FEELING GREAT: Could these footwear trends be making your back and knee pain worse?

One of them is what he chooses to wear on his feet. Which is, those soft, nicely cushioned, Velcro fasten style shoes you can get (in many colours) from Marks and Spencer or somewhere like Clarkes.

Why am I mentioning it? It’s because the combination of the Velcro strap, which means you can pull them in tight limiting movement at the ankle meaning less rubbing on knee joints, with the soft cushion and support offered by these shoes when you land - makes it MORE favourable for ankle, knee and hip joints. And your back joints too.

See, many women I know love to wear high heels or shoes with some form of built in step that are hard wearing. I’m sure they look pretty with a particular outfit, but the problem is, they are very hard on joints that are wearing away naturally, i.e arthritis.

Now, what I’m not saying is that by wearing these shoes like my client you won’t suffer arthritis in your knees.

But what I am saying is that by swapping hard fitting, hard wearing, high impact shoes – men’s included – for something a lot softer, that you will lower the impact on joints making it much LESS likely that you’ll suffer as many symptoms.

What I can tell you is that just about every one of the best doctors I’ve ever worked with – the first thing they will do when a patient enters their surgery complaining about knee pain is to take a quick glance down at their style of shoes and recommend a change to something softer.

So, I guess it’s over to you. My role as a health professional is only to make people more aware of the CHOICES that they have and present the benefits of following my advice – and let them decide for themselves whether or not they want a chance at the benefits that await if they take it.

For more tips like this on how to ease knee pain, go here to download your FREE copy of my Knee Pain guide: https://www.paulgoughphysio.com/knee-pain/