An absent minded glance at the stationery pot on my desk while rubbing my sore ankle has helped me develop a theory.
Since the sliding ruler of the footstalls at Startrite in the 1980s, I have focused on measuring my feet to get comfortable shoes. I have never measured the shoes themselves.
Naturally, I am not belittling the importance of measuring feet, but for a while now I have wondered why one pair of my shoes always hurt. Whenever I wear them, my lower leg aches and my ankle always swells. Admittedly, I am an extreme example. In late 2008 I fractured far too many bones in that area, so I occasionally get twinges, aches and pains.
But these shoes always kill me. At the end of the day my ankle balloons and my metal plate feels like it is on fire. Why don’t my other shoes do that?
So I compared them to my most comfortable shoe. My initial thought was that the bevelled waist on the comfortable shoes was the reason, but cross comparison with another pair of comfortable shoes ruled this out.
The ruler did not uncover any discernible differences in the length or width of the shoe or the heel stack either. But the height of the heel stack – that was a different story.
The uncomfortable shoes had a heel stack that was a level 1.7 cm under the shoe. In comparison, the comfortable shoes had a heel stack that tapered from 2 cm at the back of the shoe down to 1.5 cm at the front. When I leant back and looked at both shoes from the side, the angle of the shoe from heel counters to the other end of the heel stack was noticeably different.
My theory was born. My shoes kill my feet because the heel stacks do not taper down. This makes the angle too sharp at the point where the heel lifts end and the waist of the shoe starts. I can’t prove the theory, but it is something that I definitely going to look out for when purchasing shoes in the future.
So, if you’ve ever wondered why a certain pair of shoes hurts, get the ruler out. It’s not all about the inside of the shoe or the size of your foot when it comes to comfort.
I definitely think you’re on to something here. I have the same experience from a pair of shoes that always made the sides of my knees hurt quite badly. It took me some time to understand that it actually was the shoes that caused the pain - because they actually felt quite comfortable - but came to the conclusion that it was the angle between the leg and the foot - caused by the heel and the sole - that gave me problems in the knees.