Glob­al­ly, more peo­ple are en­gag­ing in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. This can be un­struc­tured in the form of a sim­ple leisure walk, run, jog or cy­cling around the neigh­bour­hood. It can al­so be struc­tured such as home ex­er­cise train­ing or go­ing to a gym/train­ing cen­tre. There are many ben­e­fits de­rived from phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, such as car­dio­vas­cu­lar health, flex­i­bil­i­ty, weight loss, body strength­en­ing and fit­ness, and im­proved men­tal health.

Al­most all forms of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty re­quire “ap­pro­pri­ate” footwear. The ben­e­fits of prop­er footwear are well recog­nised and ex­tend to all sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er, coach­es, ath­letes, physi­cians and phys­io­ther­a­pists have dif­fer­ent views on what is “ap­pro­pri­ate” footwear.

There is no uni­ver­sal­ly right an­swer. It is im­por­tant to un­der­stand that prop­er footwear is spe­cif­ic to the ac­tiv­i­ty in which you would like to en­gage and that vari­a­tions may oc­cur. Here are some char­ac­ter­is­tics of prop­er ac­tiv­i­ty-spe­cif­ic footwear which you may find help­ful when shoe shop­ping.

Walk­ing shoes do not need to be par­tic­u­lar­ly light­weight or flex­i­ble in com­po­si­tion but they should have a flex­i­ble, soft sole. The heels may be bev­elled to cush­ion the foot through the walk­ing phase from im­pact to push off. Run­ning shoes on the oth­er hand are dif­fer­ent. They are usu­al­ly lighter weight and may be more flex­i­ble in com­po­si­tion. The sole should be stiffer, with cush­ion­ing by the heel and toes.

There has been a lot of in­ter­est in “min­i­mal­is­tic footwear” which some pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes use in run­ning. They look cool and ap­pear so­phis­ti­cat­ed. This footwear is light­weight and does not have much cush­ion­ing or lat­er­al sup­port. They are not rec­om­mend­ed for the recre­ation­al or se­mi-pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete. In the pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete, min­i­mal­is­tic footwear in iso­la­tion does not pro­duce a ben­e­fit. Min­i­mal­is­tic shoes can be of ben­e­fit to the ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­al run­ner as part of a com­bi­na­tion of train­ing, in­clud­ing run­ning analy­sis and ad­just­ment of run­ning pat­tern from rear load­ing to front-load­ing and strength­en­ing of the leg mus­cles.

For cy­cling, shoes should be snug fit­ting and hug the feet firm­ly. They should be hard along the point of im­pact of the ped­al, and some may be able to ap­ply a cleat at the ped­al im­pact point. They should pro­vide good arch sup­port for the foot.

If en­gag­ing in ac­tiv­i­ty in­volv­ing weightlift­ing, the soles should be hard and flat. The heels are usu­al­ly raised to pro­vide sup­port to the an­kle for bet­ter flex­i­bil­i­ty in squat­ting, to pre­vent ex­cess flex­ion and keep the trunk up­right.

Ad­juncts to shoes may in­clude sup­port­ive gel in­soles, iso­lat­ed heel cups and front foot padding to cater for the vari­abil­i­ty of in­di­vid­ual feet size and shape, tap­ing tech­niques, sup­port­ive bands and braces.

The first ben­e­fit of wear­ing ap­pro­pri­ate footwear is acute in­jury pre­ven­tion. Prop­er footwear can pre­vent in­jury while en­gag­ing in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. There is pro­tec­tion from ex­ter­nal fac­tors such as ob­jects on the ac­tiv­i­ty sur­faces (road, out­door track or with­in the gym fa­cil­i­ty), which min­imis­es the risk of soft tis­sue bruis­ing, cuts and lac­er­a­tions. There is al­so pro­tec­tion from in­ter­nal forces re­lat­ed to the struc­ture of the foot (flat feet or high arch), pres­ence of bony de­for­mi­ties and mus­cle strength which min­imis­es the risk of mus­cle, ten­don, lig­a­ment and bony in­jury.

The sec­ond ben­e­fit of prop­er footwear is chron­ic in­jury pre­ven­tion. Prop­er footwear can pre­vent long-term trau­ma to the mus­cles, ten­don, lig­a­ments and bones, in­clud­ing a re­duc­tion in risk for mus­cle strains, tendinopathies and frac­tures.

Third­ly, prop­er footwear can pre­vent in­jury to oth­er body struc­tures. The body is in­ter­con­nect­ed. This means that even if you are walk­ing and the point of im­pact is the foot, there is a trans­mit­ted ef­fect to the knees, hips and back. Hav­ing prop­er footwear can pre­vent knee pain, hip pain and back pain and in­jury with­in these ar­eas of the body.

Fourth­ly, prop­er footwear can im­prove per­for­mance by mak­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty more com­fort­able and re­duc­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for an in­jury. This may help you walk that ex­tra block, cy­cling that cir­cuit one more time, do one more rep­e­ti­tion with weights or do that ex­tra bit of stretch­ing.

It is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that there is no one size fits all. Though ap­pear­ances may sug­gest a uni­for­mi­ty of footwear from per­son to per­son, you may now re­alise this is not the case. It is im­por­tant to achieve the best out­come en­gag­ing in ex­er­cise by wear­ing footwear that is spe­cif­ic for you and your choice ac­tiv­i­ty. Ap­pro­pri­ate footwear is your best op­tion to pre­vent in­jury, im­prove your en­durance and per­for­mance and to al­low you to en­joy the ben­e­fits of your cho­sen ac­tiv­i­ty.

Rishi Jagdeo is an Or­thopaedic Spe­cial­ist prac­tic­ing in Trinidad and is a grad­u­ate stu­dent in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport.