Personal Health : High-Heel Shoes--Chic and Dangerous

High heels look chic, but they’re especially rough on the balls of the feet, a new study suggests.

The real killers are shoes with 3-inch heels, according to Rebecca Snow, a research assistant at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs who conducted the heel study as a master’s degree student at UC Davis. She evaluated 45 women walking in 3-inch and lower heels. Compared with going barefoot, the highest heels increased pressure on the ball of the foot 76%. Two-inch heels increased the pressure 53% and one-inch heels increased the pressure 33%.

Franklin Kase, a Burbank podiatrist and past president of the Los Angeles County Podiatric Medical Society, has little good to say about high heels. “They increase the risk of stress fractures, calluses, hammertoes, Achilles’ tendon problems and ankle sprains.”

But he’s warned countless women who still refuse to part with their daring pumps. To these high-heel diehards, he says: “After you get home, kick off your high heels and stretch your hamstrings (back-of-the-thigh muscles) and Achilles’ tendon (connecting the back of the heel to the calf muscles). Then wear running shoes the rest of the day.”

When buying high-heel shoes, Kase recommends taking along a ruler. “Women often underestimate heel heights,” he says. If that’s embarrassing, Kase suggests, use your thumb: from the tip to the knuckle is about an inch: “Keep heel heights to two knuckles high or less.”

Computer Fitness

Strength-training exercises don’t just improve physique. Increasing upper-body strength, say physical therapists, might help ward off “computeritis”--the repetitive strain injuries associated with computer use. The premise is simple. Building upper-body strength--even with simple desk exercises--can improve posture, which in turn can minimize or prevent problems encountered by chronic typists, says Betsy Fleisher Terry, a West Los Angeles physical therapist who often cares for computeritis victims.

Terry and Laure James, a physical therapist at Valley Hospital in Van Nuys, suggest several exercises you can do without leaving your chair.

Shoulder Blade Pinch: While sitting, squeeze the shoulder blades together. Hold for the count of five. Relax. Benefit: Reduces the stress that builds up in the shoulder blade muscles.

Wrist extensions: Place the wrist on the arm of a chair. Relax the fingers downward. Bring the wrist up perpendicular to the arm. Begin with 10 repetitions. Increase to 30. Benefit: Strengthens the muscles on the back of the forearm, which help stabilize the wrist while typing.

Chair raise: Put your hands, fingers pointing outwards, on the arm of a chair. Raise yourself up and down. Begin with 10 repetitions; increase to 20 or 30. Benefit: Strengthens the muscles which help extend the elbow and the arm.