Your expensive running shoes could be destroying your knees, ankles and hips

Dr Silly Bollox MD

Your expensive running shoes could be destroying your knees, ankles and hips

a new musculoskeletal study has concluded that the average modern running shoe is significantly more damaging to your knees, hips and ankles than running barefoot - or even walking in high heels. With osteoarthritis of the knee representing the biggest cause of disability in the elderly, this is a serious finding that's worth taking into account if you want to protect your joints.

For starters, you could switch to running in flat-soled shoes with minimal padding, and changing your stride to avoid passing shock up through your heel - for most people, this adjustment comes naturally when the cushioning effect of a running shoe is removed.

Was thinking about getting back into abit of longer distance running and remembered this study^, whats the current thinking, what do you all run in on the Forum?

spurscormac

In theory I agree, in practice I have transitioned slowly (17 months now) from standard shoes (12mm drop) to more minimal ones (9mm, 6mm & now 3mm drop).

If you go from built up shoes straight to flat, you'll have to cut back the mileage, otherwise you'll destroy you achilles and calves with the extra stretching that's required of them.

sconhome

Like all such studies there are extremely vague and general about the choosen footwear.

If the footwear is incorrect for the individual, naturally you are going to get injured. If the footwear is correct it will work with the individual in minimising landing forces and resulting shock to the body.

Running is well known to help counter the effects of osteroarthritis by encouring your physiology to deposit more calcium in the bone structure, strengthening bones and increasing bone density.

Pick the right shoes to suit you and no problems.

BTW love the username!

sam30

amphkingwest wrote: »

Like all such studies there are extremely vague and general about the choosen footwear.

If the footwear is incorrect for the individual, naturally you are going to get injured. If the footwear is correct it will work with the individual in minimising landing forces and resulting shock to the body.

Running is well known to help counter the effects of osteroarthritis by encouring your physiology to deposit more calcium in the bone structure, strengthening bones and increasing bone density.

Pick the right shoes to suit you and no problems.

BTW love the username!

Only problem is that shoe companies have never been able to produce research to show that there is such a thing as "correct" shoe type for a particular foot/body type.

Same problem with gait anaysis and foot pressure plates. They look lovely it seems to make anecdotal sense but the evidence is scant at best. The reason been that what happens at your foot when running has more to do with what your pelvis/hip/knee is doing than whats on your foot.

shoes if you need to wear them should feel comfortable for you thats about the height of it. Always a good idea to wear shoes as little as possible so your feet have greater proprioceptive imput. Notice how much more difficult it is for toddlers to walk in shoes than bare feet due to the reduction in proprioception

sam30

spurscormac wrote: »

In theory I agree, in practice I have transitioned slowly (17 months now) from standard shoes (12mm drop) to more minimal ones (9mm, 6mm & now 3mm drop).

If you go from built up shoes straight to flat, you'll have to cut back the mileage, otherwise you'll destroy you achilles and calves with the extra stretching that's required of them.

If you land on your heel in dorsiflexion that is true as it will increase the "stretch" on the achilles but striking mid foot will put you into plantarflexion shortening the achilles not stretching it

sconhome

sam30 wrote: »

Only problem is that shoe companies have never been able to produce research to show that there is such a thing as "correct" shoe type for a particular foot/body type.

Same problem with gait anaysis and foot pressure plates. They look lovely it seems to make anecdotal sense but the evidence is scant at best.

The same lack of evidence can be applied to anything to do with individual physiology as every person is different in so many ways.

The fundamentals of the running cycle are common to most people but your foots' reaction to the landing forces and my foots' reaction will be two entirely different things when body weight, mass, musculature development etc are all taken into account.

Shoe selection and fitting is all about finding shoes which are suitable for the person rather than being correct or corrective.

sam30 wrote: »

The reason been that what happens at your foot when running has more to do with what your pelvis/hip/knee is doing than whats on your foot.

I wouldn't agree with this and you tend to contradict yourself further down.

The proprioceptive feedback at your feet will affect the kinetic chain up and down the body.

What happens at your feet is informing your knee / hip & pelvis how they should respond to the landing forces.

True, weakness in the pelvis and very often in the internal core stabilising muscles can also have an effect on the stability of the hip and knee, but the message begins at the feet.

sam30 wrote: »

shoes if you need to wear them should feel comfortable for you thats about the height of it. Always a good idea to wear shoes as little as possible so your feet have greater proprioceptive imput. Notice how much more difficult it is for toddlers to walk in shoes than bare feet due to the reduction in proprioception

I whole heartedly agree with you here & despair when parents ask me about advice on insoles for their children's 'fallen' arches.

Edit: I know i used the definitive 'correct' and 'incorrect' above, but technically 'suitable' is implied there.

spurscormac

sam30 wrote: »

If you land on your heel in dorsiflexion that is true as it will increase the "stretch" on the achilles but striking mid foot will put you into plantarflexion shortening the achilles not stretching it

that's all well and good for the initial landing of the foot, but your Achilles doesn't stay contracted throughout each stride.
After an initial mid or forefoot strike, your heel then lowers towards the ground, stretching both the Achilles and calf muscle.
With a more minimal shoe, the stretching effect us more than a standard built up shoe in which the heel of the shoe generally interrupts the stretch.

Don't believe me?
Well personal experience of this change and its effects is my evidence, so take it or leave it.

rom

I don't know much about this but two things I find personally make sense. I was worried to moving to lighter shoes that I would get injured. I got vivobarefoot for everyday to get used to it when not running. I found it helped with going for less support shoes.

Also it is worth taking the earphones out of the ears and listening to your stride. It should sound soft. A hard sound it bad. I was in a gym today (2nd time in a year being on a TM) but there was this one guy who was making a lot of noise hitting the tm. Its important to sound light on your feet. Personally I would think it prevents much injuries and it means you are not wasting energy on your stride. Basically I feel that it is transferring the energy into pushing you forward from into the ground. From being a person who used to hit the ground hard, I know now you need to touch the ground like its sandpaper and you are looking to scratch it. Sprinting is essentially running on your toes and so more like running on hot coals.

NOTE: These are personal opinions and my own experience. Not fact as I am far from an authority on the subject on biomechanics or the like.

Think of it like cycling. The reason why people have clips is that they are also putting power in in the up pull with their legs instead of just with the down stride. Now if you could use the gravity on your footfall to give energy to your next stride by pushing yourself forward instead of breaking (landing hard).

miguelk

For every study/article that is written like the above, there is another that says the opposite. Its so annoying.

How can there not be some sort of medical/biomechanical consensus as to whether padding in running shoes is needed to protect your joints, or if they are damaging them. Or whether running with no padding is actually better.

Is there such an professional that can analyze your individual stride/form/biomechanics (e.g. in a detailed testing session) and tell you, definitavely, what footwear you should be using?

Edit:I mean a more detailed/independant analysis than gait in a running shop.

corny

miguelk wrote: »

For every study/article that is written like the above, there is another that says the opposite. Its so annoying.

How can there not be some sort of medical/biomechanical consensus as to whether padding in running shoes is needed to protect your joints, or if they are damaging them. Or whether running with no padding is actually better.

Is there such an professional that can analyze your individual stride/form/biomechanics (e.g. in a detailed testing session) and tell you, definitavely, what footwear you should be using?

Edit:I mean a more detailed/independant analysis than gait in a running shop.

Two words - Vested Interests.

Slow_Runner

Good article here which touches on the shoe debate: http://www.runnersworld.com/injury-prevention-recovery/rethinking-running-health
What I took from it is there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While barefoot/minamilist running might be the solution for one may be the source of problems for another. Only real way to know is to listen to your body. If I did that I wouldn't be laid up with a calf strain 2 weeks before the Kildare HM:mad:!

sconhome

miguelk wrote: »

For every study/article that is written like the above, there is another that says the opposite. Its so annoying.

How can there not be some sort of medical/biomechanical consensus as to whether padding in running shoes is needed to protect your joints, or if they are damaging them. Or whether running with no padding is actually better.

Is there such an professional that can analyze your individual stride/form/biomechanics (e.g. in a detailed testing session) and tell you, definitavely, what footwear you should be using?

Edit:I mean a more detailed/independant analysis than gait in a running shop.

Its virtually impossible to be definitive about something so subjective.

There is one physio I know who is specialised in lower leg biomechanics and she is exceptional. However, present yourself to her (or anyone) for examination when you have had a great week, low volume training and plenty of sleep and you will get one result. Go again after a really streesed out week, high training volume and terrible broken sleep and you will likely be seeing a different picture.

Coupled with the wide variety of footwear, unless you are going to commit to a particular pair of shoes for everything, walking, running, going out etc how could you control the effect on your biomechanics. (orthotics go some way to achieving this, but the footwear still needs to be consistent)

Extremely subjective subject.

mitosis

If we accept the human body is designed to run, we must accept the foot is correctly designed for purpose. Thus, any shoes at all will be contary to effectiveness. If I recall correctly, the 4 minute mile was broken wearing nothing more than thin leather slippers.

Always look for the motive in studies.

plodder

mitosis wrote: »

If we accept the human body is designed to run, we must accept the foot is correctly designed for purpose. Thus, any shoes at all will be contary to effectiveness. If I recall correctly, the 4 minute mile was broken wearing nothing more than thin leather slippers.

Always look for the motive in studies.

But maybe not designed for running on modern, hard artificial surfaces.

mossym

mitosis wrote: »

If we accept the human body is designed to run, we must accept the foot is correctly designed for purpose. Thus, any shoes at all will be contary to effectiveness.

do you use a knife and fork when you eat? should we make broad sweeping statements that any tool used to do something reduces effectiveness?

maybe a better illustration of why that argument is totally flawed. using the logic, If we accept the human body is designed to see, we must accept the eye is correctly designed for purpose. Thus, any glasses at all will be contary to effectiveness.

want to tell that to someone who can't read a word without their glasses?

i'm not pro or anti shoes or minimalist running, but that argument holds no water

BobMac104

People have been running on hard surfaces for thousands of years so i dont accept the modern surface argument entirely. My own personal belief is that both can work. Runners in my club who have always worn traditional running shoes have been doing so for years with some doing ultras etc and remain healthy. I have other running friends who are both big frammed individuals and have no problem running marathons in zero drop shoes with little or no cushioning. If a person was just starting out running i would recommend the minimalist route.
What seems crazy to me though is when people train mostly in big heavy runners with a big heel toe differential and switch to flats for races and nearly rip the calfs off themselves. Seems to be a sure route to injury.

plodder

BobMac104 wrote: »

People have been running on hard surfaces for thousands of years so i dont accept the modern surface argument entirely. My own personal belief is that both can work. Runners in my club who have always worn traditional running shoes have been doing so for years with some doing ultras etc and remain healthy. I have other running friends who are both big frammed individuals and have no problem running marathons in zero drop shoes with little or no cushioning. If a person was just starting out running i would recommend the minimalist route.
What seems crazy to me though is when people train mostly in big heavy runners with a big heel toe differential and switch to flats for races and nearly rip the calfs off themselves. Seems to be a sure route to injury.

Though I think you have to go a long way back in history to a time when people used to run a lot, compared with runners today and they weren't running on concrete back then. Also, people are much heavier now, due to more plentiful, high energy (and junk) food. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with bare-foot or minimalist shoes. The problem really is the provocative title of that article isn't really supported by the study that it quotes.

PaulieC

plodder wrote: »

they weren't running on concrete back then.

This is true, although they had a variant of concrete. They called it stone. And it was harder than concrete

RoyMcC

I think you need to go back a VERY long way to find anyone that did much running from necessity, outside of communities of hunter-gatherers. And I doubt much of that was done on stone

And whilst our feet are still generally built for barefoot running I guess we are slowly un-evolving to the point where it is not so natural. As said above, young children happily spend their days barefoot until their parents cram their feet into modern shoes.

mossym

PaulieC wrote: »

This is true, although they had a variant of concrete. They called it stone. And it was harder than concrete

if you buy into the Neanderthal running theory, they ran to kill food, or animals which were unlikely to be living on huge plains of solid rock, rather in vegetation where it could find food itself.

BobMac104

Neanderthals weren’t runners/persistence hunters. Homo sapiens (us) were/are.
I still don’t buy that argument about concrete versus trails as if you just want to slightly soften the landing on concrete a thin strip of rubber would do no problem. Running on trails doesn’t give 20mm plus of cushioning with pronation control and 12 ml heel toe differential.

mossym

BobMac104 wrote: »

Neanderthals weren’t runners/persistence hunters. Homo sapiens (us) were/are.
I still don’t buy that argument about concrete versus trails as if you just want to slightly soften the landing on concrete a thin strip of rubber would do no problem. Running on trails doesn’t give 20mm plus of cushioning with pronation control and 12 ml heel toe differential.

okay, so replace Neanderthals with homosapiens above in my post and the point remains.

just to be clear, there was no argument about concrete versus trails in my post, simply pointing out that this argument our ancestors spent their days running around on hard rock, which I've seen made a few times in these debates, doesn't make a lot of sense. if it did, we'd all be much bigger fans of lizard on a stick

T runner

mossym wrote: »

do you use a knife and fork when you eat? should we make broad sweeping statements that any tool used to do something reduces effectiveness?

maybe a better illustration of why that argument is totally flawed. using the logic, If we accept the human body is designed to see, we must accept the eye is correctly designed for purpose. Thus, any glasses at all will be contary to effectiveness.

want to tell that to someone who can't read a word without their glasses?

i'm not pro or anti shoes or minimalist running, but that argument holds no water

I dont think you can conclude that it "holds no water" in fairness.

The knife and fork equivalent for the runner is the bycycle, motor bike and car.

The eyesight argument might seem more compelling but actually is better used to counter the "every indivisual needs an individual shoe" argument.

Only a small minority of children have eyesight issues (usually near sightedness). Glasses are ofcourse a useful tool to help this small group.

The vast majority of eyesight issues such as presbyopia (and most body part issues) come with ageing....we get long sighted after 40.... (just as we lose strenght for running.) The vast majority of people have no eyesight issues until ageing occurs.

I think its fair to assume that a correspondingly small proportion of people would have foot issues until that age. I also think its fair to lay the onus on people who believe that we are all individual and therefore all need individual shoe types to prove this beyong doubt. Otherwise, are we alone among earthly pedestrians with this widespread foot affliction? Would the majority of Cheetahs and monkeys be better served with cushioned and supported footwear? Perhaps all pedestrian animals are equally afflicted? As i said only fair for those holding that point of view to back these (incredible) beliefs.

Back to the eye sight and lets examine the true eyesight equivalent of modern runners.

Its the equivalent of opticians recommending glasses for almost everyone, but saying that the strenght etc should differ to reflect our individuality.

Imagine peoples lenses straining to adapt?.........People then having to wean themselves off glasses by using weaker and weaker glass lenses...just as people are doing with running shoes now in order to return their feet to functioning in a natural way.

mossym

T runner wrote: »

I dont think you can conclude that it "holds no water" in fairness.

i think it's entirely fair to conclude that an extremely broad generalisation doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.

i'd make the same argument if the poster has said that every person without fail needed extreme amounts of support and cushioning in a shoe, with an exact heel to toe differential.

I'd agree completely with your post about everyone not requiring glasses, but that doesn't negate the fact that some do. my point was about the claim that any shoe was a hindrance, not anything to do with whether or not people should wear shoes. Your post at least makes reference that there may be a group which have problems, which is a far more reasonable approach

PaulieC

mossym wrote: »

if you buy into the Neanderthal running theory, they ran to kill food, or animals which were unlikely to be living on huge plains of solid rock, rather in vegetation where it could find food itself.

and you know this for a fact, right ? My comment, tongue-in-cheek as it was, was meant to point out the fact that the whole stone-age/homospaiens/barefoot/big shoes/blah blah debate is a load of BS.
People make up facts to back up their opinions and the simple truth is that there is no proof for 99% of the arguments made.

plodder

T runner wrote: »

The eyesight argument might seem more compelling but actually is better used to counter the "every indivisual needs an individual shoe" argument.

Ironically, until not that long ago anyone who needed glasses had to go to an optician to be assessed and glasses seemed to cost a lot of money back then. Nowadays, you can buy them off the shelf for a fraction of the price.

On the difference between running surfaces, I'd accept that the amount of cushioning in running shoes is higher than what would be needed to account for the difference between concrete and trail running. But, there is also the difference in body weight, and the fact that even an active modern lifestyle is still mostly sedentary, with only short bursts of activity (say an hour a day). So, even if the distances covered were comparable, the patterns might be very different.

mossym

PaulieC wrote: »

and you know this for a fact, right ? e.

of course, sure wasn't i there?

PaulieC wrote: »

My comment, tongue-in-cheek as it was, was meant to point out the fact that the whole stone-age/homospaiens/barefoot/big shoes/blah blah debate is a load of BS.
People make up facts to back up their opinions and the simple truth is that there is no proof for 99% of the arguments made.

these arguments will never be settled one way or another as there is no proof, holes can be found in the arguments from both sides. in that we seem aligned

T runner

mossym wrote: »

i think it's entirely fair to conclude that an extremely broad generalisation doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.

The poster was correct. In general, shoes for humans are a hindrance. Several hundreds of thousands of years of evolution proves his point. If you are claiming that certain footwear helps people with certain foot defects then the obligation is on you to prove that. At best youll prove that there are rare exceptions to every general rule.

i'd make the same argument if the poster has said that every person without fail needed extreme amounts of support and cushioning in a shoe, with an exact heel to toe differential.

Lets assume that you mnaaged to prove (you cant) that support and sushioned shoes actually help foot impediments.

If everyone always went barefoot as the poster argued then 5% of people would be adversely affected (5% pf people have foot impediments).

If everyone wore a particular structured cushioned shoe then then youre looking at 99% at least being adversely affected. (The 1% is the generous proportion of the 5% with foot impediments that would match the heel-toe in your example).

How can you make the same argument against these two cases?

I'd agree completely with your post about everyone not requiring glasses, but that doesn't negate the fact that some do. my point was about the claim that any shoe was a hindrance, not anything to do with whether or not people should wear shoes. Your post at least makes reference that there may be a group which have problems, which is a far more reasonable approach

A group may have problems with feet as with eyesight, but it hasnt been demonstrated that altered shoes are the solution. You seem to believe that most foot problems require an altered shoe. It is up to you to prove this. I could see possibilities if one foot or leg differed from the other..otherwise i cant.

T runner

mossym wrote: »

these arguments will never be settled one way or another as there is no proof, holes can be found in the arguments from both sides. in that we seem aligned

I disagree. Science tells us that evolution adapts animals to their particular optimum.
It is up to you to prove that this is not the case for human pedestrianism.
If you cant then the status quo holds. Natural movement is best for natural movement.

mossym

T runner wrote: »

At best youll prove that there are rare exceptions to every general rule.


How can you make the same argument against these two cases?

It is up to you to prove this. I could see possibilities if one foot or leg differed from the other..otherwise i cant.

you are completely missing my point, i'm not arguing for or against either side. i'm pointing out the complete inaccuracy of dealing in absolutes.

you seem to be confused why i have a problem with absolutes, then point out there are 5% of people with issues. the fact that there are 5% proves my point about dealing with this issue as absolutes. i'm not trying to convince people either way, i think people should do whatever they want. people throw out absolutes in an effort to convince others they are right, when it is never going to happen.

T runner wrote: »

How can you make the same argument against these two cases?

.

becuase i am simply arguing about the use of absolutes to prove either case. i have never said which side i come down on

BobMac104

mossym wrote: »

i think people should do whatever they want.

yup and people will. This argument comes up all the time and no one wins or convinces the other side to try their preference of running shoe. Once what you use lets you run happy and healthy then more power to ya,.