Why our shoes are so comfortable for work

Our partnership with Salford University provides us with serious insight into the impact of pain at work and how we can make changes in the material, ergonomics and features for day

Why our shoes are so comfortable for work

Our partnership with Salford University provides us with serious insight into the impact of pain at work and how we can make changes in the material, ergonomics and features for day to day comfort.

Our knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) with Salford University has allowed us to have access to their professors' knowledge at the university, and to their labs where we can test different types of footwear, different materials for muscle fatigue, muscle activation, and most importantly plantar pressure. So we transfer their knowledge with our knowledge of creating comfortable work shoes to bring you the benefits.

The Science of Biomechanics

Biomechanics is a big part of what we learn from the experts Professor Christopher Nester and Carina Price.

What does this even mean?

Well, biomechanics is just the forces and motion of the human body and the impact of external and internal factors. So, how can we use biomechanics to make super comfortable work shoes? It helps us to understand the demands working life puts on the body, find risk factors for injury and understand what external factors, like shoes, can have on the body. From there, we can then find what we need to change to make our work shoes really comfortable.

Tiny Changes = Huge Impact

From our partnership, we’ve learned that tiny increments of movement and change that develops within your musculoskeletal system, can create a huge impact to how you feel when you’ve on your feet all day. The changes are so small that they can’t be seen with the eye only through our research.

What do we actually measure?

There are a variety of metrics and datasets that we measure to ensure we are capturing as much data as possible that will feed into the development of your shoes, here are some of the measures we use:

Movement

In particular work place movements - static standing, weight shifting, shuffling, walking and sitting - and how this has an impact on your musculoskeletal system.

Muscle Activity

Is measured using electrodes inserted through the skin into the muscle which measures muscle activity in response to a nerve's stimulation of the muscle.

Ground Reaction Forces (GRF)

Is used during gait analysis to reveal the smallest changes of the gait pattern or shifts in the centre of gravity

Plantar Pressure

Is measured using an insole attached to a pressure reader which points up any pain points on the bottom of the foot including rubbing. This helps guide us in what shoe shape, material, density etc works for different foot types.

Comfort Data

Is a collection of data that we collect from wearers or testers that give us qualitative data about the comfort of our shoes to see how we can improve. There's something about getting actual feedback about how it feels...

Foot Shape/Size/Structure

We analyse people's foot shapes, sizes and structure to ensure that we build the correct support and shape in our footwear to keep your foot in the right posture.

Our Customer Panel

We have a group of 180+ members who spend all day on their feet at work and take part in our research. This can be anything from taking part in a trial of a new product, voting on designs of new concepts or taking part in a focus group.