Modern Running Shoes and Heel Striking | Hacker News Reader

Modern Running Shoes and Heel Striking

barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu

11 pointsnamuorg5 comments

I went through three phases of shoes.

Phase 1 was a moderate shoe on the “more stability” side of things. I would get injured with regularity.

So then I went to a running shoe store and had them analyze my gait. They “prescribed” a very expensive “high stability” shoe. After a week in those I thought I had permanently damaged my knees. Switched back to moderate shoes.

Then I tried minimal shoes. At first I thought I was hurting my feet, but then I realized that they were just getting a workout for the first time.

I’ve been running in minimal shoes and have been injury free for quite a while now. So that’s my personal anecdote. Not sure I would ever go toward a super minimal shoe, but definitely will stay on shoes with a small heel and minimal arch

Same here! Been injury free for 10+ years now. I'm a trail runner and long ago I ditched "more stability" shoes due to knee, hip and foot pain. For a while I ran in the Vibram Five-fingers and yes it does take some training to get your calves into shape!. They are super cool in that you are able to feel what you're standing on, rocks, mud, leaves or snow! You even find your toes curling to grip on the surface to help provide traction! but I kept kicking rocks and hurting my toes.

So I then switched to New Balance Minimus which are sort of like the five-fingers but with a toe box and thus a bit more protection. These are great and I still have a pair that I sometimes run in. However, I'd periodically bruise the bottom of my foot landing on a sharp rock (looking at you, the Radical Road in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh early one summer morning!).

For the last 5-8 years I have been running in Altra Superiors: a low stack height, zero-drop (between heel and toes) and mostly because they have a rock guard that protects the bottom of your feet. Excellent shoes, I go through about 2 pairs a year and I love them!

Overall, I can highly recommend the "minimal" shoe approach (although maybe not the five-fingers). Go with Altra or Topo something that has zero-drop so you're not heel striking. You don't need/want arch support; the arches are supposed to be strong, support themselves and most importantly (for your knees) act as a primary shock absorber.

BTW: If you're interested in this and "humans as endurance runners", Born to Run by Christopher McDougall is a great read!

I am more or less a mid-foot striker mostly. My all-time favorite shoes were the ASICS Excalibur GTs, a line retired more than 30 years ago--of course I don't have the same feet now that I had then.

One thing I see all the time: women nearly always land well up on the foot, no matter how puffy their shoes are. This does not mean that women always have efficient strides--a lot of the force can go into loft rather than forward motion.

Peter Attia just had a fantastic podcast with the lady that runs this at Harvard. Personally for the longest time I was recommended high support shoes. I wore these but always hated them. Didn’t really know why until I started learning a lot more about the minimalist footwear movement and haven’t looked back since.

Now I’m really starting to wonder if this could explain why many of my friends can’t run because of bad knees.

I share similar history too, nowadays it's minimalist shoes or sandals (minimum heel raise), and hoka shoes for longer distances and cold weather, these also being minimal heel raise shoes.

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