The effect of high-top and low-top shoes on ankle inversion kinematics
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a55587/high-top-s...
"In 2008, Kobe Bryant, already in the league 12 years, decided for the fourth shoe in his Nike Zoom Kobe line, he wanted something different. "We got around to his next shoe, just talking future ideas and concepts, and he point-blank said, 'I want the lowest, lightest-weight basketball shoe ever,'" said Eric Avar, one of Nike's superstar sneaker designers, in a video interview. "'I want to prove to people that you can wear a low-top basketball shoe.'"
"The official story, which feels sort of like a calm monologue in an ad, is that Kobe, though he attended high school just outside of Philadelphia, was mostly raised in Italy, and was passionate about soccer. Kobe noticed that soccer players, aside from the jumping unique to basketball, play in a fairly similar way to basketball players: lots of quick changes in direction, a lot of cutting, variation between sprinting and slower speeds, a need to suddenly spring in one direction or another. And when was the last time you saw a high-top soccer cleat? Is it possible that high-tops aren't necessary for basketball, either?"
Uh, last night, in our men's league? Just about every vendor of soccer boots has high-top variants of all their major models, it's up to player preference.
EG: https://www.nike.com/w/soccer-high-top-shoes-1gdj0z6lqy0zy7o...
They're more like socks or an elastic collar that merge into the tongue/upper. Some say that the slight compression makes them feel better supported, but like elastic kinesio tape on the skin, it's not a mechanical prohibition, more psychological. Some say they're better at keeping you from getting stripped out of the shoe if someone steps on your foot, can't really deny that. And some say they avoid awkward bounces when the ball hits high on the instep near the sharp cut-off between instead of tapering in, but you already have a malleolus andd shin guard; maybe don't kick the ball there?
It's definitely not a mechanical prevention of ankle flex like ski boot or calf-height hiking boot.
Like you say, they're more like a sock lining that sticks out. High tops are when the main shoe material extends upwards for "ankle support", like you described in your last sentence.
Interestingly (?) early football boots were very much ankle-length [1], and this style continued well into the 1950's [2].
[1] https://www.footy-boots.com/football-boots-history/
[2] https://www.kraveantiques.co.uk/products/Nailed-Stud-Footbal...
The problem with that type of logic, is that in soccer, you probably need maximum ankle range of motion to help with ball control and to aim the soccer ball without telegraphing it by changing your whole leg angle.
Thus, you may give up some ankle protection to increase your ankle freedom.
In basketball, you do not need that kind of foot control. Therefore, you should probably sacrifice some ankle freedom for more ankle protection.
Even if it's mostly psychological, you can absolutely feel the difference with a lighter shoe.
The reason for this is running involves accelerating the foot, then decelerating it, over and over, and the shoe is at the end of that pendulum motion. Not to mention lifting it against gravity as well.
One can make this argument about boxing too, gloves are heavy and and also cause more long term concussion related injuries because they allow you to hit harder however in the short term a boxer can have far more matches because they don’t risk breaking their hands as much as in bare knuckles or wrapped knuckles boxing.
Athletics at this point is so well researched that if different shoes would be better they would’ve changed them already. There are no specific regulations for court shoes in basketball as far as I can tell.
If low top shoes would be better some team somewhere would’ve tried to use them and if they indeed presented an advantage everyone would’ve adopted them by now.
On one hand, yes, marathoners would benefit from lighter gear. On the other, they rarely change direction and so their lower extremities don't have to fight against the added weight.
Boxing is a punching sport. Boxing gloves are heavier than MMA gloves because boxers throw far more punches than other combat sports and need more hand protection.
There's tens of millions of dollars being invested on a yearly basis into research regarding shoe construction. Teams don't make decisions about shoes for players. Players and trainers make those decisions.
I think this is particularly unhelpful when marketing the same shoe design that has essentially no material under the instep or heel to elites who have the endurance and form to be poised on their toes with negligible heel contact during an entire 10k to 15-year-olds who will start off with grand ambitions and then be slogging it in for the latter two laps of the 1600..
I definitely agree that runners using these "maximalist" shoes exclusively are likely to experience more foot injuries if they ever need to transition away from them. My coaches (from as far back as...two decades ago, yikes) had us do strides on the football field barefoot, as well as occasional speed workouts on the track in spikes or spike flats to ensure that we were not only conditioning our major leg muscle groups but also smaller muscles and ligaments in the feet. If you only ever train to go straight forward with even, highly cushioned footfalls, and step in a pothole or on a rock when your muscles are at their weakest, it's not good.
That said, for long, slow, distance days, I love me some cloud shoes. I just make sure to switch them up with minimalist flats for speed work and tempos once in a while, and to get some barefoot strides in when I have access to good grass.
If you walk into a runnning shop now, you are probably leaving with a pair of cloud shoes - that’s all some shops sell.
If you Google Alphafly, Vaporfly, and Kipchoge, you’ll get all sorts of analysis on this type of shoe.
These days I mostly use fairly cheap single layer insulated boots with some variant of microspikes. Still have plastics with step-ins. Have never bought into the newer generation of high-end single layer which seem to be the non-expedition norm these days.
Regular people do it. Journalists do it. And AI does it up the wazoo. We are all doomed.
Example:
This article is like a guide for choosing the best flip phone with a full keyboard. The entire category is obsolete. The authors are simply parroting marketing myths from twenty years ago. Like an AI chatbot, the writing appears thorough, but they did NOT do their research by talking to human hikers.
They looked at catalogs of products instead of examining a task and finding the best tool for it.
Here's the real story: No experienced hikers use waterproof boots except in deep snow where insulation and a high top is necessary. They use trail runners. Why? Because gore tex membranes lead to sweaty feet, which causes blisters and damp boots the next day ('waterproof' boots do get wet but take forever to dry out). Boots are heavy and clunky, encouraging a stompy, imprecise style that results in more slips, twists and jerks in each stride.
Boots are sold because uninformed consumers demand them. Boots match the aesthetic of hiking.
Ankle support is a complete myth. When you roll your ankle, an inch of extra fabric is not going to resist the full leverage of your body and protect your foot. What helps is a more sensitive shoe that avoids the ankle roll in the first place, and allows a nimble correction if it starts rolling.
In 2023, ALL experienced hikers wear trail runners unless the snow is deep.
I do bring a pair of "trail sneakers" to change into whenever I put down the heavy backpack. They are much better for walking, but I don't like them when carrying.
Ironically my beloved chacos have a very stiff sole; with the toe strap they give me the same traction on irregular terrain and same small-rock sole protection that I get with my clunky boots. I did a five day trip with them in the Desolation Wilderness and it was pretty good, except of course as a sandal I got sharp crud over the sole. Also they are pretty heavy for sandals.
It seems like the high top winter boots have less stiff soles. If it's not too cold and I want to make distance I have used my leather summer boots with the snowshoes.
It's hard to do a lot of A/B testing in these cases as you can't do a five day through hike every weekend.
I remember being told this (in 2000?) by one of the sales people in the shoe department at REI so it was being said at least for the last 23 years. A rigid sole is what he said was most important for stability.
I could have that with trail runners but then I'd need an extra ankle protection sleeve.
"These findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting that a smaller muscular effort (a delayed pre-activation timing and decreased amplitude of evertor muscle activity) and changed proprioceptive feedback may result from wearing high-top shoes, and this might be detrimental to establishing and maintaining functional ankle joint stability in ankle strain situations."
I disagree that using lower muscular effort means the joint is less stable. I would conclude the opposite, that if it takes less effort to maintain balance, the ankle is more stable. Ergo, high tops are more supportive.
Honestly I do not see how such study can lead to any conclusion besides that more studies are necessary. The problem is not even the low N, but extreme bias of participant selection. I.e. the conclusion that high-ankle could be worse is only applies to students of physical educations. One just cannot generalize it beyond the given group.
I cannot agree with it. The goal of the study to show that there is no reason to believe that it works differently for different people. There are individual variations in ankles of different people and probably they use their ankles in different ways, because it is a result of reinforced learning mostly. Different people can settle in different local minima.
The sample is homogenous, and it seems relevant to the results. Physical education students may have some special traits. They had chosen to become physical education students, so they we above average in physical activities, and then they spent years training their abilities. Moreover there can be a 10% of people with ankles working in a slightly different way and a study with 13 participants will not be able to notice it, even if such people become physical education students with the same probability as people overall, but they can represent 95% of physical education students or 0.1% of physical education students.
There are studies that are based on an established theory and they can try for example to measure some constants or something. These studies can use reasoning like yours, they can rely on speculative arguments when proving validity. But it means that some previous study addressed the issue of the validity of the theoretical model. If we believed that the theoretical model of a human ankle is beyond any doubt then why to run the empirical study? We could run a computer simulation and get any results we want.
But this study is even more early stage of research, and if my explanations are not good enough, then the quote from the article (emphasis is mine):
> These findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting that wearing high-top shoes can, in certain conditions, induce a delayed pre-activation timing and decreased amplitude of evertor muscle activity, and may therefore have a detrimental effect on establishing and maintaining functional ankle joint stability.
It is a pilot study, with the only achievement: they developed and tested methods for the follow-up study, which could take a several hundreds of participants and to test them without tuning its methods when something unexpected happen (if you do it is a bad sign of a bad science).
I personally leaning towards a belief that the results of the study should hold for the majority of professional athletes, but I wouldn't bet for the rest of population.