High Arches, Low Arches
A main concern of shoe engineers is creating shoes that provide the right amount of arch support to prevent (or fix) common gait misalignments that lead to injury. During this activity, students look at their own footprints and determine whether they have either of the two most prominent gait misalignments: overpronation (collapsing arches) or supination (high arches). Knowing the shape of a person's foot, and their natural arch movement is necessary to design shoes to fix these gain alignments.
The average person's footprint has a distinct forefoot, midfoot and heel.
The first step of the engineering design process is to recognize a need and identify a problem, which in this case, is to address overpronation and supination. These gait misalignments can cause a variety of hip, knee and foot injuries. Determining the shape of a person's foot and their natural arch movement helps identify the gait misalignment, the first step in designing a shoe or orthotic to fix it so a person can walk or run pain-free.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain how engineers are involved in shoe design and how they help people walk and run pain-free.
- Explain the difference between overpronation and supination.
- Explain the health consequences of gait misalignments.
- Identify overpronation and supination by looking at a footprint, and determine the type of orthotic that would compensate for it.