Wearing High heels instead of trainers?

If like me you wear trainers most of the day then you are probably thinking wearing high heels is hard work. What we wear on our feet of great discussion all of the time and as the market for bare foot or minimalist trainers is dropping ( according to a recent article in Runners world-http://www.runnersworld.com/minimalist-shoes/sales-of-minimalist-shoes-plummet), we are all asking more and more what do our feet do in these shoes?

The Number of articles and research put into this field currently is massive- millions are being spent on research on the subject of trainers. But what happens the rest of the time- you take your very nicely chosen running shoes off and replace them with a pair of these-

OR THESE!!!

What we wear on our feet the rest of the time is also vital to look at.

Recent research from UCL makes for interesting reading if you wear high heels. Watch the 3D Scan below- You will see the pressure on the Sesmoids of the Great toe and the clawing of the toes as the foot tries to cope with the high position the foot is forced into. It will obviously have a huge effect on the way that you are able to Heel strike and Toe off, affecting the whole of the normal windlass mechanism of the sole of the foot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ykAo4DGCjxA

There is also recent research from the Journal of Experiential Biology to suggest that heel wearers have, on average 13% shorter calf muscle fibres than those wearing flatter shoes…. so I am sticking to my trainers! You can not just go from one to the other as easily as you think, if the length of your achilles is being varied so greatly under load.