This is pretty startling. I hope women who wear high heels regularly see this article.
A new study shows that regularly wearing high heels can cause muscle and tendon changes in your legs — to the point where wearing flats or flip-flops can be painful.
Wearing two-inch heels (or higher) five or more days a week shrinks a woman’s calf muscle fibers by 13 percent, on average. It also thickens her Achilles tendon — which attaches the calf muscle to the heel — by 22 percent, according to the study, which was published Thursday in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
These changes alter the resting position of the ankle, causing the foot to point down more than normal. For some habitual high-heel wearers, this can make switching from stilettos to flats a shock, says the lead author of the study, Robert Csapo, a doctoral candidate at the University of Vienna’s Centre of Sport Sciences and University Sports, in Austria.
This is pretty startling. I hope women who wear high heels regularly see this article.
