Source: Rutland Herald

Recently, a neighbor asked me if I carry identification with me when I run. Because I have a regular running partner, I don’t carry identification, but I do carry a cell phone.

But the question got me thinking about safety and reminded me that this is something to always consider. This is of even greater importance now with the time change as people exercising outside before or after work face increasing darkness.

Walking or running outside is one of the best ways to get a lift during the day and maintain health throughout the cold months. However, getting outside in the winter poses some unique challenges for maintaining an exercise program. Before you lace up your sneakers, let’s discuss some important tips that can help ensure your safety.

Buddy Up: One of the best ways to increase safety is to find an exercise buddy. This is particularly important if you walk during the early morning or evening hours, when it is dark or if you exercise in rural areas.

Reflective Gear: Wearing reflective gear is essential for safety in the winter months. If you are out during hours of darkness, then you should wear reflective gear that increases your visibility to drivers. Most shoes have reflective materials built into the upper, but these are inadequate by themselves. Reflective vests, cuffs and hats are readily found at most sports or outdoor gear shops. Carrying a flashlight or using a headlamp can also increase visibility to on-coming vehicles.

Driver awareness: When using the roadways, do not assume that drivers see you or will give you the right of way. If there are no sidewalks, you should walk against traffic so that you can be aware of potential danger coming towards you. This is not true, however, for bicyclists who should always travel in the same direction as cars. (Also, by law, cyclists at night must have both a white front lamp and a rear red lamp on their bikes).

Be prepared: During the winter months, it is particularly important to be prepared for the elements. Be sure to dress appropriately for cooler weather. Obviously, if you are venturing into the back country in the winter, this is a matter of survival. But for closer-to-home activities, dressing right can be the difference between enjoyable exercise or a miserable outdoor experience. In order to exercise in icy conditions, consider purchasing ice and snow traction cleats. These anti-slip soles fit on the bottom of most shoes and can help prevent falls.

Communicate: Be sure to tell someone where you are going and what time you expect to return. Carrying a cell phone is always a good idea, but it is not a good idea to rely solely on a cell phone as you may not have coverage in the area.

Be aware of your environment: Finally, before heading out, be sure to evaluate the safety of your route and prepare accordingly. Do not wear headphones as they prevent you from hearing oncoming traffic or someone coming up behind you. Being aware of your surroundings is absolutely essential to your safety.

(Jenny Nixon Carter is the executive director of the Rutland Physical Activity Coalition For more information on the coalition visit www.rapac.info)

photo credit: elward-photography

“Of all the things for which women have an inexplicable affection–Matthew McConaughey springs to mind–high-heeled shoes are among the most puzzling. Scientists have linked wearing them to serious health conditions, such as osteoarthritis and sciatica, as well as milder ones with hideous names like hammertoe and–my favorite–Haglund’s deformity (a lump on the Achilles tendon, also known as pump bump). A Swedish study even associates heels with schizophrenia. Yet this season, women are heading off to work in footgear more vertiginous than ever, topping out at about 6 in. (15 cm). Just last month tree-high shoes felled several models on the Milan runways, and no wonder. Walking in heels that height is the rough equivalent of trying to stroll down Space Mountain.”

“Crunch introduced its Stiletto Strength classes to New York City in 2006 and now offers them in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. “It’s one of our most popular classes,” says Donna Cyrus, Crunch’s senior VP of programming. Legworks, which offers the workshop I went to in Manhattan, has a growing fan base. The Los Angeles high-end shoe store Il Primo Passo holds high-heel-walking classes, taught by a drag queen, of course, on a monthly basis.”

Sourcel Time

By Deanna Allen
Staff Writer

Are you considering walking for a cause or for an event and have never done that type of thing before?

Althea Lawton-Thompson, fitness professional and star of the “Altheatized” exercise video series who owns Aerobics, Yoga & More in Lilburn, has some advice on getting started.

“For someone who is currently sedentary or not that active, I would suggest walking at a local park, around a school track or around a neighborhood,” Lawton-Thompson said. She suggested a route that’s not too hilly and taking 15 minute walks two times a week to start.

“I wouldn’t try anything too rigorous to start out,” she said. “To get ready for a 5K, which is 3.1 miles, I would suggest slowly increasing the time by five to 10 minutes every week to two weeks.”

Lawton-Thompson said walkers need three to six months to prepare for their first distance walk.

When the day of the walk finally comes, Lawton-Thompson stressed staying hydrated before, during and after, wearing comfortable walking shoes that are broken in and stretching after a five to 10 minute warmup before beginning the walk. She also emphasized the difference between walking and running shoes - walkers need the former.

“Running shoes are higher in the heel, because they’re made for a very heavy heel strike,” Lawton-Thompson said. “Walking shoes have equally balanced soles from the ball of the foot to the heel.”

For more information on Lawton-Thompson, visit aymfitness.com or call 678-749-7777.

Source: Gwinnet Daily Post

The feet take quite a pounding during walking. According to the American Podiatric Medical Association, an average day of walking puts a combined force of several hundred tons on the feet.

Children have different foot shapes and shoe needs. The American Podiatric Medical Association has some tips to help parents choose the best shoe for a child:

1. Check the shoe size while the child is standing (the foot tends to spread slightly while standing as opposed to sitting)…continue

Source: wsoctv

Abstract

Background: High peak plantar pressures predispose to foot problems and may exacerbate existing conditions. For podiatric physicians to make educated recommendations to their patients, it is important and necessary to begin to look at different shoes and how they affect peak plantar pressure.

Methods: To determine how flip-flops change peak plantar pressure while walking, we compared peak plantar pressures in the same test subjects wearing flip-flops, wearing athletic shoes, and in bare feet. Ten women with size 7 feet and a body mass index less than 25 kg/m2 were tested with an in-shoe pressure-measurement system. These data were collected and analyzed by one-way analysis of variance and computer software.

Results: Statistically significant results were obtained for nine of the 18 comparisons. In each of these comparisons, flip-flops always demonstrated higher peak plantar pressures than athletic shoes but lower pressures than bare feet.

Conclusion: Although these data demonstrate that flip-flops have a minor protective role as a shock absorber during the gait cycle compared with pressures measured while barefoot, compared with athletic shoes, they increase peak plantar pressures, placing the foot at greater risk for pathologic abnormalities. (J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 98(5): 374–378, 2008)

Source: Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association

When do you need to replace your shoes? Do you wait till they are falling apart? That may be too late — they probably lost their cushioning and support months earlier. Why and when to replace your shoes.

What Shoe Wear Patterns Tell You

The bottom of your shoe can tell you a lot about what kind of shoes you should be wearing. The wear pattern on the sole and heel can clue you into whether you need motion control shoes or not.

Stop Sitting Still

I spend a lot of time writing at my computer. I always thought that walking would make up for it. But now a researcher says that sitting still shuts down your fat metabolism even when you later exercise. How can you break up your sitting time? What about an exercise ball chair or a treadmill desk?

Source: About Walking: Are You Wearing Dead Shoes?

Walking is great exercise, but how do you find the right pair of walking shoes? Good Housekeeping did the footwork for you.

“What you need to know before you go out and buy a pair of walking shoes is what type of foot you have,” said Kathleen Huddy, textiles director, Good Housekeeping Institute. “Take a brown piece of paper, wet your bare foot, step on it as if you were walking and look at what the imprint is. If you see a lot of your foot in the wet imprint that means you have a low arch, and you’ll need something like the Asics Gel Walker for $100.”

In contrast, if you see just a little of your foot on the imprint, that means you have a high arch, and Huddy said what you need is a shoe with a lot of arch support. Good Housekeeping recommended the Brooks Defyance for $90.

But Dr. James Korponay, a podiatrist, said you don’t necessarily have to break the bank to get a quality shoe. “If price were the deciding factor, I would go with the least expensive,” he said. For quality at an affordable price, Good Housekeeping recommended the Saucony Grid Instep RT, which costs just $60.

A final note: Good Housekeeping said a good walking shoe should be as wide as your foot or slightly wider, to ensure an even distribution of weight. To learn more, check out the October issue of Good Housekeeping or visit www.goodhousekeeping.com.

Source: wcact.com

By : Gary Tooth

Quite often our feet get quite ignored until they start to give us a bit of pain or discomfort, but a lot of foot problems could be well avoided with the correct walking shoes. In fact it doesn’t matter whether you’re standing, walking or running, as ‘all’ of your body weight falls directly onto the bottom of your feet. Therefore, support is vital, especially if you are someone who’s always on the go.

Despite all the research and analysis done on foot care over the years, many of us still place style and design over quality, fitting, and comfort and this is especially the case amongst woman. When you think about it, it’s quite often the women folk who come how after a long day and drop their knackered feet into a bowl of warm water for a good relaxing soak. But if they thought a little more carefully about the type of shoes they walked in before purchase, they wouldn’t have such aches and pains in the first place.

Footwear has indeed come a long way in recent years which means it’s possible to not only have shoes that are practical to walk in, but fashionable too. Having said this, many of us only have one pair of ‘best’ shoes and we often buy all the others as kind of disposable items so as to keep up with the ever changing trends. In fact, my wife probably gets through a new pair of cheap shoes every couple of months or so, as she simply gets bored with the style and either hoards them in case of a fashion revival, or slings them out for good.

It’s not always possible to get through to the ladies on the importance of good walking shoes, and that doesn’t mean trekking boots, or fancy netted athletic shoes either, but simply shoes that are both practical and comfortable to walk around in. The heels of my wife’s feet seem to have a permanent plaster stuck to them and her feet are probably her biggest complaint. She, of course, is in denial and simply thinks it’s normal for anyone who spends a lot of time on their feet to suffer with such problems.

When buying any shoes, but particularly women’s walking shoes, women’s walking shoes, it’s important to keep a few things in mind, and in order to get quality, comfort, and longevity. It didn’t surprise me to read that somewhere between 50-70% of all adults do not know their own shoe size and many folks have a assortment of sizes in their shoe collections. Some are too big, some too small, and others just right, and 2 out of 3 are just no good whatsoever.

Unless you are extremely lucky, you WILL suffer from foot complications at some point in your life but this can be easily avoided with the proper foot care, and this all begins with the shoes. If you are young and think your feet are indestructible just take a look as some very common complaints that folks get with their feet every single day:

Achilles Tendonitis; Ankle Pain - Strains and sprains; Arch Pain or Strain; Arthritis; Athletes Foot; Chilblains and Cold Feet; Foot Blisters; Burning Feet; Corns & Calluses; Foot Ulcers; Gout; Hallux Abducto Valgus (Bunions); Heel Pain; Ingrown Toenails; Overlapping Toes; Pes Planus - Excessive Pronation (Flat Feet); Stress Fractures; Sweaty Feet; Warts; Xeorosis - Dry Cracked Heels - Heel Fissures ad infinitum.

The above is just a short list as there are other complaints too, but it’s just to emphasize some of the potential problems folks can face with poor foot care and badly fitted shoes. The ultimate goal is to find the best walking shoes to suite your every day needs, and only get out the fancy footwear for those fancy functions.

Article Source: http://www.articlenode.com — Article Directory | Free Articles

Read more on the importance of quality footwear including a look at the comfortable New Balance Running Shoes, at website http://www.hipfootwear.com/. This and much more at Hip Footwear dot com

By LESLIE GARCIA / The Dallas Morning News lgarcia@dallasnews.com

The folks at MBT shoes have come up with 30 reasons to walk that will get you up out of your seat. Go to www.mbt30reasons.com to find them all, as well as to find out how to download 30 free perfect-for-walking songs. Take the 30 Walks in 30 Days challenge, too.

MBT shoes, by the way, with their thick-soled, chair-rocker shape, were designed by a Swiss engineer. On a trip to Korea, he realized that walking barefoot over rice paddies alleviated his back pain. MBTs are said to emulate walking on the beach and to help with posture, balance and coordination.

Get started with these five reasons to walk and see where they lead you. We’ll start with one from Ellie Winetroub. She’s assistant manager at E.G. Geller Shoes in Preston Center, where MBT reps will be available from 1 to 5 p.m. Oct. 18 to show you the best way to maximize your walk.

Says Ms. Winetroub: “I have four pair, and I have no jiggle-jaggle on my legs.”

1. It makes you feel good. “I have recently lost 50 pounds,” Ms. Winetroub says. “I don’t know how else to express it. Walking makes me feel great.”

2. Baby, we were born to walk. Have you ever heard a parent say, “Oh, little Silas did his first sit-up”? Of course not. That first step – toward mom or to a goal – is what gets us going.

3. The world is gym-dandy. With nary a machine, let your body get a workout the way it was meant to, by simply moving forward.

4. You can maneuver the road less traveled. Quite often, walking takes us where cars cannot: On a wooded trail or up a narrow street. Through West Village, perhaps.

5. Think accentuation of coordination. We’re betting that you – yes, even you – can carry on a conversation and walk at the same time. Voilà! Social time plus fitness.

Dallas Morning News

MBT Boost Blue Sport Shoes - Women’s - FREE SHIPPING!!!
Love this shoe!!!!!!!!!!! Feet feel great when wearing it…so do my knees!! Someone who I didn’t know looked down at my shoes and said “those look comfortable”. I confirmed that it was like walking on a cloud!