Too much cushion?

Feb 06, 2014

I have been reading a number of magazines, articles, discussing the fall of minimalism sales over the last year. These articles inference that the trend back to a traditional shoe is happening and minimalism is a dying trend.

I would tend to disagree with this statement. Yes minimalist (ie vibram five fingers and others) sales did take up less of the market share in the running market, but shoe companies have been more focused on cutting weight of their traditional shoes, and lowering the heel to toe ratio. This trend is more minimal in a sense. The craze is over but I feel it brought a few great things going forward for the running shoe industry

The most recent studies on injury prevention and footwear choice are still muddy. At the end of the day what you are training in does not seem to correlate well with the incidence of injury and footwear choice. As well research is very inconclusive between injury rates with picking the right category of shoe (ie neutral, stability, motion control), and a person having a more cushioned shoe. Cushioning I find is a funny topic. I do think having a shoe with some protection and shock absorption is great. Where I find the downside in the logic is this. I cannot find a study or information regarding how much cushioning a person needs. There is little way to quantify this number. I read shoe reviews talking about how a company added 25% more cushioning to their already cushioned shoe. What does this even mean? It sounds great as a selling point, but what does it mean to me, I’m not sure. There is much stronger correlation between injury rates and overtraining, or increasing too fast too soon.

I myself lie more on the side of minimalism, but do not wear a true barefoot shoe aside from some short form workouts. When I make my footwear selection there are a few things that I look for:

1. Heel toe drop: That is the difference in height between the forefoot and the heel. Traditional running shoes are usually between 10-14mm. For me I like something between 4-6mm. This still gives me a little height to prevent my calf from overstraining when I start to fatigue. Anything that is higher than 8mm I tend to start over-striding and heel striking.

2. Weight: I always keep my footwear choice under 10oz. Anything heavier feels clunky and heavy.

3. Noise: Hopefully the store you choose has a treadmill to try running for a couple of minutes. If my feet are slapping down or I am causing the store to shake with each step, the shoe will not work for me. Above when I was talking about level of cushioning this comes into play. Generally speaking the more cushion you put into your shoe the more rigid it becomes. A shoe’s firmness can equate to altering your stride or foot strike, causing higher impact forces because it changes how you naturally absorb the impact.

4. Run without your shoes: before you pick out your next pair of shoes try a few strides without your shoes on. I would try to replicate that feel and motion with a shoe on. On a side note, if you walk into a running store and they analyze your foot strike by walking, please take it with a grain of salt. Remember this is great if you are purchasing your shoes to walk in, but running is a far different movement and should be analysed accordingly.

5. Feel: This is the most important choice for me. If I do not feel natural in the shoe, or I feel like the shoe is trying to control my foot, no matter how good the shoe review was it was not meant for me.



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