Most of us have a pair of ath­let­ic shoes hang­ing around that serve as our all-pur­pose ex­er­cise shoes. You wear them on a run, the el­lip­ti­cal, a walk — any­time you’re ac­tive. Though a shoe you can wear al­most any­where is cer­tain­ly con­ve­nient, it may not al­ways be prac­ti­cal.

When it comes to your walk­ing rou­tine, it’s im­por­tant to be sure that the shoes you’re wear­ing pro­mote prop­er foot bio­me­chan­ics — es­pe­cial­ly if you walk of­ten and/or for long dis­tances.

Your foot bio­me­chan­ics while walk­ing are fair­ly dif­fer­ent from when you’re run­ning.

For in­stance, your foot typ­i­cal­ly strikes the ground at your heel while you’re walk­ing. While run­ning, on the oth­er hand, your foot strikes the ground some­where around your mid­foot. This is one rea­son why run­ning shoes have be­come their own cat­e­go­ry of shoes.

Some of the dif­fer­ences be­tween run­ning shoes and walk­ing shoes aren’t of huge con­se­quence on a walk, such as how run­ning shoes tend to be very light­weight and pro­vide more mo­tion con­trol than need­ed while walk­ing.

How­ev­er, oth­er at­trib­ut­es of run­ning shoes, such as the ten­den­cy to have a firmer sole and built-up heel, may ac­tu­al­ly force you to change the way your foot would oth­er­wise nat­u­ral­ly strike the ground while walk­ing — which may ul­ti­mate­ly con­tribute to foot and leg pain.

Se­lect­ing the right shoe is crit­i­cal in pre­vent­ing in­jury

The right shoes can help you avoid the risk of crit­i­cal in­jury. Risks of run­ning with­out prop­er­ly fit­ted shoes in­clude:

• Lig­a­ment strains

• Stress frac­tures

• Shin splints

• Run­ner’s toe

• ↓Black toe­nails and oth­er toe­nail con­di­tions

• Plan­tar fasci­itis

• Mus­cle cramp­ing

• Flat­ten­ing of the arch

• Blis­ters

• Cal­lus­es

• Heel fis­sures

• Achilles ten­donitis

• Neu­ro­mas

How should a walk­ing shoe fit?

If you’re now con­vinced that you need ded­i­cat­ed walk­ing shoes, here are four tips for pick­ing out a walk­ing shoe that’s right for you:

1. Walk­ing shoes should be com­fort­able right away

It may sound ob­vi­ous, but we’ll say it any­way: If a shoe doesn’t feel im­me­di­ate­ly com­fort­able on your foot, it’s not a good walk­ing shoe for you.

We’re like­ly all guilty of telling our­selves, “These shoes just need to be bro­ken in a lit­tle.” But avoid do­ing so with your walk­ing shoes.

If a quick lap around the shoe store or your home is enough to lead to foot dis­com­fort, tak­ing a walk in the same shoes may eas­i­ly re­sult in painful blis­ters and cal­lus­es.

2. Your feet should have room, but not too much room

• ↓Every shoe man­u­fac­tur­er de­signs shoes slight­ly dif­fer­ent. When choos­ing a walk­ing shoe, make sure it feels like a good fit — re­gard­less of the brand or size.

• ↓First, the toe box of the shoe should be spa­cious enough that your toes have plen­ty of wig­gle room, but not too much. As a rule of thumb, make sure there’s about half an inch of space be­tween your big toe and the front of the shoe.

• ↓The side-to-side space in the shoe mat­ters, too. If you have a wider foot, you may need to look for a walk­ing shoe that of­fers “wide” size op­tions.

• ↓Last­ly, if one of your feet is slight­ly larg­er than the oth­er, you may need to go a half size up to en­sure the shoes ad­e­quate­ly con­form to both feet.

3. Your walk­ing shoes should match your arch type

Your foot arch pro­vides sup­port by redi­rect­ing the pres­sure placed on your foot as you take a step. Your arch al­so help your foot firm­ly in­ter­act with the var­i­ous sur­faces you en­counter while walk­ing.

But, not all foot arch­es are the same — and this can af­fect the type of walk­ing shoe that will like­ly work best for you.

The three over­ar­ch­ing (heh) foot arch types in­clude:

• ↓Nor­mal arch – a gen­er­al­ly bio­me­chan­i­cal­ly cor­rect foot (look for a shoe with a firm but flex­i­ble mid­sole and heel sta­bil­i­ty)

• ↓Flat arch – as­so­ci­at­ed with ex­ces­sive foot mo­tion (look for a shoe that pro­vides plen­ty of sta­bil­i­ty and mo­tion con­trol)

• ↓High arch – poor at shock ab­sorp­tion (look for a shoe with plen­ty of cush­ion­ing and sta­bil­i­ty)

One of the best ways to de­ter­mine your foot arch type is to seek guid­ance from a sales as­so­ciate at a spe­cial­ty shoe store. This may be es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant if you’re look­ing for a walk­ing shoe that’s best for prona­tion (the nat­ur­al in­ward roll of your foot) is­sues — in­clud­ing the un­der­prona­tion (when your heels roll out­ward) or over­prona­tion (when your feet roll in­ward ex­ces­sive­ly) that can oc­cur with high or flat arch­es, re­spec­tive­ly.

But, there’s al­so a quick DIY method to de­ter­mine your foot type. Sim­ply wet your feet and stand on dry ce­ment or card­board. From your foot­print, you can get a gen­er­al sense of your arch type.

4. Cush­ion and trac­tion are im­por­tant with walk­ing shoes

Last, but not least: You’re walk­ing, so the shoes you choose should re­duce the stress placed on your feet as each hits the ground, as well as pro­vide sta­bil­i­ty and grip.

• ↓The in­sole of a good walk­ing shoe pro­vides cush­ion with each step, but it should al­so feel like it’s ad­e­quate­ly sup­port­ing the arch of your foot.

• ↓The mid­sole is an­oth­er lay­er of cush­ion in a shoe — usu­al­ly made of foam, air or gel — that al­so helps ab­sorb shock as your foot hits the ground.

• ↓The out­er sole of a good walk­ing shoe pro­vides ad­e­quate trac­tion, nat­u­ral­ly help­ing your foot grip the sur­face be­low you as you walk.

Fi­nal­ly, the heel of a good walk­ing shoe of­fers cush­ion and sup­port to both your Achilles ten­don and an­kle. The cush­ion, sta­bil­i­ty and trac­tion of a shoe de­grade as you walk in them. Af­ter log­ging be­tween 300 to 400 miles in your walk­ing shoes, it’s time for new ones.

Shoe shop­ping pro tip:

Bring the socks you plan to wear on your walks with you to the shoe store, as sock thick­ness can af­fect the fit of a shoe.

For more in­for­ma­tion: https://www.hous­ton­methodist.org/