Why Work On Improving Your Posture
In our day to day lives, we rarely stand and walk around as often as we should. Given a lot of us work sitting down, looking at screens with our hands on our keyboards, we develop a hunched back. Now this may not cause a direct problem for most people, it does change your body’s overall weight distribution, and balance.
It becomes important to integrate activities in our day to day routine to counter the harmful effects of our sedentary lifestyle and work on our posture.
How Can Barefoot Shoes Help With Posture?
Before we get into this, it is important to know what makes barefoot shoes different from traditional shoes, especially when it comes to posture defining features.
1. Barefoot shoes have a wide toe box. This gives you the ability to splay your toes more naturally during exercises and walking enabling better balance and posture.
2. Barefoot shoes have a zero heel to toe drop. This is one of the most important features of barefoot shoes when it comes to posture. Traditional shoes usually have a high heel (5-15%) This causes our body to always be at an incline. This change in our foundation means our body has to compensate for it by putting additional load on our knees, hips and lower back. Given we wear shoes for almost the entirety of our day, this effect compounds and a lot of times leaves us with lower back problems and a bad posture.
3. Barefoot shoes have a thin outsole. A thin outsole enables our feet to pick up sensory feedback from the ground. This additional information that usually gets left out with traditional shoes means we are more aware of our body’s posture and load distribution in real time. This means we can adjust better and make sure we correct it over time.
4. Barefoot shoes have no artificial support. While support is a way to manage pain, it limits your range of motion and makes your muscles weak. The lack of additional arch support or heel support in barefoot shoes helps you strengthen your feet, and in the long term make your body’s foundation stronger. This has positive implications for your entire posterior chain.
Now while barefoot shoes can help you become stronger and work on your posture while you move, it is important to take out time to work on your posture throughout the day by taking regular walks during your workday.
Closing Remarks From Zen Barefoot
While our lives have become “easier”, humans develop sedentary problems. You were designed to move, to explore, it is important to keep working on our bodies throughout the day with movement.
We at Zen Barefoot have also created a mobility routine that can help you with getting your daily dose of mobility. A free guide that can help you work on your bodies, become more mobile and find your true freedom.
Here is the link.
And if you are looking for barefoot shoes, Zen Barefoot is the place to be.