Shoe Inserts

What do shoe inserts mean? Why are they important and which types exist? How can I fit the best shoe inserts to my feet? Which methods could be used to fit insoles? Where can I find suppliers?

The information of this website contains all needed answers:  locating, choosing, and adjusting them to your feet.
To begin with, shoe inserts, which are otherwise known as insoles, orthotics, or arch supports, form within the shoe a layer that supplies direct support for the feet.
Not only that shoe inserts supply a cozier surface to our shoes but also have many other benefits: they serve as shock absorbers; they function to balance and equally distribute our body mass, they enhance our posture, and prevent accumulated damage and pain to the feet etc.

An Upsetting Fact about Shoe inserts

More than 90 per cent of branded shoe companies don’t bother to add quality shoe inserts and instead compromise on simpler insoles. Thus, most of their important designated functions are not being met and this happens even with the best upscale shoes and brands. Do you have any high-quality expensive sport shoes? If you’d try to pull out their shoe inserts you’ll probably discover that they are no more than a thin shallow piece of worthless material which is in no way standing for the much valuable functions of genuine shoe inserts.

High-quality insoles are actually a substantial supplement to our shoes and therefore they are not part of brand new shoes.
As a rule, everybody can benefit from a high-quality shoe inserts, not only those with painful feet.
A good pair of shoe inserts is sufficient and can be readily adjusted from one pair of shoes to the other.

Let’s get to Know our Feet!

Before we shall start with choosing our shoe inserts, we’d better come to terms with our feet. Typologically speaking, there are three types of foot arches and this classification serves as a benchmark for adjusting of shoe inserts.

• Regular arch (see left foot in diagram) – in most people the arch between the foot heel and balls of the feet is of an average height. • Low arch (see middle foot in diagram) is also called flat feet or over pronation. People with flat feet need their feet to be constantly treated. • High arch (see right foot in diagram) may result in imbalanced support for the feet which ends in body weight being unevenly carried over by the heels and balls of the feet. • Sometimes an arch of a foot may differ from the other one. • People with regular arch can enjoy high-quality off-the-shelf products while those with high or low arch may need the shoe inserts to be customized to their feet.

Types of Shoe Inserts

There are many types of shoe inserts, since additionally to regular shoe companies, every company that produces shoe inserts has its own unique materials, patents and benefits. For one thing, most off-the-shelf products of big retail chain stores are not considered as high-quality products. Only few companies manufacture high-quality off-the-shelf products that can meet the required needs of our feet. In this webpage you can locate some recommended manufacturers of good insoles. Most shoe inserts are typically elastic, designed as arch supporters, made from materials that serve for shock absorption (mostly EVA) and layers of sweat absorbing or sweat repelling material. Some of them are rigid shoe inserts which are hand-made and customized for people with unique feet conditions. Certainly some shoe inserts may be a combination of both elastic and rigid materials, and silicon-made shoe inserts are available too.

Sport insoles usually come in full-length size; however women’s fashion shoes may have special shoe inserts of a ¾ -length size so that they could better fit; however this may be at the expense of not supplying enough support to the toes.

Adjustment and Measuring Methods

The first step for finding the right shoe inserts for your feet is to measure your foot arch, and measuring could be done in qualified centers and professional shops of comfortable shoes – the testing shouldn‘t cost you anything.

Following are some principal methods for measuring:

• Off-the-shelf shoes – according to the arch of your foot choose the right shoe inserts in line with the recommended list of shoe shops below. Usually a size of a shoe insert is the same as that of a standard shoe (and you’d better verify that the shoe you wear is of an appropriate size).
• A computerized method – foot mapping – you should only have to stand on an electronic optical foot scanner with pressure sensors that feed a computer with data about the feet. These data are being interpreted and plotted into a pressure map of the feet. It takes only few seconds of scanning to analyze the type of arch you have and the kind of shoe inserts you need.
• Foam boxes – that keep an impression of the feet in a special kind of sponge that preserve the shape of the feet. Based on this impression, a professional podiatrist will casts orthotics. The test is done both in standing and sitting positions to emulate various conditions of pressure. This is an old method, which can succeed depending on the level of manufacturer expertise.
• Unique plaster casts for manufacturing of rigid shoe inserts. This method might not apply in many cases.