Part 2 - How do we pick the right exercise shoe?

Please refer to part 1 about the truth of three common athletic shoe myths as I dive deeper into foot strike patterns and heel drop.

The truth about foot strike

Foot strike patterns don’t seem to impact injury rates as much as we’ve been told.

Proponents of minimalist shoes argued that cushioned running shoes changed our foot-strike pattern. This, they said, is why runners get injured.

Foot strike pattern is how your foot lands on the ground when your foot hits the ground. For example:

• Heel-striking is when you hit the ground with your heel first.

• Midfoot striking is when your foot lands flat on the ground.

• Forefoot striking is when the front of your foot lands first.

The minimalists argued that cushioned shoes lead people to heel strike, and that heel striking was causing injuries. By switching to minimalist shoes and midfoot or forefoot striking, they claimed, we’d all be fast and injury-free.

What I see in my clinic, and having worked with runners for ~10 years, is that although the majority have transitioned to a midfoot striker. However, I continue to see heelstrike and forefoot strikers. What is more important, however, is that when I have assess these patients upon fatigue, is that their running patterns tend to change across the race. They usually end with a heel strike pattern.

The takeaway: There isn’t one “correct” way your foot should land when you run. Experiment with different strike patterns to learn what works and feels best for you. But remember to ease into that foot strike pattern if you’re changing it.

Does drop matter?

Drop is a simple concept. It’s the difference between the height of the heel and toe area. For athletic shoes, it’s measured in millimeters.

Traditionally, most running and exercise shoes have had about a 10mm drop. But that changed in the mid-2000s, thanks to the minimalist shoe craze. The minimalist training circles suggested that we should all be exercising in a zero-drop shoe. The argument for zero-drop was this:

• Early humans covered great distances, carried, and lived barefoot or in thin leather moccasins. i.e. with no heel drop or support.

• Barefoot/minimalist shoes would help us run how humans evolved to run, which would reduce injuries.

When it comes to heel drop and athletic shoes in general, it’s useful to look beyond theories and to the real world.

Let’s look at a sample of professional runners in the 2022 TCS NYC Marathon:

• Nike Vaporfly 2
  Drop: 8mm

• Asics Metaspeed Sky
  Drop: 5mm

• Nike Alphafly
  Drop: 8mm

• On Cloudboom Echo 3
  Drop: 9.5mm

• Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite
  Drop: 8mm

The shoes all have the following qualities:

• Some amount of “support” and “cushion” (none are minimalist).

• A drop of anywhere from 5 to 9.5mm.

Try different heel drops and levels of support. Find what works for you. Err on the side of some drop and some support and cushioning rather than a purely minimalist shoe.

SO — HOW DO WE PICK THE RIGHT SHOE?

Despite 50 years of shoe trends and ideas about what leads us to get injured, running injuries haven’t changed.

Nigg, the biomechanist and shoe expert, wrote a paper summarizing what he’d learned. He gave the following advice: “Pick what’s comfortable.”

What you should do?

Use comfort as your guide. Buy the most comfortable shoes for the job. This applies to running and training shoes.

To find those, look to collective wisdom. Most of those great marathoners wore a shoe that:

1. Had some level of support/cushion (i.e., not minimalist)

2. Had a drop between 4 and 10mm