The benefits of bounce

By BILL RADFORD
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The Z-Coil shoe, with a steel spring mounted on the heel, looks a bit like the spring-loaded shoes Wile E. Coyote sometimes wears in his fruitless pursuit of the Road Runner.
Z-Coils may seem a novelty, but their purpose is serious: an escape from pain. The spring suspension system absorbs the impact of walking or running. And despite its high-heel look, the Z-Coil is designed to offer greater stability than other shoes.
Ruth Lamers, 70, of Colorado Springs has worn Z-Coils for about three years. The shoes have eased her chronic back pain and truly put spring into her step. Before, walking half a block was a struggle. Now she takes a half-hour walk on most days.
"I can go shopping," she says happily. "I still get tired if I do too much, but I can shop like normal people."
By reputation
Albuquerque, N.M.-based Z-Coil Footwear has spread to more than 150 distributors nationwide since opening six years ago. Business, built largely on word of mouth, is booming. Z-Coil had $2.7 million in sales in the fiscal year ending June 30, a 270 percent growth over the year before.
In Colorado Springs, Valentine Comfort Shoe Specialists started selling Z-Coils last year. They have become the top seller or close to it among the store's 15 lines of shoes, says John Mishasek, who owns the store with his wife, Meg.
Mishasek, a certified pedorthist -- an expert in footwear and foot anatomy -- was skeptical at first about Z-Coils. He peppered creator Alvaro Gallegos with questions by phone and visited the Albuquerque store with his wife.
"The store was packed," he recalls. "It was people buying their third pair or their fourth pair, and it made us think it wasn't a fad. There must be something there."
Models range from clogs to hiking boots. The most popular, a sneaker-type shoe, sells for about $160. Although that's more than most athletic shoes, Mishasek notes that a shoe's heel usually is the first part to break down. When the Z-Coil spring wears down, it can be replaced for less than $40 instead of junking the whole shoe.
Stella Manzanares was so impressed by the shoes after buying a pair in Albuquerque that she decided to start selling them. A few months ago, she launched her Z-Coil by Manz distributorship, occupying space in the M & amp;M Barbershop near Peterson Air Force Base.
"No one would say, 'Oh, that's a good-looking shoe; I want that shoe,'" she acknowledges. "It has to be that they've heard what it does for people."
Who buys them
Most Z-Coil wearers are baby boomers who are on their feet a lot on the job, says Andres Gallegos, son of Alvaro Gallegos and vice president of Z-Coil Footwear. "We have a lot of people from the medical community who wear the shoes."
Kelly Roberts, a 34-year-old nurse in the emergency department at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, got a pair this fall.
"My husband calls me Tigger now," she says, referring to the bouncing Winnie-the-Pooh character. While breaking the shoes in, she had various shin, toe and ankle pains. But after two weeks, those pains went away -- as did the foot pain she had for years from chronic plantar fasciitis.
"I feel like it makes me stand up straighter," she says. "I have better posture."
XTo learn more: Z-Coil Footwear Inc., (800) 268-6239, www.zcoil.com. The company indicates on its Web site that it is seeking distributors in Ohio and has two in Pennsylvania. & amp;