Friday, September 16, 2022

Got Balance?

In light of my ever advancing age, my love of four-inch stilettos and my recent tumble down the stairs in heels, I am rerunning this story about the benefits of wearing high heels.

According to a story in the Daily Mail, “When it comes to high heels, surprisingly, experts believe that wearing them into our 70s may actually help protect us from falls, by maintaining our sense of balance.

“‘Most high heels have a very small surface area to walk on, so you need a good sense of balance and proprioception [a sense of how various parts of the body move relative to each other] to be able to walk in them,’ explains Christopher Walker, a consultant in trauma and orthopaedic surgery at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

“‘This means that because of wearing high heels, women have a very good sense of balance.’

“Balance involves the brain processing vast amounts of information from different areas, including the eyes, muscles and balance mechanisms in the ear.

“Heels challenge your sense of balance which, over years, hones these mechanisms.

“If women stop wearing heels, their sense of balance can actually deteriorate, adds Mr Walker, who also works at the Bone and Joint Centre, Spire Liverpool Hospital.”

Read the rest the Daily Mail story here.



Source: ShopBop
Wearing ROCOCO SAND


Men at work, circa 1955
Femulating men at work, circa 1955

14 comments:

  1. Now That is one Cat Hot Workplace.......

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  2. I’ve recently started femulating again after a five-year break and I found that my legs and especially my calves struggled with any heels over 3 inches high. To train my legs to wearing heels again I started with 2 inch and wore them as much of the day as I could and then each evening I changed into 3 inch block heels for a couple of hours. Now I can wear a pair of round toe Mary Janes with 3.5 inch heels in complete comfort. Again in the evenings I practice in 4.5 inch heels and my calves no longer complain so much. My next plan is to get used to stilettos and recover the balance on them I used to have. I will start with kitten stilettos, I think, and work up. Who knows, I may be soon able to comfortably walk all day in those needle heels seen on tv worn by today’s stars of film and tv.

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  3. I’m so glad to find a medical reason to wear heels; until now it has just been part of my desire to f emulate.

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  4. High Heels still work for me. Good post!

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  5. Stana, this is great news. Now I can support my love of wearing high heels with a good medical reason. Yippee!

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  6. If I could time travel, one of my earliest stops would be at Madame Arthur's in Paris! Such incredible beauty, and that was before technology brought us better wigs and those wonderful silicone breasts!

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  7. I know I feel my most feminine when I am in heels, and now the doc says it good for me! If medical science says it good for us, then who are we to argue!

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  8. At one time men wore high heels. King Louis XIV wore 125 mm (5 inch) heels.
    It's too bad men had to embrace the plain and ugly look that men force themselves into these days.

    John

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  9. Susan TalbotSeptember 16, 2022

    I love it now I have a medical reason to buy more heels and to strengthen my claves. I this blog it’s my daily read every morning.

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  10. I’ve got a question about this femulating at work photo you posted, I don’t remember anything like this? Do you have any details on this photo Paula G

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    Replies
    1. "Femulating men" = female impersonators, "at work" = nightclub. Performers of Le Carrousel, Paris, ca. 1960. Les-Lee is in the middle of the back row. April Ashley is the brunette directly in front of Les-Lee. Also pictured are famed drag artists Coccinelle (back row, right), Capucine (middle row, far left), Bambi (middle row, second from right), and Kiki Moustic (middle row, right).

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  11. I say this with a very deadpan facial expression, "A person named Christopher WALKER is a consultant on balance while wearing heels."

    Thank you. I'll be here all week.
    Joey
    joeypress.wordpress.com

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  12. I think the girl in the middle of the photo, the one with the short hair and long (Audrey Hepburn) neck is Toni April. I'm struck by her smaller head. Every now and then the effects of male puberty aren't quite as severe. But you can see that most of the girls have larger heads, much like most of us -- but still fabulously beautiful.

    AND -- this just in! An instagram with a ton of photos from Le Carousel/Madame Arthur's has "Toni April -- April Ashley" named at the bottom left! So it seems Toni April was April Ashley's stage name.
    https://www.instagram.com/carrouselmadamearthur/?hl=en

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