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Comment by gshdg | Hacker News Reader

It doesn’t help that most shoes squeeze most people’s toes when weight is on the ball of the foot, preventing us from using them for their natural purpose in stabilizing our stride.

Most of us have toes that make the front of the foot square-ish when weight-bearing (stand barefoot with your weight on your toes to see what I mean). Walk barefoot on the beach and pay attention to how all of your toes stabilize your stride, relieving your ankles, knees, and hips of some of that strain.

But most sneakers are tapered or at best rounded, squeezing the 3rd through 5th toes inward and preventing them from extending properly.

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Yeah, I've pretty much exclusively used Altra shoes the last few years and have had much fewer problems. Altra have incredibly wide toe-box! Pair that with some Injinji running socks (seperate toes 'compartments') and I'm in running heaven!

However, please note that everyone's feet are different and don't just buy whatever shoes someone else wears.

Just wanted to add to this. Also a huge Altra fan.

The stats is this article are so general they don't make much of a point at all. Most upsettingly for me (a minimalist evangelist) they seem to dismiss barefoot style shoes out of hand.

For me Altra have made the key components of barefoot running accessible: no heel - so I land forefoot, wide toe box - so my toes can splay and some cushioning - making at accessible.

If you are a 50kg elite runner with narrow feet and perfect technique the shoes probably won't make as much difference to injury as your average 80kg runner with dodgy technique (like myself!!). Altra have been a game changer for me.

I've heard speculation that elite runners are elite in large part because they are not injury prone. It takes an enormous amount of training to perform at the elite level, and most people will simply break before they can complete the training.

That said, I was provided some Hoka shoes a while back (I usually wear Altras). I found myself bounding in a very similar stride to Jim Walmsley. Looking back through the data, my cadence dropped from 180 to 155-160 without much of a thought. I wonder how much the shoes affect his gate, his injury rate, and his performance. Would he be a faster runner if Altra had picked him up instead of Hoka? Zach Bitter seems to do okay.

I think being robust against injuries is a major factor, but especially in shorter long distances (5k, 10k) elites are elite mainly because they have an innately fast body type + aerobic talent. There's plenty of injury-prone pro track runners who are still elite because they are just fast. I would definitely believe that avoiding injuries would be a deciding factor in ultrarunning though, given the huge aerboic base you need to build up for those events.

Which Altra would you recommend for minimalist style with no heel? A quick search shows me shows that all seem to have pretty significant heel padding.

If I remember correctly, the Vanish series (R and XC) have the least padding, something like 14mm front and rear. It's still more padded than I'd like, coming from some of the Merrells, but I liked the weight and fit enough to switch. I run in the Vanish XCs.

I've never seen them in a store to try on though, so you'll have to order them from Altra's site and send back the ones you don't like. I find they run a little small.

All Altra shoes are zero-drop, so heel and forefoot are at the same level. It doesn't mean there's no padding.

I can't wear Nikes - my feet are not shaped like a piece of pizza. If you want to see something horrifying, look up what Shaq or LeBron's feet look like after a couple decades of wearing those basketball sneakers.

Sounds like shoes are too short; if a shoe has 1/2" or more of space in the toe box from your longest toe, it should not to the rounded part yet.

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