“Oh my aching feet!” Chances are you have heard, or said, that phrase. The shoes that make your feet ache could be a pair of sneakers or high heels that crowd your toes or rub your heels raw. In many cases, shoes cause issues with your feet because they are manufactured for the “average” foot and if yours falls outside of the “average” range you will be dealing with aching feet.
Advances are being made in shoe comfort, however, that could lead to your being able to toss the band aids and thick socks and start walking in comfort! Biomechanics are helping to change the design of shoes by recording the pressure and measurement of various sizes of feet while wearing various shoe styles. This will help researchers from the University of Catalonia analyze where the issues with the shoes lie and work with shoe manufacturers to come up with ways to make shoes more wearer-friendly.
In the study, a Spanish footwear company recruited more than 50 volunteers to wear various shoes in its footwear line for the analysis process. Biomechanics will allow the researchers to pinpoint the most common issues and the shoe manufacturer can then address them during the manufacturing process.
Study participants walked in front of optical motion capture cameras which monitored the way the volunteers’ legs moved while they walked. The shoes were equipped with pressurized insoles that measured the amount of pressure applied in various parts of the shoes. Force plates also allowed the researchers to measure the contact the volunteers’ foot made when it hit the ground. Electro-myography sensors recorded the muscle activity as the volunteers walked.
Specialized software captured the parameters and algorithms and that information will be used to establish criteria to perform a statistical analysis of the information. What does this mean to the shoe wearing public? More comfortable footwear!
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