The right choice of toe protectors
How do you choose the right toe protectors for you?
The right choice for your training and performance
You need toe protectors to have good contact with your pointe shoe. This is the only way to control your precious pointe shoe and your movements. Even though many dancers often forget about them, toe protectors are extremely important so that you can dance really well. Take a look at YouTube videos of famous dancers and their stage preparations. You'll practically always see them using some kind of toe protection. This is despite the fact that these dancers have completely personalized pointe shoes. Nevertheless, they also use toe protectors. Sure, they can dance perfectly, but the right protectors simply give them even better control and even better protection during training and performances.
What is the purpose of a toe protector?
In principle, there are three tasks:
1) Protection from pressure points
2) Protection against friction
3) Protection on impact during jumps or fast combinations
Pointe shoes have a specific shape. Normally, feet do not fit perfectly into pointe shoes. This is why dancers often partially destroy the structure of the shoes („break in“) by working on their shoes mechanically to make them more flexible. This improves the fit and the pointe shoes adapt better to the feet. The disadvantage is that the shoes wear out more quickly as a result (unfortunately!) and give you much less support.
The hard structure of pointe shoes
has its purpose, as it allows the shoe to better distribute the forces acting on your foot. However, if this hard structure is already somewhat damaged or slightly worn out, the forces can no longer be redirected as well.
Which forces
[When do forces work in ballet: Whenever you jump (sautées) or do quick steps and turns.
As a rule of thumb, whenever you can hear your pointe shoes on the dance floor, the forces acting on your shoe and therefore on your foot are naturally higher. We measured this ourselves in our dance laboratory with dancers and came up with some amazing results].
“Breaking in” from pointe shoes
This means that you have to activate a lot more muscles in your foot if your pointe shoes have already been used or worked on in order to have the ideal contact and really be able to guide and control your shoe. You should only do this if you are very well trained! A much better and easier option is to use the right toe pads. We often think that toe protectors simply go into the shoe and then take the pressure off.
That's not true at all - or rather, it's completely wrong for really good toe protectors. The spectrum is much wider here.
You can recognize average toe protectors by the fact that they are actually relatively hard compared to your skin or muscles. They do deform, but they are simply not plastic enough and not elastic enough to fully fulfill their protective function. They do protect against abrasions or scratches in your shoe, but they don't absorb pressure properly because they are harder than your foot.
It all depends on the material!
You have to imagine it like this: You have the shoe, then comes the material of your toe protector and then your foot. When the whole thing is loaded, the part that can be deformed most easily absorbs the forces. We call this the plasticity of the material. With very good toe protectors, this is the toe protector. It then absorbs the forces that might otherwise injure your foot.
With standard toe protectors, which are much less plastic and also less elastic, your foot absorbs most of the forces and not the toe protector as it should! This is why many dancers are disappointed with average toe protectors and then try to stuff their shoes with completely unsuitable materials such as absorbent cotton, paper etc. Don't do this! Don't do that! You'll deform your precious pointe shoes and make it harder for your foot muscles to move properly.
Dance laboratory and development
This statement is based on actual measurements that we took in our dance lab with real dancers. Absorbent cotton, for example - a super-soft material that is thought to be ideal for cushioning - does not absorb shocks and impacts at all. On the contrary, it actually transfers more directly to the foot! Why is that? If you stuff absorbent cotton or similar material into the shoe, it is only soft at the very beginning. After a few minutes it is already very compressed and then actually behaves like a relatively hard material. That's why it transmits shocks and impacts, such as those that simply occur with the Échappé Seconde, directly to your foot - without any cushioning.
You hear and feel vibrations
What causes you pain during training and also when you perform are the vibrations that occur when you hit the ground again during turns or jumps. You can hear it yourself. All movements where you hear the sound of your pointe shoes on the floor also cause vibrations in your shoe and therefore in your foot. And these vibrations can ultimately cause you pain or abrasions when your shoe and foot move against each other. Good toe protectors dampen precisely these vibrations and help you to fully control your great pointe shoe. This gives you real control over your movements and, more importantly, activates exactly the right muscles you need! You will learn to dance faster and better!
Plasticity of the material
One thing is clear: a material that is supposed to absorb pressure and forces instead of your foot must be softer and easier to deform (we call this plastic), but still have a very high degree of elasticity. Only then can the material absorb forces at all.
This means that the right choice of toe protector depends on your shoe (more precisely, on the shape and how much space you have left - this depends on the shape of your foot) and on the softness of your foot muscles. If you train a lot, for example more than three to four times a week, and/or you are a professional dancer, then you have a very muscular, very well-trained foot that is relatively hard. Of course, you can dance wonderfully with very soft toe protectors, but you can also use more durable material. With our products, you could use the *medium soft* material, which we have developed especially for very well-trained dancers. Although the material is called *medium soft*, it is still much more plastic than any other material on the market.
Training and stage
Of course, as a professional ballet dancer you can also dance with our *super soft* material. Here you simply have a free choice. Normally, this material is very suitable for dancers who are already trained, for example those who dance once or twice a week. The material is softer and more plastic, but still has a very high elasticity. We have developed our material so that it reacts with a slight time delay. This ensures that it behaves ideally depending on the load: If you have little load, for example, you don't do any jumping but just stand on the tip, then it's just soft and comfortable. You feel the ground and all movements in the shoe. It only becomes more cushioned under high loads. We call this non-linear behavior. We have developed this property in our materials (all our toe protectors have this property) so that it is ideal for ballet dancing.
The usual toe protectors on the market usually have an unbalanced ratio between plasticity (if there is any at all) and elasticity. This means you can only cover part of the requirements placed on a toe protector. But for simple requirements, such as protection against abrasions, they are perfectly suitable. If you use these toe protectors, you should make sure that they do not have a textured surface. In other words, nothing that could wrinkle or shift or compress over time, otherwise you will create the opposite effect - like compressed absorbent cotton.
Learn to dance faster and better
Are you just starting your ballet career and are your feet still very sensitive? Use the most plastic toe protectors you can find, which also have a high degree of elasticity. You'll be dancing on clouds. Not only is this great because you can suddenly dance with much less pressure or even without pain, but they also help you to make the right moves.
The right muscle groups
When we are in pain, we find it very difficult to activate the right muscle groups - we make muscle movements that are actually wrong just to compensate for the pain. If you don't do anything about this, you will learn wrong patterns that are very difficult to get rid of later. Use good toe protectors, especially at the beginning of your dance career! They protect your feet and they also protect your valuable pointe shoes, because they last longer and you won't lose them so quickly.
Some toe protectors have pads on the toes that offer better protection. Again, the choice depends on what you want to achieve. We have developed our toe protectors so that these small toe pads are so soft that they are pushed away. They fill up the cavities created by the shape of the foot. For example, if you have an Egyptian foot shape with relatively much space in the box of your pointe shoes, then the toe protectors with toe pads are ideal for you. The material is pressed slightly to the side and then fills the cavities a little. This gives you more stability and much more control over your pointe shoe. Only then can you really make good use of your pointe shoe. Whether with or without padding depends on the shape of your foot.
Foot shape
With average toe protectors, it naturally helps to have more material in the shoe, even with a pointed foot shape. However, this only works if the padding is very plastic and elastic. Only then can it adapt well and react to the loads.
We develop our toe protectors in our own laboratory with our own researchers. We believe this is the only way to make really good products when you have control over the entire development and manufacturing process. As a result, we now have materials that are non-linear and probably have the highest plasticity and elasticity available. If you have simpler requirements, i.e. only protection in a certain situation or for a certain load, normal toe protectors may well be the ideal solution for you.
