Dress shoes without a heel?

[masqueofhastur]

Originally Posted by stickonatree

i'm not trying to strike up an argument with you, but the deformation that happens to adults are NOT similar to what happens in a child. like holdfast said, what is anatomically present in a child's food differs from an adult's. an adult's foot will deform slower, not quicker, than a child's, given exact same conditions. you've seen much more deformed feet than "this" (which is referring to the spacing of children's feet?), but as a counter example how about binding of feet of chinese women? it's bound and growth stunted as a child; as an adult, it would do little harm seeing how the foot's already grown. then as a person ages, the bones in the foot change again, losing more cartilage, becoming more brittle and susceptible to foot injuries.

In foot binding the bones are actually broken, it's not merely constricting the growth, the feet are literally being mangled. That could still be done to adults, but convincing an adult to go through with it would obviously be much harder. Children grow much faster than adults, so yes, changes will take longer for adults (and they'll also take longer to correct) but that doesn't mean the changes don't occur at all and that only children are at risk of having their feet deformed by wearing constraining shoes. Children also don't have their skulls fully closed either, but adults are still susceptible to serious head injuries even if children are more at risk.

i think his point was that (using your analogy) the common cold is not something to ponder and exercise so much time upon, as opposed to MRSA, which one should spend lots of time on. given the lack of true primary evidence studies, i'm assuming the matter of dress shoes for men is significant as the common cold. i also would like to point out that dress shoes with heels have been worn for more than a century, and i've really not heard much negative significant impacts from them. a search from pubmed (the NIH's digital archive of life science journals and articles)also yielded little results.

As I've already pointed out, I've noticed significant improvements in my own feet since going to completely flat shoes, so it's certainly worthwhile for me to be going to some effort for it. I'm also not alone in this, so the absence of studies showing negative results could merely be due to the lack of a large enough sample population for comparison purposes.

 

[masqueofhastur]

Originally Posted by americanswede

Maybe I´m entering the discussion too late, but when you say shoes with no heel. Is this sort of what you mean?
http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/sto...5212&langId=-1
http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/sto...1547&langId=-1
http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/sto...7520&langId=-1
The last one sort of has a low heel, but nothing to annoying I think. I like some sort of heel on a nice looking shoe, and I have a pair similair to this one and I don´t even think about the heel.

The first two are along the lines of what I'm looking for, thanks. Second one might be better as I'm really not fond of pointed toes. The Flat Soled Bruno Magli I saw on their site looked rather odd but the patent dress shoe doesn't look too out of place on it.

Originally Posted by rjmaiorano

There is also research along the lines of achilles tendon reflex (in addition to other aspects) about some of the Central American groups that have been specifically good at ultra-distance runs.

Thanks for reminding me. I've seen that mentioned in discussion of some terahumara sandals. Time to start looking through Infomine.

I had the impression that you wanted out of healed shoes to remove any toe stress and help stretch the back tendon for athletic purposes... as in wrestling, boxing, MMA etc.. you are always on your toes and want the extra edge. Who knows, getting out of healed dress shoes may actually make a difference that could be the difference.

Sort of. I already wear shoes with no heel every day, either simple Feiyues, Vibram Five Fingers, wrestling shoes and I've got a pair of Vivo Barefoots coming in. I still have my pair of Fluevog Chelseas and Florscheim dress shoes and both of them give me pain after 2-3 hours of wearing them. The dress shoes would be to avoid getting that on the occasions that I do wear them, I wouldn't be expecting to go running while wearing the dress shoes.

Originally Posted by j

Couldn't you put a thick topy on the sole and cut the heel down a bit and nearly level it out?

That might not go so well, I haven't had much luck with re-soling shoes. The leather soles also aren't the most comfortable as you don't have a good feel of the ground you're on. The shoe would also most likely still have the toe spring which is only of use with the raised heel.

Originally Posted by vvoc

opening ceremony shoes = heelless...

Opening ceremony of what? Since it's on ImageShack I can't figure out where it's from.

 

[Teacher]

Originally Posted by gdl203

Someone needs to step away from the roids...

 

[LA Guy]

Originally Posted by masqueofhastur

...Opening ceremony of what? Since it's on ImageShack I can't figure out where it's from.

Okay there rager. To answer your question, Opening Ceremony is the eponymous house brand of the Opening Ceremony stores in NYC and LA.

Seriously, you gotta get rid of that crazy rage. Just let it slide.

 

[masqueofhastur]

Originally Posted by LA Guy

Okay there rager. To answer your question, Opening Ceremony is the eponymous house brand of the Opening Ceremony stores in NYC and LA.

Seriously, you gotta get rid of that crazy rage. Just let it slide.

I'm sure there's a word for people who think something that mild is rage, but I don't think I could find a font size small enough to be appropriate for it

So in otherwords it's fairly useless for me living in Vancouver?

 

[Thurston]

Originally Posted by masqueofhastur

I'm sure there's a word for people who think something that mild is rage, but I don't think I could find a font size small enough to be appropriate for it

So in otherwords it's fairly useless for me living in Vancouver?

Q.E.D.

 

[Philosoph]

I'm not sure cutting down the heel would be a great solution. That might just create a different but worse situation. I didn't know Opening Ceremony were heel-less, so thanks for the tip, vvoc. OP: get a grip. Your achilles is not going to asplode if your shoe has a slight heel on it. Just avoid dress shoes if it's THAT big a deal. Or just go barefoot, and lay the beatdown on anyone who asks you why.

 

[masqueofhastur]

You're suggesting I should settle for something less than exactly what I want? My budget isn't *that* tight.

 

[RJman]

It's nice to get a genuine Internet Tough Guy on the forum.

I have nothing else to add here.

 

[eg1]

Originally Posted by Brian278

These shoes have added 3 inches to Jimmy's vertical.

And taken several hundredths of seconds off his 40 time ...

As for the OP, there is always: http://www.earth.us/comfort.asp (the mid-70s version of which served as my highschool uniform shoe )

or: http://www.swissmasai.co.uk/Default.aspx?lang=en-GB

Rock on with your bad self ...

 

[JLibourel]

I am mildly curious that this thread has gone through 54 posts without somebody pointing out the obvious fact that if there were obvious physiological advantages to heeless shoddings, why is it then that all the footgear for intense phyical activities that put far more strain on the legs and feet than would typically be encountered by wearers of dress shoes--running shoes, military boots, hiking boots, etc.--continue to have heels (or elevate the heel of the foot to some degree)? Certainly, the running shoe companies must work in close consultation with podiatrists. If eliminating the heel bestowed a competitive advantage, wouldn't this have been discovered long ago? Likewise, the military establishments of the world are always looking to improve the efficiency of their combat personnel, yet they all continue issue boots with heels. Doesn't this tell us something?

On a personal note, for about 20 years, I did a great deal of running--before my knee blew out 11 years ago. I would frequently run up to 16 miles barefoot (on the beaches of Santa Monica Bay). I also did a lot of running shod, both on pavement and on dirt tracks. I don't recollect a lot of difference in comfort and whatnot when I was using decent shoes.

 

[Philosoph]

I'm not fanatically opposed to heels, so I don't feel like trying to tear your points to shreds. But...

As far as I know, military boots simply evolved out of more traditionally-styled boots, whose heels were designed to secure the foot in the stirrup when riding a horse. I don't know if you've ever tried running in military boots. I have, and it's a very inefficient way to move yourself around. For efficiency... I think that has more to do with the overall weight of the boot. Armies with lighter footwear consume less rations (I actually read a study on this, can't remember where).

I have no idea whether running shoe companies have dialogue with podiatrists. I'm not a podiatrist, but it could be that the heels are designed to minimize the harm of bad movement patterns rather than correcting them. At the very least, heels aren't good for all activities: sprinters' shoes have either no heel or maybe even a negative heel.

My own experience: most people wear shoes/boots with elevated heels. When teaching people to squat correctly, I've noticed that the vast majority of the time people have impaired ankle mobility, which they have to spend some time correcting. Draw your own conclusions from that.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Originally Posted by masqueofhastur

Is there such a thing as a dress shoe with zero heel? Or am I doomed to shortening my calf and having my toe muscles atrophy due to the toe spring any time I want shoes that are appropriate for a suit?

 

[amlai]

I don't have a direct source for any of this, but I do recall reading about a study done on cultures that walked around barefoot versus those that walked around in shoes. My recollection was that there was a siginificant difference in the thickness of the metatarasals (primarily 4th and 5th). The implication was that wearing shoes caused them to be underdeveloped.

It was also stated that those who never wore shoes complained of fewer foot problems. This to some extent makes sense... we were never really designed evolutionarily to be sticking chunks of leather on our feet.

Now, whether or not a shoe with no heel affects this at all, and correlates to anything to the above study, I have no idea. And take all of this with a grain of salt... I'm fairly skeptical of any study.

And this whole thing with whether or not walking around barefoot is good for you or not seems to be almost a religious debate. There is one camp that seems to say that one should never walk around barefoot (to which I think is absolute nonsense since I don't understand how in the heck we would evolve in such a way), and then the other camp saying that one should never wear shoes.