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Look after your feet they will walk you to great health! If you are looking to get fitter and healthier, why not undertake an activity that comes naturally to us all. Walking is good for you, free and can fit around even the busiest lifestyle. Walking with friends/family can be a good way to be social and take exercise.

Your feet are for life so it is very important you take good care of them.

Benefits of Walking

Walking is good for you and if done at a brisk pace can improve overall cardiovascular health in the same way running and jogging do. However, compared with running, walking carries a significantly lower risk of injury! Walking also reduces stress and gives you time to clear your head and aids better sleep. It's the nearest thing to 'perfect' exercise in terms of a safe, all-round workout and it doesn't cost a penny or need any special equipment – just a good pair of shoes and an arch support insole if needed.

• If you walk an extra 20 minutes a day, you'll burn off more than 3kg of body fat a year
• A single step uses up to 200 muscles. So you're not only doing a little cardio, but toning your muscles too and walking is easy on your joints
• Walking can halve your risk of coronary heart disease and help prevent some cancers and cuts cholesterol
• Walking may slow cognitive decline in adults, especially those with existing conditions such as Alzheimer's
• Walking can help to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes
• Walking requires little equipment can be done almost anywhere and is entirely free.
• Can help improve circulation in your feet by stimulating the development of tiny new blood vessels.

What walking does to your feet?

In an average lifetime, we walk about 100,000 miles, which is tough on our feet. Yet our bodies were designed for moving not standing still, so walking is good exercise. Walking helps the muscles and ligaments in our feet to work more efficiently, and helps keep them supple and flexible.

So even if you have to sit around a lot in your job or at home,

Spring is nearly upon us and the thought of those lighter evenings has got everyone here at the FootActive office over-excited! So much in fact that we've decided to give all our loyal customers 15% off until the end of May.

That's 15% off our entire range of orthotic and lifestyle insoles, from our popular every day FootActive Comfort insole to big savings on our newest addition FootActive Plantar Fasciitis; Which has developed by our in house team of podiatrists, specifically for the relief of Plantar Fasciitis.

To redeem your 15% off code visit our online shop and enter the code SPRING15 into the coupon box or quote it over the phone when ordering by calling us on 01963 33088.

Pounding the pavements, doing a spin class or working out at the gym feels rather compulsory when squeezed into spare moments between commuting, working and family life instead of the joyful experience we wish it was.

Exercise becomes a less enjoyable prospect when lower back pain flares up. The fear of grimacing through pain and sore muscles leads to avoiding exercise but please persevere with your favourite physical activities because according to research, a walk a day keeps the doctor away!

Time and again studies have suggested that exercise really makes all the difference between preventing and suffering back pain. To put this to the test, scientists from Sydney and Brazil teamed up to review as many studies as possible to see if the findings are reliable. Their study published in February 2016 reviewed results obtained in 29 trials which matched their specific criteria and included a pool of 30,850 participants.

The results confirmed that exercise truly prevents and decreases levels of lower back pain. When it is combined with education around looking after the body and exercising correctly, the occurrences of taking sick-leave from work are reduced.

The human body is designed for movement and just like a machine, it runs poorly if neglected. Take a parked car, for example. Leave it unattended while you holiday for a month and it will splutter along the roads when driven again, if it comes to life at all without help from a a mechanic. In a similar vein, to keep the human body in peak condition and pain free, daily exercise should be a priority much like eating healthy food and getting a good night’s rest.

Exercise is not the only intervention that low back pain sufferers use to alleviate pain. The ergonomic set up of work equipment is important, the use of braces and belts and orthotic shoe insoles such as FootActive can contribute to an individual’s health, however none of these on their own compares to regular exercise. Simply sitting in the correct posture,

Black Friday is nearly upon us!

FootActive has a massive 30% OFF EVERYTHING from our wide range of orthotic and lifestyle insoles when you use promo code BLACKFRIDAY at the checkout or by quoting it over the telephone when placing your order by calling 01963 33088.

This means that for one day only you can save £7.48 on our FootActive Sports insole, designed by our podiatrists for sporting activities such as running and tennis! Or save £5.98 on our popular FootActive Comfort insole to help relieve common foot problems such as Plantar Fasciitis and Over-Pronation.

FootActive is proud to sponsor The Rwanda Marathon.

The focus of the marathon each year is to support the Msaada cow project (www.msaada.org) importing in-calf heifers from Ireland to Rwanda and allocating them one cow to one family. The recipients have been carefully chosen for their ability to care for the cow and its needs. Weekly checks are made by a vet to ensure animal welfare is maintained to a high standard.

Now in its sixth year, the marathon has grown each year with more international runners taking part to become one of the premier African marathons. The support from Rwandan runners has been brilliant with the Rwandan marathon team taking part and the opportunity for new local talent to be spotted by the Rwandan Athletics Association encouraging many aspiring professional runners to take part.

The Rwanda Challenge Marathon takes place on Sunday 21st February 2016. Visit www.rwandamarathon.com for more details or call 07855 173971 today.

You use your feet everyday so it is vital that you take good care of them and take the necessary steps for them to remain healthy and happy. Here you will find some useful information and tips on the benefits of walking, why it is good for you and how to properly care for your feet.

The Facts & Figures:

• The average person walks about 7500 steps a day.
• That works out to about 216,262,500 steps by the time your eighty years old.
• In an average lifetime you walk about 110,000 miles, which is the equivalent of walking around the Earth five times.
• Most humans walk at an average speed of 3.1 miles per hour.

Your feet are for life and looking at the facts and figures above it is amazing to see the about of steps you take in one lifetime, which all adds up to a lot of impact, stress and strain on your feet. However our bodies were designed for moving, so walking is good exercise. Walking helps the muscles and ligaments in our feet to work more efficiently, and helps keep them supple and flexible.

The Benefits of Walking:

Walking is good for you and if done for regular exercise it can help condition your body and improve overall cardiovascular health the same way running and jogging. However unlike running or jogging, walking carries a significantly lower risk of injury. Walking requires little equipment can be done almost anywhere and is entirely free.

If you walk an extra 20 minutes a day, you'll burn off more than 3kg of body fat a year, which can help in reducing risk of conditions such as coronary heart disease and help cut down cholesterol. Walking can also help to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes.

A single step uses up to 200 muscles, so you're not only doing a little bit of cardio, but toning your muscles too and walking is easy on your joints. It can also help improve circulation in your feet by stimulating the development of tiny new blood vessels.

Looking After Your Feet:

It is important to listen to your feet as they will often tell you that there is a problem

Leaves aren't the only thing falling at FootActive! Get 15% OFF in our Autumn Sale when you use promo code AUTUMN2015 online or over the telephone.

FootActive has a wide range of lifestyle and orthotic insoles for a variety of shoes to help alleviate common foot complaints such as Plantar Fasciitis and Over-Pronation.

Visit our online shop or call us today on 01963 33088 to see the full range and to take advantage of this great offer.

Get your game on with FootActive during the 2015 Rugby World Cup and save 20% on all our sporting products, including insoles for rugby!

FootActive is getting behind our Home Nations this Rugby World Cup and is cutting prices on our Sports, Football Plus and Compression Socks range. These products are great for all kinds of sporting activities such as football, running, cycling and of course rugby! More information on each of these products can be found on our Products page.

Visit our online shop and use promo code RWC2015 to save 20% on FootActive Sports, Football Plus and Compression Socks! Alternatively you can call us on 01963 33088 or email us [email protected].

Good luck to all our Home Nations during the 2015 Rugby World Cup!

Get set for Summer and make sure you're in the know when it comes to the Do's and Don'ts regarding flip flops! We've put together a helpful list to make sure you avoid a flip flop fiasco.

If you have back pain as you are reading this you are certainly not alone. In fact, four out of every five adults in the UK will experience back pain at some point during their life. If you are aged between 35 years and 55 years you are especially likely to be affected. Persistent back pain (lasting more than 3 months) has a significant impact on the sufferer’s quality of life; affecting social and family relationships. So what exactly is back pain and is there anything that can be done to prevent it? To answer these questions we have to examine both the nature of pain and the way that our backs work. This allows us to investigate some of the potential causes of back pain and, perhaps more importantly, the ways to prevent it.

The perception of pain

The highly respected International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain as follows, ‘An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage’

So, the perception of pain is not as simple as knowing that something is hurting you! Certainly, pain is a physical response to tissue damage (e.g. cutting your finger) however chronic pain, in particular, is strongly influenced by emotions. Individuals who have a more positive attitude towards pain and a clear understanding of their pain’s origins tend to cope better than individuals who do not.

The mechanics of the human spine

The human spine is an amazing structure that has to fulfil many functions all at once. It has to be strong enough to provide postural support to all other parts of the body yet flexible enough to allow movement in many different directions. It is able to achieve this because of its structure (anatomy) and the way that it works (physiology).

In terms of structure, the spine is made up of 33 small bones (vertebrae) which are separated by pads of a soft jelly surrounded by a fibrous coating (discs). Discs act as shock absorbers in between the vertebrae. The spine is described