I "heart" my pelvic floor

"Stiletto" Definition: A short knife or dagger with a long slender blade of various designs primarily used as a stabbing weapon. Its narrow shape, ending in a rigid pointed end, allows it to penetrate deeply.

This morning you picked shoes that best matched your outfit.  You know...the pair that makes you feel taller, thinner, and just a little more fantastic than you did before you got dressed.  But, what if I told you that the footwear you selected not only affected your inner fashionista, but also impacted the nerves in your feet, the pain in your arch, the ability to balance as you get older, your bladder control, and get this...your bone density.  You may be struggling with health issues that you didn't even realize were related to what you wear on your feet.  How you feel may be a result of the accumulated, daily affect of footwear!

I’m writing this for the twenty-five percent of women currently suffering from debilitating foot pain right this minute, the eighty (!) percent of women suffering from Pelvic Floor Disorder, and the millions of women realizing they have lost a substantial amount of bone mineral density.  This also for the woman interested in preventing or treating the failure of the structures most often injured in women: the pelvic floor, the bony skeleton, and the foot.  The staggering facts show that hundreds of millions of women have not one, but two or more of these issues—with the number of consumer dollars being spent in search of a solution adding up to BILLIONS.

I'll let you in on a secret.  Research* on footwear shows that for every one degree of heel you wear, there is one degree of spine vertebrae, hip joint, or knee joint reaction.  A one-inch high shoe (that's not even a high heel, more like a man's shoe or a good walking shoe) is 20°!  That little inch can be increasing the wear on your joint cartilage, be contributing to disk degeneration, and absolutely be decreasing the weight-bearing status of your bones.

So, what are we going to DO about it?

Learn more about how your footwear choices affect your whole body in Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief: The New Science of Healthy Feet. Learn more about your optimizing your pelvis and core and function in Diastasis Recti: The Whole-Body Solution to Abdominal Weakness and Separation. If you'd like movement instruction via video, start with Nutritious Movement for a Healthy Pelvis.

*The Effect of Heel Height on Gait and Posture: A Review of the Literature
Cowley et al. J Am Podiatr Med Assoc.2009; 99: 512-518
Emma E. Cowley, MSc, Thierry L. Chevalier, BSc,and Nachiappan Chockalingam, PhD