I don’t know a girl who doesn’t love a good pair of shoes. I mean, finding cute and comfortable all in one?…c’moooooon. I’m personally a jacket girl myself, but show me a shoe that I can dress up or down, doesn’t break the bank and lasts forever- consider me sold.
As the weather starts to heat up here in the PNW, my jacket obsession stays true, but I also get a strong urge to purchase a new pair of sandals. I think it’s the Washingtonian in me that gets maaaaybe a little too excited at that first sight of sun, but I just can’t help myself and tend to go full summer mode the minute the temperature hits anything over 60 degrees.
I find that many of my patients feel the same, because before I know it, everyone’s walking into the clinic with their flip-flops, slides, and little heels. Now don’t get me wrong- I can appreciate a cute shoe almost as much as I can the perfect jacket. But nine times out of ten, I’m telling my patients that those types of shoes are actually doing their pelvic floor more harm than good.
Let me say that again if you missed it (or maybe scrolled by a little too quickly out of denial). Your shoes can be doing your pelvic floor more harm than good.
Before I explain how this can be, let me remind you that the feet are very close to the pelvic floor in the brain, on both the side that controls sensation as well as motor control. So if your feet are tight or tired or moving poorly, it’s likely that your pelvic floor is too.
Crazy, right??
If you’re experiencing an increase in or new onset of leakage, pain, or prolapse symptoms with the sudden change in shoe wear, what you’re putting on your feet just might be to blame. Let me tell you how.
Flip-Flops + Slides-
If wearing a bra without an underwire sounds uncomfortable to you, then imagine how your feet might feel! Shoes that don’t have support in the back (a strap that wraps around the heel) force the toes to curl ever so slightly to stay on your feet. When your toes scrunch with every step you take, the feet can get tight over time and can lead to secondary pelvic floor tension.
Heels-
I double dog dare you to try to stand on your toes without squeezing your butt. It’s hard, right?? Walking in heels puts our body weight forward and our backsides compensate by tightening to keep us from falling. And as I’m sure you can guess…a clenched booty causes a tight pelvic floor.
While a bit of a heel isn’t necessarily a bad thing, know that the higher the shoe, the more your whole body (aka pelvic floor) has to work.
Pointed/Narrow Toes-
My postpartum bod can vouch that squeezing into pants that just don’t fit is not comfortable. Pointed and narrow-toed shoes do the same to your feet and can create pain if worn all the time. Aaaaaand for the third time- painful feet can create irritated pelvic floor muscles.
In the perfect world, a good shoe will have space around the edges of your foot if you stand on top of it, little to no heel, and a supportive back. While I completely understand that this may be hard to find, you should do your best to think about fit and function along with (and dare I say above) style when shopping for the perfect pair.
Now I’m not saying that you need to throw your oh-so-beautiful shoes away and stick to all white, velcro New Balances (although I heard those are in style right now??). But when you do wear kicks that might not be the best for your body, I recommend limiting how long you wear them and/or how far you walk in them.
And to add in a pro tip-
Try wearing yoga toes at night before you go to bed. This is a small but mighty tool that packs a big bang for a low cost. Just put these on your feet to stretch out the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, and trust me when I say that you should start with only wearing them for 30 seconds and work you way up to 5-10 minutes.
Nancy Sinatra knew what she was talking about when she said “these boots are made for walking”. And while it’s so easy to only think about how shoes will look (trust me, I get it), what they’re doing to our bodies and how they effect our feet and pelvic floor must cross our minds, especially if we have other women’s health issues on our plate.
If you have a go-to shoe brand that fits all of the above requirements, comment below and share the wealth! The shoe jackpot can be so hard to hit, but when you do…*chef’s kiss*.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. No pressure, but I have a feeling you’re gonna like what I’ve taken the time to put my recommendation behind.
