Austin Perrin: Hello, my name is Austin Perrin. I am the owner/operator of Brown's Shoe Fit here in Farmington, New Mexico. And I'm on here today to talk about the benefit of wearing good shoes.

We all know that properly fitting good footwear truly matters. It matters to your overall comfort. It matters to your overall everyday life experience. So here at Brown's Shoe Fit, we really, really strive to make sure we fit you properly, we get the correct piece of footwear for your foot, because that benefits and impacts your day, every single day. So, a huge important thing is size and width.

So, every customer that comes in our store, we measure with an old school Brannock device, size and width. Because if you're wearing improperly sized shoes, if that be widthwise or lengthwise, your foot can slide around, it can feel confined. It can cause a whole laundry list of problems. So, that's extremely important.

And as we age and go through life, our feet change. So, it's really important that every time you buy a pair of shoes, even if you bought the same shoe for 10 years, to get measured and to make sure you're in the proper fit for your foot.

We have a pretty cool piece of technology here in the store we call our Aetrex Albert machine. It kind of goes hand-in-hand with this size and width measurement. It's a 3D analytic tool that we have you step on. We do pressure map testing, we do gait analysis, a whole kind of bunch of different things that we do with that.

Talking about gait analysis, that's super, super important when it comes to getting the correct piece of footwear. You know, if it be for work, if it be for walking, running, the gym, everybody has a different gait. And that's why all of these companies make hundreds of different shoes, because they're designed for people with different gaits and different foot structures. So, our machine takes you through that. It shows us how you walk, how you transfer pressure throughout your stride, and then allows us to decide if you need a neutral shoe, if you need a stability shoe, which is extremely important. Because if you're in the wrong type of footwear for your foot, it's not going to give you any benefit at all, no matter if you're spending $50 or $550 on a pair of shoes.

It also shows us arch support. You know, if you have high arches, medium arches, low arches, which is also very important when it comes to finding the right piece of footwear. Some shoes are built for people with super high arches. And if you're super flat-footed and we put you in that shoe, you're going to have a lot of discomfort, and vice versa. You know, if you're super high-arched and we put you in a super low-arch shoe, you're not going to feel supported and your foot's going to get fatigued throughout the day.

The last piece that we kind of look at on there is lateral stability. You know, if your ankles pronate, if they supinate, which is very important to structure of your knees, your hips, your back, all full body alignment. If you're pronating severely and you don't have a shoe that gives you any lateral reinforcement, you're going to feel fatigued. And your knees are going to hurt, and your hips are going to hurt, and your back are going to hurt. So, it's important to find out what you need for lateral motion control as well, which that machine we have does show you.

The last thing we touch on on that is correct toe box shape as well as instep depth. So if you have a narrow heel and a really wide toe box, some brands are not going to work well for you, because they're more medium fit all the way through or straight-lasted, versus some brands have narrower heels, wider toes to accommodate to that. Now, if we put somebody with a super narrow foot in a shoe that has a super wide toe box, they're going to slop around and they're going to get pressure sores, all that kind of stuff. So again, measurement, that stuff's super, super, super important. Getting the correct shoe is super important as well.

We also accompany that with possibly fitting an insole. You know, somebody that has a really, really crazy high arch, no manufacturer in the world makes tennis shoes with crazy high arches. They make them for people with very medium arches to low arches. So, people that have really high arches, it's sometimes very important that we also accompany a good piece of footwear with a good solid orthotic. And again, that machine we have kind of walks us through that step by step.

I think the other very important thing with good shoes, possibly good orthotics, is also good socks. We sell a brand called Feetures here in the store that I am very passionate about. They have really, really nice midfoot compression. They're really thin on the top, so they don't cause a lot of volume fill up in the shoe. They're frictionless, so they don't cause heat buildup. But they're also padded underneath the forefoot and the heel. So, that midfoot compression is very, very important for overall foot health. If you have a really high arch, that midfoot compression can really hug the middle of your foot and give you the support that you truly do need.

With that too, you can buy a great pair of tennis shoes, have a great pair of socks, good pair of insoles, be great 12 hours a day on your feet at work. But when you get home and you're walking across your linoleum or your hardwood floors and you're doing it barefoot, it kind of offsets all the good things that you just did all day for your feet. So, we highly, highly recommend wearing shoes inside.

And I know that's a little counterintuitive to some people, but one brand that we really like for that is a brand we call OOFOS. They're a recovery style brand. They make sandals, they make clogs, they make little shoes, they make all different kinds of stuff. They're actually the number one podiatrist-recommended piece of footwear for plantar fasciitis recovery. So, we don't just recommend them to people that have plantar fasciitis or metatarsalgia or Achilles tendonitis. We recommend them to all people, just because it's really cushioned, it gives really good shock absorption across hard floors within your house. But it also has really nice arch support and kind of fills that medial void so your foot can fully relax when you're home. And that's our whole goal, is having good shoes at home as well as a good piece of footwear for being on your feet all day at work.

I think above all else today, products-wise, measurement-wise, all that, is just going to a place when you buy your footwear that knows what they're talking about. Talking to a pro that can properly fit you in the correct piece of footwear. Again, you can go out and buy a Hoka that looks cool and that your friend has, but if it's not the right piece of footwear for your foot, you're not going to gain much benefit from that $160 to $180 purchase. So again, just making sure you're in the correct piece of footwear is extremely important.

So again, we have our three-step fitting process. When you come in our store, we run you through our Aetrex machine, understand all those analytics of the foot. We measure your foot with an old school Brannock, and then we guide you through the fitment process when it comes to looking at footwear. So, I think that's extremely important to overall foot health and just making you feel good all day long.

So here in the store, we have a couple of different brands. I'm going to really focus on tennis shoes, be cause that's what 70% of people are wearing all day, every day now. So we carry brands like Hoka, Brooks, Altra, New Balance, Vionic, Topo, On Running.

We have a laundry list of shoes from each of those brands for all different types of gaits, all different types of arch structures, all different types of fitments. Just come in, make sure you get fitted properly, and we can guide you through that process.

The thing that I want to end on here is we do this pretty cool program for anybody that works in the medical field. No matter if you're a CNA, a doctor, no matter what, if you come in and show your badge here in store in Brown's Shoe Fit, downtown Farmington, we give you $20 off of your work shoes. So, you know, you buy a pair of Brooks Adrenaline right now that runs $155, you're going to get those for 135 bucks just for being a medical provider in our community, because we do truly appreciate what you all do. So, I just want to thank you all for having me today, and I can't wait to see you all in store.