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Comment by Aldipower | Hacker News Reader

The article is not telling what happened after the hysteria. This movement settled and manifested to a "natural running" idea. We now have Altra, Topo Athletic, Hoka, Invo8 and others, offering shoes with more or less flat soles. Encouraging you to run with a natural running pose. This does not mean cushioning wouldn't be allowed.

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To me, the last section of the article states exactly what happened after the hysteria.

I ran a lot in two pairs of Altra Instinct 1.0s. Altra shoes used to be very minimalist that also happened to be zero drop with big toe boxes. The most notable thing was how little cushion it had, it was like running on a piece of leather, close to barefoot running. You wouldn't even think the Altra shoes made today are from the same company, they have so much cushion. I don't think its a bad thing, what I eventually took away from my Altras was that I need a huge toebox for my feet to be happy and if my shoes have too much drop I tend to heel strike. I'm glad my shoes have more cushion today, I just wish the cushion didn't break down so fast.

a really high percentage of the runners i see out i the street are forefoot striking in zero drops - clearly that's not barefoot but i'd also question whether you can call it 'short lived'

My impression is that most women strike well forward on the foot, no matter what shoes they wear.

This. Shoes are meaningless, pose, stride, biomechanical process.

They can make a difference for athletes:

"The data showed significant differences in the oxygen uptake (a way to measure the energy cost of running) in the Vaporfly shoe resulting in a 2.8 percent improved running economy, or the amount of energy it takes a runner to go a certain distance, over the Adidas shoe on average"

https://lifesciences.byu.edu/can-your-shoes-really-make-you-...

Also the significant benefits that comes from improved post-run recovery with modern super shoes, allowing athletes to run significantly more weekly mileage.

Proper post-run recovery allows for infinite distance.

But not every runner sees improvement in time. so-called non-responders exist at the elite level but I don't recall seeing any analysis as to why some runners run faster and others don't with these carbon-plate shoes.

[edit] a quick search found this article about supershoes and the range of response - see https://run.outsideonline.com/gear/super-shoe-hyper-responde...

If this were the case why don't we see more Olympians running in vibrams?

Not vibrams, but please have a closeer look at those olypians shoes. These are very lightweight and most important _flat_ shoes, encouraging a natural running pose.

The best I could find was the 2023 berlin marathon, but looking at the shoes the heel and midfoot are flat while the forefoot is definitely raised.

https://www.runningshoesguru.com/2023/09/the-shoes-of-the-wi...

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