An Open Letter to Steve Magness...

He broke 13 in the 5000 over the summer. He knows what he is talking about.

You're wrong. Steve Magness is god. How much were you able to improve your mile pr after high school? YA THAT'S RIGHT. YOU CAN TALK THE TALK BUT UNLESS YOU CAN PROVE IT IN YOUR TRAINING THEN BACK THE FUG UP BRO.

"Back in the early 1980’s you had a much higher injury rate, typically 9 out of every 10 people would walk in the store and begin with: “Well, my knee is acting up, but I have Boston coming up…” "

Comparing historical rates of injury is futile but I'll bite...exactly how did you measure the 9/10 figure?

I believe he is not advocating the recreational runner (eg. the mother of two) start training in minimalist shoes. You might want to re-read his blog.

Steve has made it clear in his posts that he thinks everyone should mimic elite runners regardless of talent, fitness, objective and circumstance.

That being said, the industry is phasing out motion control shoes. Most companies are going with more lightweight, reduced trainers.

They don't make shoes to keep people injury free. They make shoes people will buy.

Mother of shoe wrote:

Steve has made it clear in his posts that he thinks everyone should mimic elite runners regardless of talent, fitness, objective and circumstance.

That being said, the industry is phasing out motion control shoes. Most companies are going with more lightweight, reduced trainers.

They don't make shoes to keep people injury free. They make shoes people will buy.

Having read his blog for a long time now, I think you're wrong.

His blog addresses competitive runners, that's who he focuses on. He doesn't really talk about your average Joe who runs 2-3x per week and a couple of miles per week.

If you read his posts, he's not a minimalist. I think he's just pointing out that the way we currently pick shoes/design shoes has very little basis.

middle professor wrote:

"Back in the early 1980’s you had a much higher injury rate, typically 9 out of every 10 people would walk in the store and begin with: “Well, my knee is acting up, but I have Boston coming up…” "

Comparing historical rates of injury is futile but I'll bite...exactly how did you measure the 9/10 figure?

I stopped reading when I got to this. I ran in the early 1980s. I don't remember 90% of runners being injured. In fact, there were a greater percentage of hard core serious runners to hobby joggers. I would speculate that there are far more injured runners now due to the shear number of hobby runners attempting the marathon.

I am no minimalist, but I do agree that overbuilt shoes are a problem. I was running in a control shoe for a while and had to find a new shoe due to fit issues. The guy working at the shoe store was actually related to a pretty well known runner and told me I needed to get out of control shoes and into a neutral shoe. Best thing to happen to me in years.

And I don't understand why people in the shoe business would want to refute the less is more guys. Minimalist shoes don't last very long. People will have to buy shoes more frequently if they train in flats or light weight trainers. That means more sales and more profits.

"Especially since your population of runners back then was far more likely to fitter athletes who were genetically more likely to have better form."

What?????

"I can post a video from my iPhone showing a person who overpronates in a Nike Pegasus not over pronating in a New Balance 1012? Its very simple to see, and yet difficult to explain, but science has a tendency to miss that forest for the trees, because its hard to measure the forest without looking at the trees."

Huh???? Don't you realize that overpronation is supposed to happen, not something that needs correcting?????

"The very organic nature of biomechanics shows an interrelationship that is difficult to quantify. Witness the recent studies on lactate and very nature of lactic acid, something that didn’t seem to be a mystery whatsoever."

What????

make sense wrote:

Huh???? Don't you realize that overpronation is supposed to happen, not something that needs correcting?????

Pronation is supposed to happen. Overpronation is, by defintion, an excess of pronation that should be corrected.

they call him lysosome wrote:

Pronation is supposed to happen. Overpronation is, by defintion, an excess of pronation that should be corrected.

Wrong. Just another stupid shoe company myth.

You sure? I usually get 1000 or so miles out of racing flats before the sides rip out. Those big bulky trainers don't last at all, though, because the foam wears out and the motion control starts to get messed up around 500 miles.

In fact I've often wondered whether the big shoe companies design their shoes to wear out at 500 miles. I suspect they do.

I'm not against all motion control and padding, but I do think running stores overprescribe them. They told me for years that I needed heavy duty motion control because I "overpronate", and yet I haven't been injured much in flats. They also told a teammate of mine in high school who was a sub 9 minute 2 miler and had the most perfect form I've ever seen that he overpronated. Who decides what the difference between pronating and overpronating is?

Yea, OP - you're an idiot.

Loki wrote:

Who decides what the difference between pronating and overpronating is?

The idiots who sell running shoes.

cool, being called an idiot on lets run is a badge of here.

Look, we're dealing in generalizations here, but there are generalizations that don't add up for everyone in what Steve is talking about.

And generalizations are exactly what we have to work with here. There are NO studies to directly compare injury rates from 1980 to 2010. The parameters are simply too different. General population of runners back in 1980? clearly different. So how to compare across different generations of runners? You have to make some broad assumptions and see how they turn out. We'll certainly wait a couple years and see how the Vibram experiment turns out.

From my standpoint, I've advocated minimalist shoes for 20 years, but not for everyone.

so the question is, what do you sell that mother of two? Why does it have to be all motion control or all minimalist? Why the need to continue to fit all the shoe users into whatever narrow band of shoe design that happens to be the flavor of the month?Steve makes the point that the shoes don't work, so lets put everyone into the minimalist shoes. I make the point that in any decent running store you see people who get less pain in their knees, their feet, their achilles with the right shoe, WHATEVER THAT SHOE MAY BE. So, even if your tests show that the shoes "don't work", then who do you believe? The tests or the people? I believe the people and think that hte tests need to be rethought.

Mother of shoe wrote:

Steve has made it clear in his posts that he thinks everyone should mimic elite runners regardless of talent, fitness, objective and circumstance.

That being said, the industry is phasing out motion control shoes. Most companies are going with more lightweight, reduced trainers.

They don't make shoes to keep people injury free. They make shoes people will buy.

Mother of shoe wrote:They don't make shoes to keep people injury free. They make shoes people will buy.

Wrong. If that were the case, they wouldn't discontinue popular shoes (uh oh, prices might be falling the longer they are out!). They make shoes to make money for themselves. Nothing else. So, they make shoes with the highest predicted profits, high prices, low cost for them, relatively high sales.

well, um yeah, they're a business, and nothing is as good for business as uninjured athletes who will love your products and use them up and then buy more. You make it sound like a conspiracy rather than a business. Of course they want to make money. Injured people don't work out and don't buy shoes. Uninjured people need their endorphin rush and will buy and use more products, so yes, in a mercenary fashion, they do want to keep their customers uninjured.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

Mother of shoe wrote:They don't make shoes to keep people injury free. They make shoes people will buy.

Wrong. If that were the case, they wouldn't discontinue popular shoes (uh oh, prices might be falling the longer they are out!). They make shoes to make money for themselves. Nothing else. So, they make shoes with the highest predicted profits, high prices, low cost for them, relatively high sales.

charles yo wrote:

Steve makes the point that the shoes don't work, so lets put everyone into the minimalist shoes. I make the point that in any decent running store you see people who get less pain in their knees, their feet, their achilles with the right shoe, WHATEVER THAT SHOE MAY BE. So, even if your tests show that the shoes "don't work", then who do you believe? The tests or the people? I believe the people and think that hte tests need to be rethought.

I believe well executed studies over anecdotal information any day. People have a very poor ability identifying cause in complex systems. And we just make stuff up too (check out the split brain patient stores of Mike Gazaaniga). Unfortunately, the few studies on shoes and injury are poorly done. That said, if "correct" shoe fit made much of a difference, we'd easily see an effect in these studies. We don't, so even if they do make a difference the effect must be very small. I think the physiologists studying foot biomechanics and the shoe companies that developed the different shoe models all had good intentions. But 30+ years of continued injuries suggest this model of injury and correction is deficient.

Guess what folks...the majority of running shoes are sold to people who DONT RUN! Yes, that's right...most running shoes are used for walking and casual use.

Let me repeat - running shoe companies DO NOT spend time trying to make "biomechanically correct" running shoes. They have been operating on the same "motion control STORY" for years.

Now, the story is over and it's time or a new story.

For the record...I don't blame running shoe companies for injuring people, nor do I think it's their responsibility to keep people injury free. People need to take personal responsibility for their running and stop relying on shoes to fix their gate (especially since they don't work anyways)