Why You Need Arch Support in Your Walking Shoes

In a world where we are bombarded by advertisers and marketers from large corporations and international brands its important to stay above the surface and not fall to slogans or false promises.

With that in mind, fitness walkers should be cautious about choosing shoes that are marketed as having arch support or motion control as you may not necessarily need the additional support and cushioning these provide.

Who Needs Arch Support in Walking Shoes & Why?

Strictly speaking every person benefits from some level of arch support in shoes. Underpronators, overpronators and normal arched people all need arch support, especially if on their feet all day. The actual shape you individually need is dependent on your intended activity and actual arch type.

Walking Activity Types

If you are looking for a shoe that is ideal for a particular activity then you might like to check out our guides sorted by activity for men and by activity for women.

Fitness & Power Walkers

Fitness & Power walkers walk longer distances than the average person and walk at a much faster pace. This means the flow of pressure to their feet during a stride cycle is different because of the speed they walk.

The heel hits the ground with more force than an average walker, more like a runner.

The Ultimate Guide to Get Fit Easily With Walking Exercise 4
Power Walking is Serious Exercise

The movement or flow of pressure from heel to midfoot and arch area is rapid and transitory but repetitive.

The force of pressure on the toes and ball of the feet is necessarily more, in order to maintain a quick momentum.

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As you can see there is quite a lot going on in the foot and it is very repetitive because of the number of strides needed to take to cover the distance walked. As a result, they tend to get more foot issues than the more casual walker.

That is why fitness and power walkers are the main audiences for walking shoes with arch support if they suffer from overpronation, supination, or experience pain in their heels, ankles, and shins.

Your lifestyle or foot shape may not require more than normal arch support so read this article before you pay extra for walking shoes.

More Casual Walking Exercise

Most people are not power walkers but engage in walking at a more normal pace. They may walk while having power business meetings, they may walk in social groups or with loved ones, they may go out with their families or walk the dog or they may just walk to get away from it all, get some exercise and grab a moments peace to listen to their favorite podcast.

The commonality between these groups is that they walk for moderate distances and at a moderate pace.

In the motion of their stride, their heels impact the ground with less force than fitness/power walkers because they are moving slower. Their arches have more time to flex and distribute pressure better as there is more time for the foot to go through the normal phase of pronation.

This is not good if you are an overpronator though, because more time equates to more inward roll of the foot which becomes even more excessive. Overpronators should always wear footwear that offers appropriate support.

Regular walkers experience less pressure on their toes and the ball of their feet when pushing off to continue their forward motion.

The needs of regular walkers are less intense than fitness & power walkers and runners but they do still have a need for arch support. the biggest difference is in the levels of cushioning needed in the various parts of the shoe – and comfort.

Treadmill Walkers in a Gym
Treadmill walking is popular for office workers & in bad weather.

Walking on Treadmills and Other Exercise Machines

People who enjoy treadmill walking or exercising on machines, or are forced to by the weather, have yet different needs.

Most machines and treadmills particularly have some spring in the walking surface. This is totally different from walking on concrete and more akin to walking on grass, yet even more springy.

For this activity, you need support to your arches as there is still the pressure distribution and roll phase of each step taken. However they do not need, nor do they want a lot of cushioning because they are getting this already from their exercise machine of choice.

Other machines such as elliptical trainers and crossfit machines have much much lower impact pressure profiles for each step as the foot remains on the foot plates and simply pushes to maintain motion.

Trail Walkers

Trail walkers tend to walk longer distances than casual walkers and walk over more rugged, often wet, terrain.

This activity requires a shoe with much-reduced flex and a thicker, more rugged sole to stand up to the rough ground underfoot.

They also need to provide stability to maintain balance as you walk over uneven ground whilst providing some cushioning for comfort.

Waterproofing is essential if you intend to walk through wet areas, wet grass, tiny streams and the like. The degree of waterproofing needed will naturally depend on where you intend to walk your trail.

These shoes, more commonly boots, are much heavier than is desirable for any of the above types of walking. Support is needed for the arch to avoid pain developing because of the distances and longer times spent walking at any one time.

People walking about the city - city walkers
People walking about the city include shoppers, commuters & city explorers

City Walkers, People at Work & Shoppers

City walkers are those who regularly walk for fairly long periods on concrete surfaces. they walk going about their business, maybe delivery persons or maybe just shopping or commuting.

These people need some arch support but their walking tends to be more intermittent, with short bursts of walking leading into periods of standing still.

For some activities, the standing periods can be quite long and for others, the walking periods are longer. Once again arch support suitable for your feet will help if you have an issue but otherwise, you are mainly looking for comfort.

Cushioning throughout the shoe and a suitable design of the shoe which may be dressy or casual or a work type shoe with safety toe caps is what is needed for city walkers, delivery persons, and dedicated shoppers.

 

Click to Watch a Video on Arch Supports

What is Arch Support in Shoes?

For footwear, arch support is a raised area in the footbed of the shoe which resists your foot arch flattening as your body weight is transferred through your stride. It is an important feature to distribute forces evenly in the foot. The height and stiffness required depends on your foot shape and your activity.

Our feet are naturally built with arches that support our body weight while standing and walking.

Because of how different our feet are built some people may require extra support and cushioning for the arch of the foot to prevent and minimize pain as well as help in the injury recovery process.

Arch support in shoes is essentially any material and mechanism that is slightly lifted with extra cushioning and support that allows for the even distribution of weight on the surface of the insole.

 

Picture of foot arch shape and bone structure beneath
Various Types of Foot Arch

The arch of the foot works in unison with bones, tendons, and ligaments to allow the foot to store elastic energy every time it comes in contact with the ground and then the recoil effect by the arch pushes off and propels you forward like a spring.

There are three types of foot arches.

The first is what is known as a “normal arch”, not to say that other foot arches are somehow non-normal. In this, anatomically ‘normalized’ shape the foot has a clear but not overtly expressed… well, arch.

The two others are fallen arches and high arches.

A fallen arch refers mostly to flat feet that have little to no distinctive arches in the middle of the foot. Feet with fallen arches are much more likely to develop overpronation.

Pronation is the word used to describe the natural roll of the foot when placed on the ground in the movement phase.

This phase is essentially three stages heel strike – arch distribution – push off. Every time you take a step your foot naturally curves inwards but too much of this phenomenon is known as over pronation and can lead to joint pain as well as long-term injury

Contrarily, a high arched foot has a dramatically raised mid-foot. The connective tissue and bone alignment of high arched feet do not allow for much flexibility and the arch does a poor job of absorbing pressure and allowing the foot to roll normally. This leads to higher pressures in the outside area of the foot (because the arch is inflexible and does not ‘flex or spring' to distribute pressure and is suggestive of supination.

Arch support and similar orthotics like motion control were introduced as a means to help overpronators, flat footers, and supinators who may experience pain during long walks with non-supported walking shoes.

However, how are we to know that shoes branded as having arch support aren’t just marketing ploys by large companies. After all on average a shoe with arch support or motion control is priced around 25% higher than regular minimalist shoes.

The following information is based on a wide range of studies including medical studies such as the effect of orthotics on flat-footed children, the effect of orthotics on improving balance and reducing pain. There is a multitude of studies to look at if you want to spend a few months reading them all but the best study is personal empirical evidence.

It is undoubtedly true that shoes with support in the form of molded insoles do reduce pain for some people. It is obviously true that a shoe with rigid reinforcement in the shoe to prevent flex will be less flexible than a shoe without; all other things being equal.

Most of my day is spent researching shoes and reading users comments, researching manufacturers literature and reading various studies. I mix what I read with my personal experience to try to explain things to you understandably and strip out the hype and technobabble that just serves to confuse.

I can tell you that many people find relief through supportive shoes that match their needs and others who experience discomfort from certain features of a shoe.

Anyway, this article will mostly focus on walkers and arch support in walking shoes.

Power Walker with Obvious Overpronation also Showing Firming to Midsole of Walking Shoe
Power Walker with Obvious Overpronation – Explanation of Firming to Midsole of Walking Shoe

Who Can Arch Support Help?

The simple fact is arch support helps everyone but helps some more than others. Overpronators and people with high foot arches benefit the most but all foot arch support is not equal. The amount of flex, cushioning at the support and height are the most important factors.

While over-pronation and supination are literally opposite issues they may have the same solution for fitness walkers.

Arch support in walking shoes is a general term for a raised and more cushioned midsole and insole. For instance, a combination of motion control and arch support is good for overpronators. Pressure on their midfoot is more evenly distributed by the supportive insole and the motion control reduces rotational flex in the shoe which would otherwise allow it to twist, causing roll which is what needs to be reduced for overpronators.

Whereas a slightly raised arch with extra cushioning will help increase balance and stability for supinators by allowing more even pressure distribution, but the motion control or reduced torsional flex is less necessary because their inflexible arches are not rolling so much in the first place and what little there is you want to allow to happen.

In fact, enhanced arch support in walking shoes will prove beneficial to treadmill, road, and light trail walkers with flat feet, overpronators, and supination suffering from knee, shin, ankle, and heel pain.

Foot therapist massaging foot
If you have pain get down to your podiatrist to find out why.

Knee Pain

You would think that walking and running are similar enough for the use of arch support to have similar effects but this isn’t the case unless we are talking about power or fitness walking.

By this, I mean walkers who walk at a very fast pace (almost jogging but not quite) and over longer than average distances.

Running shoes are quite suitable for this activity type because the motion and pressure forces on the foot are similar between runners and power/fitness walkers.

It really boils down to weight. When running you are bouncing off on one foot, two to three times your body weight.

Whereas when walking you aren’t so much using the bounce from your inertia rather you are rolling off from your heel to the ball of your foot in a smooth motion with often two feet on the ground using only one to 1.5 times your body weight.

Those who suffer from knee pain and have walking shoes with arch support will not necessarily see faster recovery time but at least there will be no extra pain inflicted on the knee.

If you have knee pain and are looking for shoes that might help, our review of shoes for Knee Pain article might help you.

Shin Pain

Pain from shin injury or more scientifically medial tibial stress syndrome can be easily reduced in people with high pronation with the use of arch support and extra cushioning.

Arch support is especially beneficial for people suffering from flat feet or severe overpronation. In this instance, extra support and comfort actually can help prevent shin injury and not just lessen pain.

Ankle Pain

No one likes getting a sprained ankle but you can take some steps to prevent injury during your speed, tread or road daily walks.

Arch support will soften the load and weight on the Achilles as well as keep the foot straight and stable so that future sprains can be avoided.

Some studies have observed that orthotics can help shorten the recovery time for inverted ankle sprains.

Woman with pain in her ankle walking on a road surface
The wrong shoe support can cause problems. The right support can eliminate pain.

Heel Pain

Injuries to the heels are among the most common that happen to fitness walkers.

Because of the extra cushioning in the shoe and the added arch support, people suffering from heel injury have reported feeling relief in the affected area.

Arch support for heel pain is especially useful for supinators.

For anyone with flat feet, a more neutral cushioning is recommended.

The Bottom Line

Here’s the thing, shoes marketed as having arch support are in fact more expensive than non-supported models. However, if you are a passionate fitness walker who has a rigorous walking routine you may want to consider paying extra for added support.

The cushioning of the insole and midsole, as well as the overall build of the shoe that supports the foot arch allowing for a smooth roll-off from heel to ball and an elastic spring-like lift-off from the ground with minimal effort, is well worth it.

This is especially true for anyone suffering from supination, mild overpronation, and severe pronation or flat feet.

Related Questions:

How to Know if I Have Pronation?

The three easy ways are to video from behind and compare the alignment of your foot to the image above. Less reliable but still good is to examine the pattern of wear on your shoes – wear outside likely supinator, inside overpronator. Or do a wet test and study the shape of your footprint – full print means flat feet, thin middle means high arches.

There's an image above which shows a person with overpronation. Unfortunately you can't see yourself from behind but you could ask someone to take pictures and study your stance as you go through the stance cycle.

There are simple tests you can do right now to get a better understanding of your foot’s pronation. Keep in mind these tests are not exhaustive and should not be the only factor that determine whether you need arch support, motion control, or custom orthotics in your walking shoes.

A common method is knows as the wet test. Simply dampen the bottom of your feet and place them on a piece of hydrophilic paper or similar cloth. A torn off side of a cardboard box will do to stand on.

If you have an almost singular flat image then your feet are over pronated whereas if you see a thin line connecting your toes and heel with little ball area covered then you are likely a supinator.

The same test can be done with washable paint.

You can also look at the bottom of your old walking shoes. The portions with the most wear and tear will indicate your pronation. Those worn on the insides indicate over pronation and worn on the outsides means likely supination.

Again most experts insist that this should not be the only factor that determines what kind of shoe you need. Each foot is different and those with over pronation may not necessarily benefit from motion control or arch support.

Do Runners Really Need Arch Support?

Arch support in running shoes may actually lead to complications or shorter injury recovery times.

Studies found that for runners the elevated insole can result in pain and osteoarthritis of the knees. This occurs due to the increased impact on the knees after every step, in fact, the impact was 12% higher when compared to barefoot walking even in people with supination or over pronation.

Despite what brands will tell you, runners may not necessarily need arch support instead custom orthotics and other running shoes will do the trick, unlike fitness walking shoes where arch support plays a much more important role.

Similarly, motion control shoes only correct 2% of your gait while running whereas in walking they play a crucial role in providing support, cushioning, and the necessary elasticity to spring off the ground.

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