Choosing the correct footwear
Published: 15 December, 2021
Keypoint says: choosing the correct footwear is fundamental to your general feeling of wellbeing. Think of shoes as the foundations of your body. If the foundations don't support you properly, it puts more pressure on other areas of the body like your knees, hips, and lower back.
8 out of 10 people suffer prolonged foot problems in their adult lives and in many cases, wearing the correct footwear, properly fitted can reduce the effects of a number of day-to-day issues including plantar fasciitis, fatigue, achilles tendonitis, pronation/supination instabilities and back & knee pain.
Lost time incidents cost UK businesses over £3.2bn per annum and in addition to the human cost of poorly made and ill-fitting safety footwear, the contribution from these issues to LTI’s is significant. On average 8 days are taken off as a result of workplace injury with an average financial cost of £960 per incident with slips, trips, & falls remaining the no.1 reason for workplace injury.
Wearing a shoe that is too big will cause us to walk in an unnatural and dysfunctional way, so having your shoes professionally fitted by an expert is becoming more and more commonplace. Often this will take the form of a static pressure scan of the foot and while this can identify pressure points and the requirement for arch support, a static scan will only provide a snapshot of the bigger picture.
As you walk, your foot is in contact with the ground for approximately 0.8 seconds and for only 0.25 seconds when running. As your foot strikes the ground, depending on the gait of each individual, the pressures exerted on the body will differ from person to person. No practitioner, no matter how skilled can provide an accurate analysis of foot function with the naked eye in that time frame, and a static scan does little to help in this regard.
Thanks to the Secosol Complete+ digital gait scanner in conjunction with Sixton safety footwear, our footwear experts at Keypoint can measure the stride of both feet and identify the distribution of pressure through each step, identifying issues such as pronation or supination, how they affect the gait in each stride, and therefore recommend the best footwear and insole combination to ensure all day long comfort.
Our aim is to help prevent lower limb injuries before they occur. The service we offer is very comprehensive in nature and will increase employee wellbeing and staff retention as well as reducing costs incurred by LTI’s.
The scanning unit offers static, dynamic and 3D rendering putting it at the forefront in the industry. Ultimately becoming part of the Sixton programme as a whole is the best scenario, bringing together both Secosol Complete+ and the correct safety footwear. But for those only looking for the Secosol Complete+ service, please get in touch to learn more about the two packages available exclusively from Keypoint.
www.keypoint-uk.co.uk | www.keypoint.ie
