How To Walk In High Heels: Tips You Never Knew You Needed

Let’s be honest, walking in high heels can be painful and often is for many girls starting out in heels. This is the main reason why many girls who try wearing heels ditch wearing their heels completely. But wearing heels need not lead to painful feet.

Every girl can benefit from learning the runway model pro tips for wearing high heels  with elegance as taught in modeling schools:

• Work Your Way Up To Your Goal Heel Height
• Thicker Heels Mean Better Balance And Easier Walking
• Platform Soles Make High Heels Feel Lower Than They Look
• Wedge Heels Feel Like Walking In Flats But Look Like Heels
• Make Sure Your Shoes Fit
• Always Break In New Shoes Before Wearing Them Out All Day
• Always Place Your Heel On The Ground First When Walking In Heels
• The More You Practice In High Heels The Better You’ll Get
• Shorten Your Stride When Trying Higher Heels
• Hold Your Posture Tall But Relaxed While Walking In Heels
• Rough Up The Soles Of New Heels To Prevent Slipping
• High Heels Are Not All Created Equal And Don’t Walk Equally Either
• You Can Still Be A Girl And Not Wear The Highest Of High Heels

Let’s take a closer look at these runway model pro tips for wearing heels in pain-free elegance.

It Is Possible To Walk In Heels Without Tottering

There is a myth that all women totter when wearing heels. Nothing can be further from the truth. Tottering comes from heels that either are completely too tall for you or you haven’t learned and practiced walking comfortably in lower heels before graduating to a higher heel. If you find yourself tottering in the heels that you are wearing, then you should switch to a lower heel in a more stable design and get used to wearing that lower heel by wearing them daily for as long as you can manage.

High Heels Are Not Always Comfortable

The truth be told, shoes with really high heels are not designed for comfort, they are designed for style only. The concept of comfort does not enter the designer’s mind.

I don’t believe suffering makes you beautiful. But comfort is not part of my creative process.

Christian Louboutin

Some heels are relatively more comfortable than others, with “relatively” being the keyword of that statement.

It’s not like I’ll get to the end of the day and say: “My feet are killing me, let me take off my Hoka One One sneakers with their two inches of soft foam and slip into my Louboutin stilettos.”

I would hate for someone to look at my shoes and say, ‘Oh my God! That looks so comfortable!’

Christian Louboutin

You can learn to walk in heels just fine and that will help you walk around fairly pain-free in your heels but don’t expect your really high heels to ever be really comfortable.

Wearing Heels Is Not About Sex And Sex Appeal

There is a myth that the only reason that women wear heels is that men think that heels look sexy and that all women wearing heels are trying to be as attractive to men as possible. That is tantamount to saying that women who wear heels base their sense of self-worth on how sexy men think that they are. In truth, there are many things that women do or wear that don’t revolve around men in any way.

Maybe you have relatively short legs for your body height. Wearing heels will balance out your proportions. Possibly you are as much of a fan of midi skirts and dresses as I am. If you wear flats with a midi skirt, there is a chance that it will look frumpy. Heels eliminate that risk.

Now that we have covered the most common questions and motivations around wearing heels, let’s jump into the tips that you can follow that will make your heel-wearing experience so much better.

Work Your Way Up To Your Goal Heel Height

If you are new to wearing heels or don’t wear heels on a regular basis then a pair of six-inch stilettos won’t be the best way to start. This is a lesson that I learned from my mother’s friend when I was a teenager. She owned a modeling school and told me that I looked like Bambi on ice in my high stilettos and that I would be developing bad habits that would make it near impossible to walk elegantly in heels of any height.

If you are starting out, begin with two-inch heels and work your way up gradually. If you already wear heels but do so infrequently then you could possibly start at three-inch heels.

Thicker Heels Mean Better Balance And Easier Walking

Thin heels like stilettos are harder to balance on because you walk heel to toe and land on a very small contact point with each step. This challenge to your balance gets worse if you are walking on an uneven surface like the coble stone streets we have in Europe. If the pavement is wet, things are even worse. So, if you are still getting the feel for walking in heels, choose thicker sturdier heels so that the extra stability will help you gain confidence on your heels.

Platform Soles Make High Heels Feel Lower Than They Look

Even though platform shoes may look crazy high, they are often much easier to walk in because of the optical illusion created by the platform. For instance, a pair of 4-inch heels that have a one-inch platform will feel the same as a pair of three-inch heels. That is because the height difference between the heel and ball of your foot is only three inches. In other words, one inch of heel height is absorbed by the platform.

That doesn’t mean that you should go for massive 5-inch platforms to go with 8-inch heels as that will almost always look tacky. Anything up to around a one-inch platform can still look elegant.

One final point on platforms is that they make you taller. So, if you are already a tall girl who stands taller than everyone around you, platform heels will exaggerate that even further. That is something to bear in mind when venturing out for the first time and don’t want to attract attention to yourself.

Wedge Heels Feel Like Walking In Flats But Look Like Heels

If you are struggling to balance and walk in heels then wedges will be your best option. The wedge part of the wedge heels gives you additional arch support giving you the feeling of a solid surface under your whole foot, unlike stilettos that only feel like you contact the ground briefly on the back of your heel and then on the ball of your foot near your toes.

Wedge heels are easily the most comfortable heels to wear and make for the perfect choice of heels to buy when you want to start learning to walk in heels.

I love my strappy wedge sandals in summer that give me vacation feels whenever I wear them. I also have a pair of wedge-heel boots for winter that are non-slip for walking along wet/icy pavements.

Make Sure Your Shoes Fit

You will be a lot more inclined to actually wear your heels if they fit you. For instance, stabbing pain every time your foot hits the ground in too-tight heels will hardly inspire you to wear them every day.

On the other hand, if your shoes are too big your foot will be constantly clipping inside them. You run the risk of the shoe coming off your foot while you are walking or even worse, have the heel of your foot off the side of the shoe as you put your foot down and roll your ankle badly.

The only time I looked “cute” in heels that were too big for me was when I was 5 years old and would slop-slop around the house in a pair of my mother’s high heeled court shoes with my tiny feet all the way down in the toe area of shoes that were hopelessly too big for me.

If you have closed-heel shoes that feel like they are slipping on your heel even though you have the right overall fit then line the inside of the heel cups of your shoes with a pair of heel grips (available on Amazon) and have a more secure feel for your feet.

Always Break In New Shoes Before Wearing Them Out All Day

This applies to any pair of shoes, not just heels. I’ve gotten blisters from wearing a pair of flats for a whole day straight from the box. I’ve also lost a toenail from a brand new pair of running shoes during a 50-miler.

So, wear your heels around the house while doing chores. Start with 20 or 30 minutes at a time and work your way up.

Always Place Your Heel On The Ground First When Walking In Heels

When wearing flats it is normal to land with your whole foot on the ground at the same time. If you try that in heels it will look and feel awkward. Land heel first then transfer your weight to the ball of your foot.

It will help your high-heel walking skills if you practice landing heel first even when walking in flat shoes. The only exception is when climbing stairs.

When climbing stairs you will land with the ball of your foot on the stair and the heel will be in space off the edge of the stair. If the stairs are wide enough you will be able to land with your heel and toe on the stair at the same time, but always with your full weight over the ball of your foot.

The More You Practice In High Heels The Better You’ll Get

The first few times you wear heels expect it to feel a bit unnatural and maybe even quite awkward. If you quit and only come back to your heels months or even years later it will feel awkward the next time too. The best way to get relaxed and confident when walking in heels is to wear heels more often.

If you are worried about how your walk will look when wearing heels you should practice in front of a mirror, or better yet, use the video camera on your mobile phone and record your high heel walk so that you can review the video after and see your progress more clearly. Either way, you should practice walking in your heels every single day.

Shorten Your Stride When Trying Higher Heels

This is almost like an add-on from the previous tip about practicing. Modeling schools refer to this as “baby steps”.

When you move up to a new height of heels, try and take smaller steps and walk slower. As you become more confident and comfortable in your new heels you can begin to walk quicker and allow your stride length to adapt to what is best for your balance in your new heels.

In other words, take smaller, slower steps than you would in lower shoes so that you can easily see what you are doing in a mirror or in your video recording. To quote the cliché, don’t try and run before you can walk.

Hold Your Posture Tall But Relaxed While Walking In Heels

Many girls have a tendency to hold their bodies way too stiffly when they start walking in heels. You may be under the illusion that all of the efforts you need for walking come from your legs, but in truth, there is much more of your body involved in holding your balance while walking.

Your body moves differently when you walk in heels to compensate for the forward shift of your center of balance.

If you keep your whole body stiff while walking in heels as a way to maintain balance you will have the muscles in your upper body fighting against each other instead of working in unison. This is what often leads to lower back pain from wearing heels for extended periods.

Obviously the stronger your core is, the easier it is to keep the rest of your body relaxed and tall while walking. Ballet classes gave me the core/balance/posture combination that made it possible to look elegant while being relaxed in my high heels.

Rough Up The Soles Of New Heels To Prevent Slipping

One of the biggest issues that I have with a new pair of heels is how slippery the soles of the shoes are. That feeling is magnified if you are wearing heels for the first time.

Your new pair of high heels will almost always have soles that are really smooth. While wearing your new heels around the house will help you get used to the feel of the shoes on your feet and “break-in” the uppers a bit, it is only when you start wearing them outside that the soles will get roughened up, giving the soles some grip.

Something that I have done often is rough up the soles of a new pair of shoes with sandpaper to give them some grip when wearing them around the house. Other girls use scissors or a knife to carefully score the soles to make them grippier.

If neither of these options appeals to you, you can always buy rubber stick-on soles (available on Amazon) which will give your shoes more grip.

High Heels Are Not All Created Equal And Don’t Walk Equally Either

I can remember making this exact mistake myself. When I started wearing heels, I practiced daily with my first pair of heels until I got to the point where I could walk in them easily. I then mistakenly assumed that I could walk easily in any pair of high heels. Big mistake.

Not all high heel shoes are designed from the same mold. What may look like tiny design differences can make a very big difference to how the shoes feel when you wear them and how easy they are to balance in.

I have a pair of 5-inch heels that walk easier than most of the 4-inch heels in my closet.

The moral of my story is that just because the first pair of heels that you try on doesn’t work for you should not stop you from trying on heels until you find a pair where the design works for your feet and the way you walk.

Conversely, if you are able to easily walk in a pair of high heels, don’t skip on practicing in every new pair of heels that you buy because even if the heels are the same height, they will feel different.

You Can Still Be A Girl And Not Wear The Highest Of High Heels

Everything that I have written so far is for those girls that want to wear heels. However, for some girls the biomechanics of their feet not only make it difficult to wear really high heels, but it can even be dangerous.

You can still be a girl and not wear high heels. It is not the high heels that make you girly. It is because you are girly that you have the option to be able to wear high heels.

Your health and your feet are more important than any pair of shoes!

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