FEATURE
“Safety features alter shoe characteristics,
including flexibility and fit, which can directly
impact worker’s comfort.”
factory line workers. If left untreated, it can lead to long-term health effects and pain that can in turn influence mental health, work concentration and absenteeism levels.
Using advances in design influenced by biomechanics, footwear manufacturers can address such issues. An example is the HAIX CONNEXIS system. Integrated support tape stimulates the spiral fascia, maintaining a more natural foot position. This helps to reduce wearer fatigue, especially when boots are worn over long working periods, ensuring better overall bodily posture and acting to minimise long-term injury risk associated with standing at length.
Evolving existing designs and traditional boot elements to better support wearers is also vital. Shoes are traditionally made with a last (the form, shaped like a foot, that shoes are manufactured around) that is bent downwards in the ball area, which can cause incorrect load shifting onto the forefoot, leading to instability and discomfort. Using flatter lasts in shoe construction works around this, dispersing load more evenly throughout the foot and avoiding pressure points.
Other issues long-term wearers face, such as lower leg fatigue induced by overall boot weight, can also be countered by smart material choices; advances in materials like nanocarbon can produce toe caps and reinforced areas that meet the same safety and
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protection standards as steel caps but remain ultra- lightweight. Puncture-resistance in boot midsoles is often accomplished using metal, but advanced fabrics and textiles can be used to provide levels of puncture resistance while decreasing overall weight and increasing comfort and flexibility.
Fit and comfort can dramatically affect the willingness of wearers to don PPE, especially when worn for long periods of the working day, every day. As mentioned, ‘off the shelf’ sizing can only go so far to ensuring a personal fit. Adaptability to suit individual foot shape is an important step and one method for introducing this is including a variety of easily-exchangeable insole options to better fit a variety of foot shapes, from wide to narrow. The HAIX Vario fit system is an excellent example of how to improve wearer comfort.
While the future is impossible to predict, for the foreseeable workers will need reliable PPE that protects and supports them doing their jobs, day in and day out. By working to ensure that the focus on wearer health falls in step with the focus on wearer safety, and that footwear can better fit the requirements of individual PPE wearers, manufacturers and designers can continue to produce innovative safety footwear while supporting wearers into the future, every step of the way.
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