Flip-flop style footwear modifies ankle biomechanics and tibialis anterior activity during gait

摘要

Flip-flop style shoes are popular among sportsmen and women, especially for after-sport use. Indeed, they are convenient, easy to take on and off and allow the foot to breathe better than in a closed shoe. Therefore, some footwear manufacturers develop specific after-sport shoes which mostly are flip-flops. However, previous studies showed increased ankle inversion moment and decreased ankle range of motion in the sagittal plane when walking with flip-flops compared to closed shoes (Zhang, Paquette, Zhang, 2013; James, Farmer, Sayers, Cook, & Mileva 2015). Compared to barefoot, walking in flip-flops also increased tibialis anterior (TA) muscle activity in the swing phase (Price, Andrejevas, Findlow, Graham-Smith, & Jones, 2014). It can be argued that these alterations may be due to flip-flops lack of foothold, i.e. the larger distance between the foot and the flip-flop sole (Sharpe, Malone, French, Kiernan, & O'Brien, 2016). For that matter, better fitting flip-flops have been shown to reduce the previously mentioned alterations (Price et al. 2014; Zhang et al. 2013).