How Important Are Good Workout Shoes?
You might not ever think about the need for good workout shoes or have them further down the list of necessities, but they are far more important than having the latest stylish workout outfit. If you don’t have good foot support, you could find yourself benched because of ankle or foot injuries. Your feet go through a lot of stress during exercise. At the least, they’re the grounding force and hold up your entire body. They need to be cushioned and supportive, so when you twist and turn or land back on the ground after you jump, they’re protected.
Not only are well-made shoes important, the right type of shoe for the activity is also important.
One of the biggest setbacks for people on the road to fitness isn’t that pint of Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer, but injury. Preventing injury is extremely important and one of the reasons trainers emphasize form so much. There are nineteen muscles, thirty-plus joints, twenty-six bones and hundreds of tendons and ligaments in the foot. That means a lot of ways you can sustain injury if there’s not enough support. Getting the right workout shoe can help prevent some problems.
Different workouts require different shoes.
Running shoes differ from shoes for yoga/dance, HIIT or weightlifting. Each of those exercises affect the foot in different ways. If you run, you want a shoe that provides protection from the constant pounding and one that is based on your arch type and gait. For weight lifting, a low profile shoe with a good grip and stable hard sole gives you the stability you need for explosive movements. You have to have lots of support, stability and cushioning if you’re doing HIIT movements. Lightweight shoes are important for dance or yoga.
Don’t skimp on your shoes, but you don’t need to spend your entire budget either.
You need shoes that fit well, which should be top priority. You also need shoes with the right amount of support. Don’t worry about brand names, instead, focus on the features the shoe offers for your favorite sport. While the shoes may be a bit more expensive than normal tennis shoes, the cost isn’t for extra advertising, as it is for some name brands, but for quality. Ill fitting and inappropriate shoes can cause, corns, bunions, ankle strains, pain on the ball of the foot and fractures
- Do you do a lot of different types of workouts and can only afford one good pair of shoes? Consider cross training shoes. They offer the rigidity of lifting shoes and the cushioning of running shoes.
- The best time to buy shoes is when your feet are at their largest, late afternoon or evening. It guarantees they’ll be large enough to avoid pinching, yet still won’t slip and slide on your feet.
- While you may see some top weightlifters going barefoot, shoes help when you need a wider range of motion or are doing deeper squats by aiding in foot positioning.
- If you’re focusing on a specific fitness area, such as weightlifting, it becomes more important to have the right type of shoe. They provide the benefits you need to excel in your chosen area.
For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health and Fitness
Many clients start out at Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, Florida, dreading their new adventure to get back into shape, but soon change their attitude toward fitness. If you’ve ever tried to get fit before and failed, your attitude is the first thing you need to check at the door of the gym. Why? A bad attitude not only uses too much energy that could be better directed into doing something great for yourself or others, but it also is almost a guarantee you’ll find an excuse to quit your fitness goals. The good news is that you can change how you think about fitness.
Many of my clients at Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, FL, ask me about a variety of different fitness techniques and options. One that I find particularly good and have said so before is planning your meals and cooking them for a week at a time. It not only helps people stick with a healthy plan of eating, it makes it easier, saves time and money. People ask how to start meal planning and exactly what it is. Typically, it’s planning a week’s worth of meals during the week, often on Wednesday because grocery sales are announced, then create a grocery list. Shopping is done after you eat on Thursday or Friday and meals are cooked for the next week over the weekend.
What is BMI, and is it a good measure of your health? BMI—body mass index—uses your height to weight ration to determine the amount of body fat you have. The more body fat, the more potential there is for poor health. However, it’s not always a true picture or the final verdict. For instance, people with a great deal of muscle mass might appear on paper to be overweight, since a cubic inch of muscle tissue weighs more than a cubic inch of fat tissue. However, that’s simply not true. BMI also doesn’t take account bone density or the composition of a person’s body.
We use a lot of different types of equipment at Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, FL. For strength building, one of our favorites is kettlebells. Not only does working with kettlebells make the workout more intense, so you’ll get more benefit in less time used, it also works the whole body and addresses other forms of fitness besides strength, such as balance, flexibility and endurance. Kettlebell workouts are great for people all fitness levels. It’s all a matter of choosing the right weight of kettlebell and learning the proper form.
Have you recently had an injury or suffered from an overuse injury? Does arthritis or bursitis cause pain when you move your knee. If you’ve already seen your doctor, and he gave the okay to exercise, finding movements that are kind to your knees is important. In some cases, your doctor may even suggest physical therapy where you’ll get a list of exercises that not only build strength and provides a cardio workout, also can build strength around the knee muscle and help relieve pain.
If you want great looking abs and a flat belly that tells the world you’re fit, it takes work. At Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, FL, we help you achieve that goal. We provide workouts for a flat stomach, but it takes more than that. Great looking abs start in the kitchen and continue in the gym. It doesn’t matter how fit you are, if there’s a layer of fat covering that flat tummy, nobody will know. You may have the best abs, but won’t have a flat stomach.
There are a lot of reasons to start weight training. Training with weights help build strength, it also burns more fat and not lean muscle mass like cardio does. That’s important, since the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn 24/7. You’ll benefit your bone health, lower your cholesterol, lower your blood pressure, reduce pain and ease symptoms of arthritis as you also make yourself stronger to avoid injury. Most people start strength training to help lose weight, which is why so many people want help with weight training for beginners.
It only takes making a few changes at a time to get big results. At Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, Florida, FL we help you make those changes and identify those small steps to a healthier future. It can start with getting more exercise. You don’t have to become an Olympic athlete overnight. In fact, it can be as simple as walking a little further by parking at the first spot you find when you shop, rather than circling the parking lot to find the spot closest to the door. It might mean getting up and moving a bit every hour if you’re at a sedentary job or taking the stairs for a floor or two rather than the elevator.
It can get pretty hot around here, even in the fall and spring. That makes exercising or being active outside a little more dangerous or uncomfortable. Whether you walk, run or bike in the heat, you need to do it safely. While the summer is the hottest, those unusually hot days in the spring and fall can give your body a shock, since it isn’t acclimated to the heat. It can be challenging to ride in the heat, but here are a few ways to make it safer.