High heels, YouTube and Bench Pressing - three ways to wreck your health, Part 1

As a personal trainer I'm constantly getting enquiries from prospective clients who have issues with their backs, hips, knees and necks.

Some of these can incapacitate people; at the very least they cause chronic pain and discomfort and the sad thing is that alleviating these problems is usually a very simple matter.

Why high heels, good posture and back health are mutually exclusive.
Don't get me wrong. I love high heels (well, women in high heels anyway) but they really do wreak havoc on posture and the knee, hip and back joints.

To get more detail, we'll do a bit of anatomy and biomechanics.

High heels force the ankle joint into a constant state of plantarflexion, where the foot is pointed downwards, and this leads to excessive tension and a shortening in the back of the calves, the gastrocnemius and soleus, and weakness in the front, the tibialis anterior.

A natural walking pattern requires the foot to move from the foot pointed position to the foot pulled back position. When the back of the calves are tight, the foot resists pulling back, and in an effort to compensate for the lack of movement, the body will by create it elsewhere, typically at the knees. This can lead to excessive mobility at the knee, which increases wear and tear and the risk of injury.

And it gets worse! The body acts as a whole unit, one of the reasons why I rarely use exercises that focus on a single part of the body in my programmes, and what happens at one end of the body can negatively impact the whole system. So what starts off at the ankle and knee can easily affect the hips, backs and upper body.

Now I'm not one for hysterical outbursts ranting about how we should ban high heels and all that. For one, it would make lazing about with friends whilst ogling that tiny bit less pleasurable, but I would recommend that if you wear heels you do something to minimise the impact of them.

So what is the solution?
There are three things I'd recommend.

Stretch the calf muscles on a regular basis. Every day, in fact multiple times during the day, would be the start. When a muscle is held in a position for a certain length of time, it starts to adapt and take that position as the norm. So this means if you're constantly in heels and the calves are shortened and tense, this becomes the de facto state. Stretching them counters this.

Strengthen the tibialis anterior. This is the muscle on the front of your calves and its main task is the pull the foot upwards. The stronger this is, the better it works at keeping the back of the calves in check.

Mobilise your ankles. We tend to bind our feet up in shoes all day and have extremely limited movement in our ankles. Get them moving and you'll see a dramatic improvement in how you walk, your posture and fitness.

There's more that can be done about ankles but next we tackle the worlds favourite video site and the #1 thing to do at work. YouTube!