What Happens To Your Body When You Wear Heels

Look at exactly what you’re suffering for
the sake of style!!!

The average woman gets foot pain after a
mere hour in pumps. But high heels
impact your body beyond just making you
wanna sit down. Here’s how they affect
different parts of your body—and why
that’s something you might not want to
stand for anymore.

Feet

• Normally, your feet act like spring-
loaded, weight-distributing shock
absorbers, cushioning your skeleton from
crazy amounts of pounding. Jam these
engineering marvels into high heels
and. . .ouch. You’ve shifted much of your
mass onto the balls of your feet and your
tiny, delicate toe bones.

• The higher the heel, the bigger the
impact: One study found that four-inch
stilettos can up the amount of pressure
on the front of the foot by 30 percent or
more.

• Your heel-to-toe transition becomes
abrupt, forcing you to swap your natural
stride for a staccato walk. Strutting like
this all the time could usher in bone and
nerve damage (not to mention blisters
and ingrown toenails).

Ankles and Calves

• Wearing heels forces your ankles to
bend forward, a movement that could
restrict circulation in your lower limbs. If
you’re a perennial high-heel wearer, this
could eventually spell spider veins.

• Walking in heels also stiffens your
Achilles tendons, which anchor your calf
muscles to your heels, causing your calves
to bunch up. If you’ve had your tall
pumps on all day, you might have trouble
walking naturally when you first kick off
your kicks. (You can work to offset this
stiffness by flexing your feet—shoeless—
several times throughout the day.)

• Over time, stiletto devotees can develop
chronically taut (and shortened!) ankle
and calf tendons, making walking—even
in flats—painful.
Knees

• Another pro shock absorber, the knee is
the largest joint in your body. It’s built to
take a licking, but frequent high-heel use
can put extra stress on the inner sides of
the knees, fast-tracking the wear and tear
that leads to osteoarthritis.

Hips

• To keep from keeling over in stacked
shoes, you have to thrust your hips
forward, arch your back, and push out
your chest. That familiar sexy stance
works the outer hip muscles and tendons
hard (and not in a good way).
Back

• In order to sashay around in heels, your
spine needs to sway unnaturally, a
process that stresses your lumbar erector
spinae muscle. Result: sore lower back.

• As with your other body parts, your
back needs a break. If you wear high
pumps one day, don cushioned flats the
next. Or save your spikes for special
nights out—and never walk around in
them for longer than a few hours at a
time.