Do your sports shoes fit

A normal person walks about 8,000 steps a day, and the distance walked in a lifetime is more than 2.5 times the circumference of the earth. Although the foot is a very small part of the whole body, each step of walking may bear a load of more than half of the body weight; when running, jumping, turning, accelerating and decelerating, the load on the foot reaches more than three times of the body weight. Such a heavy and high frequency load is uploaded through the chain of movement consisting of the foot, lower limb bone joints and spine, and gradually absorbed by the cartilage of each joint and other tissues, which will cause chronic damage to the skeletal system in the long run. When the load exceeds the capacity of a joint, the injury will be more serious. Foreign studies have found that the incidence of sports injuries in the running fitness and competitive running population is 35% and 65% respectively. The incidence of sports injuries in the domestic population may be even higher. Flatfoot is a common clinical postural foot deformity, characterized by reduced or absent arches, mostly in adolescents, with an incidence of about 7.1% of the total population. Although the athletic ability of students or athletes with flat feet is not necessarily lower than that of the normal population, and many people mistakenly believe that flat feet do not require treatment, the anatomical abnormalities in their arches cause corresponding changes in the biomechanical characteristics of movement, resulting in plantar fascia relaxation, inflammation and plantar joint abnormalities, and these biomechanical changes, uploaded to the knee joint, hip joint and spine, gradually accumulate to cause lesions in their corresponding parts. Shoes are the eternal companion of the foot and are closely related to human health. Among all sports equipment, shoes have the closest and most common relationship with sports. The human body’s own unique foot shape (flat feet or high arched feet, etc.) factors are difficult to change, and the resulting plantar pressure distribution is abnormal, but the plantar forces can be changed by means of orthopedic shoes (inserts) and other means. The current advanced dynamic plantar pressure measurement and three-dimensional gait analysis can personalize the design and manufacture of shoes (insoles) that are in line with the principles of human efficacy and beneficial to human health. Therefore, before exercising, you should be clear about your exercise style and anatomical characteristics to avoid shoes that do not conform to the mechanics and medical principles to become an invisible killer of health and prevent injuries during the exercise and fitness process. For example, people with high arched feet or O-shaped legs are difficult to cushion through the foot shock, the outer forefoot of the shoe is easy to wear, you should choose more flexible shock-absorbing sports shoes; flat feet or X-shaped legs of people with collapsed arches or tilted inward, the inner forefoot of the shoe is easy to wear, you should choose the fixed sports shoes with better foot fixing effect. High-heeled shoes worn by women who love beauty have attracted widespread attention because the design itself does not conform to the mechanics of human structure and movement, and the danger to women’s health. With the development of science and technology, sports training and competition is not only the physical struggle of athletes, but also the improvement of sports equipment and clothing is important to improve performance. Sports shoes are one of the most important pieces of sports equipment. Studies on athletes have found that there can be significant differences in the force between different speeds, different individuals and even between the left and right foot. Therefore, the design of sports shoes should be different from person to person and from foot to foot. Only after a comprehensive assessment of their specific conditions in sports can they design suitable sports shoes for different sports and different feet based on biomechanical measurement and analysis techniques to maximize sports performance, prevent the emergence or recurrence of sports injuries, and guide the public fitness crowd to adopt their own speed and wear their own personalized shoes (insoles) to move towards health.