Insoles

tyke_ said:
The Sketchers trainers i recently bought have a memory foam insole. Tbh i'm not too fussed on it, feels a bit like i'm treading in mud, but i could imagine it'd help some.
Click to expand...

Probably not for long. Memory foam loses its "sponginess" after too much compression. An insole is a thin layer with a lot of compression on it, a person's whole weight applied over and over and over again.

I spend most of my work time (up to 12 hours/day) standing and walking. I found that gel insoles worked better, specifically ones with thicker gel under the heels of your feet. I also found that you generally seem to be getting what you pay for. Cheap insoles wear out quickly and expensive insoles usually don't. The pair I currently use were £30 IIRC, but I've been using them a lot for a year and they still look and function as new. I just take them out and chuck them in the washing machine on a 60C cycle every few weeks. They easily outwear my cheap shoes, which I bought solely because they're mesh but don't look obviously mesh. So they look OK enough for my job and they cut down on how much my feet overheat. And they're £13 a pair. So I just buy a few pairs at a time and bin them when they wear out.

I also found that a good pair of shoes with really good and suitably impact-absorbing soles, shoes designed as workwear for people on their feet a lot, worked at least as well. At ~5 times the price of my cheap shoes and the insoles combined. And they didn't last 5 times as long.

It's going to be subjective, though. Different people, different working conditions and different causes of discomfort. A quick cheap test that the OP could do would be to buy gel heel cushions for a few quid and stick those in their shoes to see if that helps. Something like this:


Two pairs for £7. That was just the first result on Amazon. You could probably shop around a bit and get one pair for under a fiver. If it helps, then they know that some impact absorption under their heels works. If it doesn't help, they only wasted a few quid.
 
Last edited:
Angilion said:
Probably not for long. Memory foam loses its "sponginess" after too much compression. An insole is a thin layer with a lot of compression on it, a person's whole weight applied over and over and over again.

I spend most of my work time (up to 12 hours/day) standing and walking. I found that gel insoles worked better, specifically ones with thicker gel under the heels of your feet. I also found that you generally seem to be getting what you pay for. Cheap insoles wear out quickly and expensive insoles usually don't. The pair I currently use were £30 IIRC, but I've been using them a lot for a year and they still look and function as new. I just take them out and chuck them in the washing machine on a 60C cycle every few weeks. They easily outwear my cheap shoes, which I bought solely because they're mesh but don't look obviously mesh. So they look OK enough for my job and they cut down on how much my feet overheat. And they're £13 a pair. So I just buy a few pairs at a time and bin them when they wear out.

I also found that a good pair of shoes with really good and suitably impact-absorbing soles, shoes designed as workwear for people on their feet a lot, worked at least as well. At ~5 times the price of my cheap shoes and the insoles combined. And they didn't last 5 times as long.

It's going to be subjective, though. Different people, different working conditions and different causes of discomfort. A quick cheap test that the OP could do would be to buy gel heel cushions for a few quid and stick those in their shoes to see if that helps. Something like this:


Two pairs for £7. That was just the first result on Amazon. You could probably shop around a bit and get one pair for under a fiver. If it helps, then they know that some impact absorption under their heels works. If it doesn't help, they only wasted a few quid.
Click to expand...

Can you link to the £30 ones you use?
 
koolpc said:
Can you link to the £30 ones you use?
Click to expand...

I thought I'd be able to, but no. It was a quite a while ago when I bought them. I recall that I bought them in Boots and I vaguely recall they were made by Scholl, but I just checked the Boots website and the Scholl website and none of the insoles are an exact match. My guess is that mine are an older version. Or maybe not Scholl at all.

Mine look similar to these:

www.scholl.co.uk

GelActiv Everyday Insoles For Men | Scholl UK

Under pressure? Help reduce the amount of pressure on your feet with our GelActiv Everyday insoles. Available in UK mens size 8-13.
www.scholl.co.uk www.scholl.co.uk

The colours are the same and the general layout is the same, but the yellow heel section is a different shape, there isn't a yellow ball of the foot section and the pattern on the blue section is different (mine have a lot of small raised sections shaped like asterisks or stylised stars). The blue parts are a soft, spongy gel and the yellow bits are much harder, much more resistant to compression (but not completely rigid). And those ones are much cheaper, although that could be due to them being a new product when I bought them and thus having an inflated price. Or maybe mine aren't those at all. I doubt if it's possible for Scholl to have copyrighted the colours. Mine have no branding on them at all - I just checked. The only lettering on them is "left bottom" and "right bottom" (one on each, obviously) and the sizes for cutting them to fit your shoes. So that doesn't help identify them.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom