole head to toe, looking really nice.
So it's really down to you. 70 to 80 percent of the week, wear a good shoe that's decent looking but has those features, and your feet are gonna be saved. The last piece of advice I'm gonna give you guys is footwear for home. Most people have hardwood, tiles, ceramic floors. People do lot of standing or cooking and they're really on hard surfaces. If you guys would be able to get a house slipper, it would make a big difference.
I always suggest Crocks, something soft or foamy. So something like this that is really comfy and soft that's more gel or foam material would be a lifesaver. The more cushioning you have on the feet when standing on hard surfaces, the less strain that goes into the foot. Many people are coming into the office with general foot pain, heel pain, just because of the pressure and the constant pounding of the ground that their feet absorb. So right away, by having more cushioning at home, you're gonna reduce some of that strain. So just to recap, we got the width of the shoes, we got the thickness and the type of material of the sole, and then we have the amount of flexibility in the shoe.
Those three factors will really help give you a good idea how your foot will feel in footwear. If you guys can do 70 to 80 percent of the week in better footwear, I'm telling you 70 80 percent of your foot problems will go away. Get the house slippers, make your feet feel comfy, give that sole the padding and you're gonna save your feet..