Ready for Summer – How to choose awesome shoes for your fitness kick!

Ready for Summer – How to choose awesome shoes for your fitness kick!

Ready for Summer - How to choose awesome shoes for your fitness kick!

Ready for Summer - How to choose awesome shoes for your fitness kick!

It’s that time of year where we look to putting away the winter Woolies and start pulling out the T-shirt’s and shorts. For many of us summer means trips to the beach a pool or somewhere else that requires us to bare more than we normally would hide away in winter.

This often means we also start getting back to fitness. Diving into exercise sometimes we are less prepared than we should be and we end up with foot or leg pain. Ouchie Mumma!

At a step ahead foot & ankle care If you were to ask our team of Professional foot doctors all qualified Podiatrists where people go wrong they will tell you it’s two primary areas.

Wrong shoes for the job

That’s right you decide that your jumping into activity so you rush down to buy new kicks based on ..... umm lots of you get things really wrong from here. You choose your new shoes for training based on;

  • Colour - really because you like blue?
  • Based on a brand you saw your favourite marque football or tennis star wears. - They are Professional mostly because they don’t get injured much and have awesome mechanics. Both of which you may lack!
  • You choose them because a fancy advertisement told you they were awesome. Ask yourself have you ever witnessed an advert that say “buy this, they are sort of ok”.
  • You choose them because your friend has some and they say they are awesome! Great idea if it’s a burger joint not so great when it comes to health advice.

How you should really choose a shoe

 

Generally your shoe should not only fit your foot but also your activity. Feet like both shoes and activity are all different! This means you should base your decision on more than the above. Particularly colour please not colour!

Here are tips that will help:

  • Flat feet generally go better with firm supportive runners. So if they say “super soft” and have nasty big air bags hanging off the sole these probably aren’t for you!
  • High arched feet like cushioning but not too much. Think moderation, look for shoes described as for under pronators or high arches.
  • Buy running shoes for running activities. Sounds simple but there are a lot of fashion shoes that are “runner” inspired. ASICS for example have separate fashion style shoes. Of you’ve decided to take up tennis with friends head out and get great TENNIS shoes!
  • Ensure they fit! There should be a fingers width between the end of your longest toe and the end of the shoe, when standing up. Your toes should NEVER touch the end of the shoe.

So that’s the first things as Podiatrist our team are going to tell you! As you read above this is two areas that people get a tad wrong. The other is getting into activity to fast and getting injuries that stop their activity. We will chat about that next week. So see you then.


Oh if you need help with your feet ankle or leg pain or problems the team at A step ahead foot & Ankle care would be more than happy to help you.

Our team is lead by Dr Brenden Brown who is a Podiatrist with over 20 years experience in that time serving as President of the Australian Podiatry Association. You may know Dr Brenden from his regular appearances as a medical expert on foot and lower limb problems in Magazines, television shows such as The Today Show, A Current affair or The project. He’s also been a regular on radio including ABC Sydney where he is well known as Dr Foot!

If you haven't booked your appointment time for your gap-free heel pain assessment yet, please call our friendly reception team on (02) 9673 2987 to secure your appointment today.

Have you tried our Heel Pain Calculator? https://heelpaindr.com.au/

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podiatristsydney

Want more information? That's fantastic. There's stacks of videos that we've made. Look down below. There's most likely a link there, or check us out on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc., all the normal socials because we've got stacks of educational videos on heel pain and all the other conditions that we look after. Thanks and stay happy, healthy and active.

ABOUT DR BRENDEN BROWN

Founder of A Step Ahead Foot + Ankle Care in Sydney, and former president of the Australasian Podiatry Council, Dr Brenden Brown (A.K.A Dr Foot) is a wealth of knowledge on how to take care of your feet, including how to find the best shoes.

Follow him on social media:
 instagram.com/askdrfoot
 facebook.com/podiatristsydney
 twitter.com/AStepAheadFAC

* No medical treatment can guarantee 100% success. Registered medical and health professions in Australia are by law not allowed to guarantee success. This comes as a result of all human bodies reacting differently to treatments. Patients should thoroughly consider all treatment options available to them.

Best shoes for Heel Pain Dr Brenden shows you what to look for!

Best shoes for Heel Pain Dr Brenden shows you what to look for!

Best shoes for Heel Pain Dr Brenden shows you what to look for

When I'm looking for a shoe for heel pain and recommending it to my patients, I'm looking for a more structured shoe.

What does that mean? In the back of the heel, this area is called a heel counter. It should never press in. It needs to be firm to hold your heel. I believe that the middle of the shoe should never bend.

Your foot doesn't bend in the middle and nor should your shoe. Really firm. However, the shoe should always bend at the Toe. Grab it at either end. It's great. It's bending there really easily. You should never wring or twist out.

See how it just can't do that? And finally, make sure that you're doing the laces up Firmly. Make that shoe feels like a glove. These are my tips for shoes when you've got problematic heel pain. It's my one tip that helps most people get out of pain reasonably quickly.

If you haven't booked your appointment time for your gap-free heel pain assessment yet, please call our friendly reception team on (02) 9673 2987 to secure your appointment today.

Have you tried our Heel Pain Calculator? https://heelpaindr.com.au/

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podiatristsydney

Want more information? That's fantastic. There's stacks of videos that we've made. Look down below. There's most likely a link there, or check us out on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc., all the normal socials because we've got stacks of educational videos on heel pain and all the other conditions that we look after. Thanks and stay happy, healthy and active.

ABOUT DR BRENDEN BROWN

Founder of A Step Ahead Foot + Ankle Care in Sydney, and former president of the Australasian Podiatry Council, Dr Brenden Brown (A.K.A Dr Foot) is a wealth of knowledge on how to take care of your feet, including how to find the best shoes.

Follow him on social media:
 instagram.com/askdrfoot
 facebook.com/podiatristsydney
 twitter.com/AStepAheadFAC

* No medical treatment can guarantee 100% success. Registered medical and health professions in Australia are by law not allowed to guarantee success. This comes as a result of all human bodies reacting differently to treatments. Patients should thoroughly consider all treatment options available to them.

Ready for Summer – How to choose awesome shoes for your fitness kick!

Ready for Summer – How to choose awesome shoes for your fitness kick!

Ready for Summer - How to choose awesome shoes for your fitness kick!

It’s that time of year where we look to putting away the winter Woolies and start pulling out the T-shirt’s and shorts. For many of us summer means trips to the beach a pool or somewhere else that requires us to bare more than we normally would hide away in winter.

This often means we also start getting back to fitness. Diving into exercise sometimes we are less prepared than we should be and we end up with foot or leg pain. Ouchie Mumma!

At a step ahead foot & ankle care If you were to ask our team of Professional foot doctors all qualified Podiatrists where people go wrong they will tell you it’s two primary areas.

Wrong shoes for the job

That’s right you decide that your jumping into activity so you rush down to buy new kicks based on ..... umm lots of you get things really wrong from here. You choose your new shoes for training based on;

  • Colour - really because you like blue?
  • Based on a brand you saw your favourite marque football or tennis star wears. - They are Professional mostly because they don’t get injured much and have awesome mechanics. Both of which you may lack!
  • You choose them because a fancy advertisement told you they were awesome. Ask yourself have you ever witnessed an advert that say “buy this, they are sort of ok”.
  • You choose them because your friend has some and they say they are awesome! Great idea if it’s a burger joint not so great when it comes to health advice.

How you should really choose a shoe

 

Generally your shoe should not only fit your foot but also your activity. Feet like both shoes and activity are all different! This means you should base your decision on more than the above. Particularly colour please not colour!

Here are tips that will help:

  • Flat feet generally go better with firm supportive runners. So if they say “super soft” and have nasty big air bags hanging off the sole these probably aren’t for you!
  • High arched feet like cushioning but not too much. Think moderation, look for shoes described as for under pronators or high arches.
  • Buy running shoes for running activities. Sounds simple but there are a lot of fashion shoes that are “runner” inspired. ASICS for example have separate fashion style shoes. Of you’ve decided to take up tennis with friends head out and get great TENNIS shoes!
  • Ensure they fit! There should be a fingers width between the end of your longest toe and the end of the shoe, when standing up. Your toes should NEVER touch the end of the shoe.

So that’s the first things as Podiatrist our team are going to tell you! As you read above this is two areas that people get a tad wrong. The other is getting into activity to fast and getting injuries that stop their activity. We will chat about that next week. So see you then.


Oh if you need help with your feet ankle or leg pain or problems the team at A step ahead foot & Ankle care would be more than happy to help you.

Our team is lead by Dr Brenden Brown who is a Podiatrist with over 20 years experience in that time serving as President of the Australian Podiatry Association. You may know Dr Brenden from his regular appearances as a medical expert on foot and lower limb problems in Magazines, television shows such as The Today Show, A Current affair or The project. He’s also been a regular on radio including ABC Sydney where he is well known as Dr Foot!

If you haven't booked your appointment time for your gap-free heel pain assessment yet, please call our friendly reception team on (02) 9673 2987 to secure your appointment today.

Have you tried our Heel Pain Calculator? https://heelpaindr.com.au/

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podiatristsydney

Want more information? That's fantastic. There's stacks of videos that we've made. Look down below. There's most likely a link there, or check us out on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc., all the normal socials because we've got stacks of educational videos on heel pain and all the other conditions that we look after. Thanks and stay happy, healthy and active.

ABOUT DR BRENDEN BROWN

Founder of A Step Ahead Foot + Ankle Care in Sydney, and former president of the Australasian Podiatry Council, Dr Brenden Brown (A.K.A Dr Foot) is a wealth of knowledge on how to take care of your feet, including how to find the best shoes.

Follow him on social media:
 instagram.com/askdrfoot
 facebook.com/podiatristsydney
 twitter.com/AStepAheadFAC

* No medical treatment can guarantee 100% success. Registered medical and health professions in Australia are by law not allowed to guarantee success. This comes as a result of all human bodies reacting differently to treatments. Patients should thoroughly consider all treatment options available to them.

Warming up and Stretching for Netball – NetballSmart

Warming up and Stretching for Netball – NetballSmart

Hi guys, back again to chat about rehab and even more importantly PREHAB, and we will stick to our netball theme in light of the Diamonds stunning World Cup Victory last weekend.

2015 World Netball Cup Allphones Arena Gold Medal Game Australia v NZ Caitlin Bassett celebrating the win with teammate Sharni Layton. Picture: David Callow

2015 World Netball Cup
Allphones Arena
Gold Medal Game

Preventing injuries is of massive importance as it link directly to enjoyment of sport, and optimum performance.  Lets face it, we all want to get around the court like Paige Hadley or shoot like Caitlin Basset right?  Sitting on the sidelines nursing an injury takes you away from the sport you love, and away from the eyes of coaches and selectors alike.

Warming up and Stretching for Netball - NetballSmart - 2

Quite often we see resources that don’t address the specific factors that will minimise the risk of injury to our netballers!  Our A Step Ahead NetballSmart blog aims to overcome this by giving you guys a simple to understand, point by point action plan for injury prevention.
Warming Up and Stretching
 
Preparing the body for participation in sports by warming up, will enhance the maximal performance and reduce the risk of injury!  Its a sentence i often find myself repeating over and over again to my young patients.  The Netball World Cup was a great example for us as a practice, with the public being able to see first hand the amount of time the best teams in the world spend on warming up before games.
Warming up improves blood flow to the heart, increases the muscle temperature and makes muscles more pliable.
Cold or less pliable or elastic muscle works harder to accommodate a given load and will be more resistant to sudden stretch.  Less pliable muscle tissue is also more susceptible to overuse injuries.
Below we have come up with a simple to understand table to break down the different stages of warming up.
Component
Purpose
Example for Netball
Aerobic Exercise
Increase Body Temperature
2-3 Light Jogging the width of the court
Stretching
Increase Elasticity of Tissue
Increase Joint Range of Motion
Dynamic Stretches for Leg Muscles
(see examples below)
Sport Specific Exercises
Prepare the body for the type of activity expected
Short Sprinting
Changes of Direction
Passing and Shooting drills
Right, so now we have established our table, what does it all mean?  Well, basically, the first column (component) is the breakdown of a typical warm up routine you can use before your saturday games.  Once we have established we need to break our warm down into three different parts, and you want to skip the detail, we can look across the table to the examples.
First we start with a jog across the width of the court 2-3 times.  We can then move into some dynamic stretches for the major legs muscles you will use for the game.
A good start is to warm up the Calf muscles, which are the big muscles at the back of the lower leg and then upwards  to the Hamstring muscles.  If you don’t know much about Dynamic stretching, see our short description below!
Dynamic stretching WARMING UP PRE EXERCISE
Dynamic stretches differ from the norm in that they stretch the body through movement. Instead of putting your body into a stretched position and keeping it there as the muscles relax gradually, you move quickly into and out of a position that stretches your muscles. 
 
Dynamic Calf stretches:
Get yourself into a classic push up position.  Then, hike your hips towards the ceiling or sky creating a V position with your body.  Keep your back as straight as possible.  
Place one foot over the back of the other ankle, and slowly but actively push your heel into the ground.  Then, push your ankle upwards going up onto your toes.  
Perform three sets of 10 repetitions per stretch for improved calf movement and flexibility.
Warming up and Stretching for Netball - NetballSmart - 3
Dynamic hamstring swings:
 
A two-part dynamic stretch for the hip flexors, hip extensors, hip adductors, and hip abductors
This involves gentle swings of the leg forwards and backwards gradually getting higher and higher each time. Around 10 to 15 swings on each leg should be enough. 
Warming up and Stretching for Netball - NetballSmart - 4
We then want to move into some sort of sport specific movement, something that you will be doing regularly on the court.
We had the absolute privilege of watching the Diamonds take on Jamaica during pool play of the World cup thanks to Asics Australia.  It was really interesting to watch the girls going through there physical and sport specific warm ups.  These are generally done as a team, so your coach will want to have some input here.
I hope this blog has been informative, without being over the top with mumbo jumbo you don’t need.  That’s always the aim, to try and get the important information out there as efficiently as possible!
My next blog will be up shortly regarding cooling down and some specific things you can do!  Stay tuned for more editions of the A Step Ahead NetballSmart blog!
Aneesh Kesha
Part of the A Step Ahead Foot and Ankle care team
Warming up and Stretching for Netball - NetballSmart - 5