Running Shoe Dilemma

Funny story I have actually tried the minimalism thing on three separate occasions. Which resulted in three ankle tendon tears. That is why I don't mind buying those $90 shoes and placing my ortho inside of them. PS Sam just two weeks ago you sold me a couple pairs of shoes. Hope your running goes well out in Cali.

Speaking of Bikila, "...Four years later, in shoes, he ran 2:12..." yeah, but did you notice the shoes he used? Comparable to today's adizero PRs, at the very most.

And taking from the article cited by the OP, we can assume Lydiard was way off when he said, "...We used to run in canvas shoes, We didn't get plantar fasciitis; we didn't pronate or supinate, we might have lost a bit of skin from the rough canvas when we were running marathons, but generally we didn't have foot problems.

Paying several hundred dollars for the latest in hi-tech running shoes is no guarantee you'll avoid any of these injuries and can even guarantee that you will suffer from them in one form or another. Shoes that let your foot function like you're barefoot - they're the shoes for me.'

Why did the Nike researchers in those top-of-line labs find it necessary to study barefoot cultures and work on the R&D of today's Free line?

Tree Frog: the OP has seemed reasonable in every post he's made on this thread. The hostile tone in your last post seemed very out of place on an otherwise informative and constructively argued thread. It's fine to disagree with him, but cut the attacks.

Denton derives income (whether from Fleet Feet or Running Times) by pushing the running shoe company line, he's in the hip pocket of running shoe manufacturers. Ditto that Wischnia chump at RW.

The idea that some runners just shouldn't be in minimalist shoes is absurd. I was one of those runners that some of you would have said that about. Ton of overpronation, PF issues, knee pain, etc. Wore the heaviest motion control shoes I could find...with orthotics, insoles for cushioning, and the thickest socks I could find (for even more cushioning). After reading something here, I decided to go the minimalist route. Very, very gradual buildup. At first, I could only run for a minute before my arches and ankle tendons started to ache. Now, I can run 30 minutes barefoot on grass and 90 minutes on trails in XC racing flats. Also, am up to 3 minutes barefoot on asphalt, though that's just for curiosity's sake as I don't have much interest in road running.

Those who have tried minimalist footwear and failed have most likely not made the transition gradually enough. And, surely, there had to be some high mileage runners in the 60s and earlier, prior to the advent of all the wonderful shoe technology that's come along since, who did just find in their minimalist footwear. And don't the Japanese marathoners do a lot of high mileage in shoes with very little heel buildup? Some of you really need to open your minds a little more.

cross bluntry: my legs feel beat up running on concrete with flats, if I do it for a long enough time, and I don't think this is something I could ever simply "adapt" to if I did it long enough.

So did mine when I had my first pair of flats.

After a few years of running longer in a series of more minimal shoes - I wasn't always trying to hit some magic level of minimalism, just choosing what felt and worked best at the time - my feet and legs adapted so that concrete + 3.9 oz Adizero PR = no problem.

Your probably would too. Same way as most of us probably figured running 10 - 15 - 20 miles was not something we could ever simply "adapt" to if we did it long enough... our intuition ain't always the best guide.

Not that you need to go this route or anything - if you prefer to avoid concrete, or flats, or both, fine, do whatever works for you. Just saying, you're probably more adaptable than you reckon.

Jossi wrote:

Tree Frog: the OP has seemed reasonable in every post he's made on this thread. The hostile tone in your last post seemed very out of place on an otherwise informative and constructively argued thread. It's fine to disagree with him, but cut the attacks.

You're right Jossi. This is Letsrun.com!! Where do you, Treefrog, get the chutzpah to bring a hostile tone to this thread and attack someone?!?

Surely, if you were man enough, you'd register your real name and post on threads like Jossi does.

But, if you were like Jossi, Treefrog, you would not post on threads of the message board that you helped create and nourish, and now have left to rot in internet hell.

Tree Frog:

You're being a bit hostile don't you think? what are you? a running shoe lobbyist?

Everyone is missing one very fundamental point when they discuss how people used to run in the past - self selection. You refer to how elite runners and marathon runners of old used to run in shoes with minimal support but what you forget is that many fewer people were running those distances at that time. Therefore, those that had the desire and could run in minimal shoes did, those that didn't chose a different sport. With the running boom everyone wanted to run therefore Nike et al. HAD to develop shoes to support the increasing number of people who wanted to run long distance. Nike videotaped your everyday joggers running races in minimal shoes and found the majority of slow joggers went heal first and they thus designed their shoes around that.

Being a practicing podiatrist and a semi-competitive runner, there is some validity in the "fancy running shoes" are waste of money argument but also minimalism has been a great patient source for my practice.

Minimalism works if you're not overweight, decently conditioned. I tell my patients if you don't have any foot pain, you can wear whatever you want to.

But what I see in my office are the overweight patients who just started an exercise program and are in the lightest and most flexible shoe they can find, believing it will be the most comfortable. Invariable they have arch strain, or joint pain of the lower extremity.

Notice hiking shoes are very stiff and more "controlling" eventhough it is a lower impact activity. Like wise the average "wogger" requires a relatively stable shoe at least to start off with. Common orthopedic sense dictates you immobilize/brace/splint the injured part. Example, if you big toe joint is sore, you need a shoe that is less flexible around the toe joint. Again if you have no foot pain, wear whatever you want.

Basically, the stronger your feet are the less you need "strong shoes". But it takes time to get to this stage and most recreational runners probably won't reach this level of foot strength.

As for shoes, the most common error is that they don't move where the patient's/customer's foot should move. As an example the most flexible area in alot of shoes is the middle of the shoe (arch) however the most flexible part of the foot is at the great toe joint. A prime example were the Adidas torsion bar shoes of the 90's.

Finally as for all this barefoot running "research". Nearly all the studies were conducted with university student subjects or athletes. I'd like to see a study with subjects at least 20% overweight and over 40 years old with at least 5 years of inactivity.

I started in MC shoes (Mizuno Foundation, Legend.) Then I worked on changing to a midfoot strike and progressed to a more moderate MC (Alchemy)while incorporating the Free 5.0. Now I'm in DS Trainers and Free 4.5.

I was fitted by Laszlo Tabori, who I imagine knows his sh*t.

If your customers have poor form, then put them in a shoe that will work with their poor form taken into account. If they're not interested in improving their form, this will likely be the correct shoe for them for a long time. You can hope that they want to take their running to a higher level, but that does not have any bearing in reality. They're taking active measures not to be couch potatoes - why isn't that good enough for you?

SoCalRunning DPM wrote:

I'd like to see a study with subjects at least 20% overweight and over 40 years old with at least 5 years of inactivity.

Actually many of the minimalist runners that have had a lot of success with it fit that description. Check out

and Chris Mcdougal, author of "Born to Run," also had a similar experience.

Do you really think these runners are all active college kids:

As the original poster, I'm not claiming to know anything more than most folks who deal with footwear. I'm also not claiming certainty in regard to running shoes, but I have real reservations with the way people are currently fit into shoes. I'm also really worried that the people I HAVE fit are likely to get caught in a spiral of injuries caused by a very manmade system of shoe correction.

And no, I've not read Malcolm Gladwell. I'll try to avoid common phrases that have made their way onto the titles of recent bestsellers.

A couple people have accused folks advocating a more minimalist approach of forcing some sort of platonic ideal of motion down others' throats. Yet, is that not exactly what we do when we try to correct someone's foot? Doesn't correction imply that there is some sort of right answer? There is an accepted norm of arch motion, a standard based upon the ideal rigid arch (neutrality). By placing people's feet into corrective footwear we are trying to get them to approximate this norm, a process that strikes me as having rather Foucauldian overtone, besides begging an important question as to why we would want to do this in the first place.

The sports podiatrist above made a great post that physical weight has a large effect on how efficiently we move our bodies. In the best defense of running shoes on this thread thus far, he writes that firmer sections of midsole help stabilize injury prone aspects of the foot and leg. I'll definitely defer to his knowledge, but if you look at a collection of shoes in a particular brand, the stability seems much more arbitrary. Go to a running store and check out the medial side of a brand of shoes. As you move from neutral shoes to increasingly stable shoes, what you find is an increase in the length and depth of firm stuff in the midsole. For the most part these shoes are not created to address particular injuries, but rather to force the foot into an idealized function.

I don't think everyone is designed to run in exactly the same way. I'll never have the exact hamstring flexibility of Bekele or an identical footstrike to Lagat, but we all share a close common ancestor (in the big scheme of history we share an extremely close common ancestor). We all have the same number of bones, ligaments, tendons and fascia in our foot. We share 99.99 percent of DNA. Should we not run more similar than we do different? And to pose the question again (since no one has answered it), why after millions of years of natural selection, where a hurt foot meant no dinner and thus death, do we assume that the bulk of human beings are fundamentally deficient in regards to running? Is it solely due to our increased weight as a society? That seems a bit suspect, but I'd appreciate more information, links and opinions.

Also, I'm afraid I struck a nerve with Tree Frog. Sorry.

To maybe respond to your post, I ran 115 miles this week using the Asics HyperSpeed, Mizuno Wave Ronins, and Newton neutral trainers (a shoe that, like you, I have my doubts about). This is the combo I've been using for the past few months, though in the last year or so I also used the Adizero Ace and the Adizero Boston. I reset my 10K best in the midst of a half-marathon recently, but thankfully I have not hit the magical 140 mile mark which ensures injury in neutral flats.

No nerve struck, just that I've run into a lot of associates like yourself, Sam.

That human being theory, that we've been shoeless for thousands of years is baloney, so please drop it. Here's the bottom line: humans were meant to walk, run, gather, hunt, BUT THEY WERE NOT MEANT TO TRAIN FOR ENDURANCE.

Do you comprehend that? The human body was not designed to push the envelope regarding endurance running. Humans were not meant to run a measured distance, for time, judged by pace and speed and efficiency.

Before I continue, do you agree?

Can anyone name one elite distance runner competing at the World Championships that has been training barefoot?

Sure, the articles and websites referenced speak of slower than average runners, but if the goal is to run faster, take some notes from Galen Rupp, Kenenisa Bekele, Bernard Lagat, German Fernandez, Wanjiru, and Gharib, and Baldini, and the list goes on...

To this Sam guy, enjoy 115 miles at 8-min pace. I will enjoy 115 miles at 6-min pace in an attempt to make the Trials because I will be training more efficiently and harder in my lightweight stability trainers (remember, posting in a shoe is only there if you need it, if you understand foam-blocking utilized by 90% of the industry).

Tree Frog wrote:

No nerve struck, just that I've run into a lot of associates like yourself, Sam.

That human being theory, that we've been shoeless for thousands of years is baloney, so please drop it. Here's the bottom line: humans were meant to walk, run, gather, hunt, BUT THEY WERE NOT MEANT TO TRAIN FOR ENDURANCE.

Do you comprehend that? The human body was not designed to push the envelope regarding endurance running. Humans were not meant to run a measured distance, for time, judged by pace and speed and efficiency.

Before I continue, do you agree?

Really? Because I think that the Tarahumara Indians who run hundreds of miles a week would strongly disagree. In fact the Tarahumara are known for having single runs that are well over 50 miles and they have no running injuries while they just wearing sandals. I think that the African children who run about 16 injury free miles a day barefoot would also disagree.

Thats funny because most of the runners you have cited ran many miles barefoot as children before nike handed them money.

Sam, do you even care if the guys at the Runners Roost read this? That you are screwing them (business) over?

The Tarahumara Indians were sandals, buddy. That is a SHOE. It has a heel and a sole. I actually ran with one a couple of months ago. You assume I am not researching the topic as a consultant in the industry.