Energy return in running shoes explained (2025) | Hacker News Reader

Energy return in running shoes explained (2025)

runrepeat.com

44 pointsjstrieb57 comments

It's eye-opening when a subject you have first hand deep personal knowledge of is posted on Hacker News. You realise how confidently people post about topics they know absolutely nothing about.

Yes, you've read born to run, well done. It it's a good story, not a handbook of practical advice. Telling 2:30 marathon runners doing hundreds of miles a week that running shoes are bad and they should be going bare foot. OK.

Some of the disagreement I've seen seems to boil down to the fact that different runners have different goals. Advice for a number-chaser trying to crack 2:30 isn't helpful for minimalists who want better foot stability and ground feel and vice versa.

In my case I get a lot of well-meaning but misguided advice from fellow runners who can't understand why I don't focus on optimizing my race times. But my goal is to continue running marathons in my 80s and beyond like Fauja Singh or Ed Whitlock, so I make different tradeoffs.

Yeah, but Winlock was running sub-3:00 in his 70s. :-)

True! Though if I were to pick an aspirational target it would be his sub-four at 85 :)

I should clarify that it's not that I don't pay any attention to race times, just that it's not my primary focus -- I regularly sacrifice PRs to make sure I feel good and avoid injury.

“We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on “good” rather than “time” and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes.” — Robert M. Pirsig

Oh, I get you. I’ve raced at a high level for years, but as a senior runner I’m lately starting to think about going from “do well at XC nationals” to “stay in good enough shape to keep up with the ‘kids’ on the Sunday club trail run”. :-)

Oh 100%, and that's the brilliant thing about running, it's a very personal sport and you take what you want from it, which can also change as you get older or life changes. But-

A 2:30 runner giving a more recreational runner advice about improving times is trying to be helpful and supportive sharing their learnings and expertise, even if misguided.

A HN-er that has never ran before throwing out stuff about barefoot running since they read Born to Run a few years ago is just plain ignorance.

> A HN-er that has never ran before throwing out stuff about barefoot running since they read Born to Run a few years ago is just plain ignorance.

This seems uncharitable. I see only one comment that favorably mentions Born to Run and a couple that favorably mention minimalist running shoes but none of these give any indication that the poster has never run before.

It seems like a barefoot-style runner giving someone advice about training barefoot to strengthen stabilizing muscles or improve ankle proprioception or something is similarly trying to be helpful and supportive, even if misguided.

I agree with your underlying point though -- it's a very personal sport. That's why it's hard to specific advice about shoes or training unless you know whether someone is running to improve their race times, cardiovascular health, mental health, age gracefully, physical therapy, lose weight, or something else. Because the right approach for one goal might be counterproductive for another.

Great read, that site is also super useful for fairly objective shoe reviews and breakdowns in a world full of influencers trying to peddle you shit they don’t understand

RunRepeat is THE place to go for actual measurements and objective data about running shoes.

I'm currently recovering from blisters due to racing a 25k two weeks after my debut marathon in Vaporfly 3 shoes. Poor planning, but it wasn't the shoe's fault: My form fell apart in the marathon after about 23 miles, cramping up and running out of strength and mobility to maintain a midfoot strike.

But I've done my own testing - tempo runs holding a target heart rate in each of my Nike Pegasus trainers, Zegma 2 trainers, and the Vaporflys.

It's not even close.

At 165-170 bpm, I can hold about 7:15/mile for 40 minutes in the Pegasus trainers. On the same route, same weather, same sleep, same heart rate, just a week later, I was able to do 6:40/mile for 40 minutes.

I'm sure a good deal of that comes from weight - I've also got some spike flats for interval training that are really fast but have ordinary EVA foam with low drop and a very low stack, but I wouldn't attempt a marathon in them.

My younger brother was an All-American swimmer in the era of supersuits (2007-2009). I hope that the same doesn't happen to supershoes.

Fascinating. My main takeaway is that running technology is primarily driven by World Athletics' 40 mm stack limit and prohibition on physical springs or pistons but not on advanced foams. If they relaxed those constraints then number-chasers would happily show up to races in 150mm foam clouds, jumping stilts, exoskeleton leggings, etc. Alternately, if they started restricting races to 20 mm stack heights that might result in different world records, especially for long-distance races.

As some who runs trails in minimalist shoes for enjoyment I do appreciate that the author acknowledged that many people prioritize things besides speed and efficiency: fun, fitness, injury prevention, being outdoors, socializing. Because if I'm actually picking footwear for speed and efficiency the fastest shoes I own are my Crankbrothers with a bicycle attached to the bottom.

Fastest, most efficient, and, arguably, funnest shoe.

Don't show this to Christopher McDougall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_to_Run_(McDougall_book)

He's not wrong though.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5G93ta66xSk

The tribals from the Sierra Madre Mountains in Northern Mexico - called the Tarahumara or the Rarámuri people - are considered to be among the best endurance runners in the world.

Some of the First Nation tribes of the Americas (especially their messengere who ran hundreds of miles to deliver messages) and the traditional African tribals (such as the Maasai tribe) are also among the best endurance runners in the world.

Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge is the first human to run sub-2-hours marathon.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MoxFkJlVZlA

And when we look at exactly how these world's best endurance runners (truly superhumans) run (i.e., their running style), we realise that all the fancy sports shoes we normies tend to run in aren't really conducive for proper running.

The best endurance runners run in such a way that their feet land on the front of their foot during running, but the typical sports shoes cause our feet to land on the heels (ball on the back side of the foot) (which is what causes injuries due to such daily bad way of running).

Humans evolved to be the best long distance endurance runners, compared to any other animal. It is high time modern humans realised what's the right way to run long distance.

I'm sort of in general agreement with you about healthy running practices, but I don't think endurance running - just running for long distances with no eye on time - is a good comparison with performance running - where timing is key, even if you're running log distances. It's to do with the purpose of the running. Eliud Kipchoge only broke 2 hours because of the shoes he was wearing, which are only used for one race, so you're mixing the two aspects a bit there. There are also issues with running on the balls of your feet. I injured my metatarsals by running like that, and they only recovered when I reverted to a slightly flatter running style. The choice isn't just between "ball" and "heel", there's a grey area in-between, and the thing I distrust about alot of the "natural running" stuff is the ideological purity that it often engenders.

> It's to do with the purpose of the running. Eliud Kipchoge only broke 2 hours because of the shoes he was wearing

That’s a vast oversimplification.

OK, let me put it another way. Do you think Kipchoge would have broken two hours if he'd been wearing trainers with technology from five years ago?

Maybe? Like, the shoes are certainly a contribution factor, but you're basically talking about stacking multiple 0.1 percenters at that point, which one tipped things over the line is hard to say, and you obviously have to account for the fact that Kipchoge is a genetic freak (like all top athletes) with a couple decades of consistent training behind him and a team hell-bent on finding all incremental gains they can. That period also saw significant improvements in fuelling strategy, amongst other things.

> The best endurance runners run in such a way that their feet land on the front of their foot during running

This is not really true and the whole fore foot vs heal striker thing is a bit of a red herring. There are elite distance runners that are forefoot, mid-foot (probably the majority) and heal strikers. The main thing is that wherever on their foot hits first, the foot itself is under their center of gravity and not out in front of them.

Yep, over striding is the problem in many cases.

You’re peddling mostly nonsense.

Modern shoes don’t force you to heel strike.

True, but they do make it a lot easier. But the heel strike itself isn't the problem, it's the over striding that modern shoes also encourage

Do you have any evidence that modern shoes encourage over striding?

> He writes, some claim hyperbolically, that "[i]n Tarahumara land, there was no crime, war, or theft. There was no corruption, obesity, drug addiction, greed, wife-beating, child abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure or carbon emissions. They didn’t get diabetes, or depressed, or even old." This and other statements in the book have been criticized by some authors.

"Some claim hyperbolically" - masterfully understated there, Wikipedia.

I visited the Tarahumara and ran the race in his book 4 times. I know Chris personally and he's certainly a storyteller and not a scientist to put it simply. I was similarly bothered by these kind of claims and he wasn't the first to make them. I did some research papers in college on this years ago.

Surprisingly, these claims are more true than false, though in no way completely true. There are some fascinating cultural mechanisms that enable each one. But they were also largely dependent on their society being extremely small and living in remote hillsides and only coming together for certain social events. Not very applicable to modern society.

That's fascinating regardless of the topic! How exciting.

> Surprisingly, these claims are more true than false, though in no way completely true. There are some fascinating cultural mechanisms that enable each one. But they were also largely dependent on their society being extremely small and living in remote hillsides and only coming together for certain social events. Not very applicable to modern society.

Indeed - the Mayans might be worse at culturally-mandated obsidian daggering of people, but at least they don't have microplastics!

As a year-round flip-flopper for many years now, those clips of shoes rocking sideways under pressure are nerve wracking to look at. Most (all?) shoes are terrible ankle hazards. Never have I twisted my ankles with flip-flops.

Considering this article is about running shoes, I have to ask - you run in flip-flops?

I think flip flops would perhaps be a mistake, but very close: huaraches, or strappy running sandals, are demonstrably applicable to distance running.

I’ve been on this “get back in shape” journey for almost two years now. About a year ago I started walk jog intervals two days a week, then three, then four. I ramped up slowly (maybe too slow) specifically to save my knees. I recently got some asic nimbus shoes. These are running shoes with inch thick soft soles that squish noticeably when you walk or run. They also add a lot of instability and I really feel it in my knees. Impact is a lot better though. They seem springy. Interesting to read the present article. A tiny bit of springiness won’t help me but may help others.

Congratulations on getting back in shape. Just here to say that there is no such thing as ramping up too slowly when getting into (or back into running). So many people push too hard too fast and flame out.

Running shouldn’t hurt or harm your knees, in fact it’s more likely to be beneficial.

You might find stability shoes to be beneficial until you’ve built up the right muscles, high stack shoes can be quite unstable.

Of course it is beneficial in the long run, but beginners are still prone to overtraining and getting injured when they go from sitting a desk for 14 hours a day to running 3 times a week

Your knees should never hurt, overtraining or not.

I wouldn’t say “never”. Stuff like ITBS presents as knee pain when the actual problem area is typically weakness in the hip, for example.

Feel free to keep trying shoe models until you find the right one. It took me 25 pairs of shoes from amazon to find one that fit right (mizuno wave rider in wide).

Running shoes are converging on two designs: maximalist shoes with a long foam and a narrow foot, or “barefoot” shoes. Which means it’s harder than ever to find something that fits if neither of those work well for you.

There are two schools of thought here, but I personally subscribe to the notion that thick squishy soles are an anti-pattern. Your foot/calves/leg are an amazing spring, you don't need a layer of foam to shield you from the impact of the ground (and one can argue that at 2-3x body weight during impact, a bit of foam/rubber won't really shield you from anything), on the contrary these thick soles prevent you from feeling the ground and mess up the proprioception, which in turn messes with the spring mechanism of your legs. The fact that your knees hurt are a strong sign that something isn't right. No impact forces should ever end up in the knees, they should be guided up the posterior chain into your glutes. Muscles are great shock absorbers, joints are terrible terrible shock absorbers.

My recommendation would be to try some zero drop shoes for a while.

Some people just don't walk properly. I work with a girl that walks on the balls of her feet, I've found out it was due to her parents not liking noise on wooden floors, but she gets tired shins when she runs, which can't be right

Have a read of "born to run"

Good job on getting into running! I would highly suggest you find some "exercises for runners" videos on youtube and find some exercises that are comfortable for you to do. Focus on the exercises that are asymmetric(lunges etc). You can do most of them at home and it takes 30 minutes twice a week. You will feel the results in less than two weeks. Most of the people who run consistently do those kind of exercises because running is very demanding on your body and if stabilizer muscles are weak, the impact will go to your joints and tendons.

If you feel instability, you should try stability shoes. They really help reduce overpronation.

Your knees will thank you when you're older.

Wife currently has a knee issue and the physio has her doing more hip bridges and lunges to build up the supporting muscles. Had a hamstring injury that caused issues by compensating for it and running incorrectly which put additional pressure on the knees.

I used to run in Asics Nimbus and currently just wear them all day. Switched to these bright red Novablast 5s for running and they are noticeably better. I do a mix of Norwegian 4x4 Hiit or a steady fast jog a few times a week.

In a way it would make more sense to run in shoes that make you slower for the same effort or make you expend more effort. Ideally, you could just run around the block and it would be as much effort as 10km. Without the risk of something going wrong mid route leading to being stranded/soaked/injured 5km from home. Same with cycling.

> it would make more sense to run in shoes that make you slower for the same effort or make you expend more effort

Some runners train with parachutes, sleds, weight vests, or rucksacks which all make even short runs feel much harder. Ultimately it depends on your goals. Is it cardiovascular fitness? Build muscle? Live longer? Feel better? See a lower number in a chart?

Probably not for running because it would affect how you run in a way that wouldn’t give you the benefits you’d want above just running the full distance. Probably the only thing I’d recommend for “running slow but getting good benefits” would be off-road running. The softer impact and uneven ground reduce stress while giving you a joint workout that supports road running, in my opinion.

For cycling, just ride up a hill if you’re that desperate for punishment :p

Firstly, consider why so many people like running outdoors when they could just run on a treadmill and watch tv indoors? Secondly, note that running injuries don’t tend to suddenly appear and cripple people half-way through a run. They are more likely to appear at the start, sometime afterwards, or to gradually progress in a way that might lead one to reducing volume or resting.

this site never fails to impress me with how in-depth it is. I (re) started running several years ago and the world of shoes is dizzying. I still don't have a great grasp on it but I'm glad I've found some shoes that are reliable for me. Fairly certain that I experienced this phenomenon that the author pointed out: "...if a shoe is too soft and bouncy, it can make your stabilizer muscles work harder just to keep things steady." Hard to say for certain but I've found those really soft/bouncy/lightweight shoes are fine for me over short runs (such as a 5k race) but are terrible on longer runs due to this phenomenon.

Disclaimer:I run in minimalistic shoes, so of course I'm a hater of this stuff.

I find the current trend of springloaded shoes that incentivice people to have a terrible running gait absolutely disgusting.

If it weren't for commercial interests I bet these shoes would have been banned long ago. They are bad for the runners and they are bad for the sport.

They’re very good for the sport though? Modern shoes allow runners to train more, which is one of the primary reasons we’ve seen world records get absolutely slammed since they were introduced. Just look at how may people can consistently run 100+ mile weeks with modern shoes vs before.

Is that good in itself though? Imagine if it was allowed to compete with full blown jumping stilts.

If you care about the sport and want to see people running even faster, yes.

Anecdotally we see more injuries in the form of bone stress than we used to, because modern shoes allow for greater training loads that aren’t quite as hard bounded by muscle tolerance as flats but without seeing any data I suspect the balance of injury has shifted rather than the general incidence of injuries.

yeah, it is great that you've read a book or two, but why is it that every single elite athlete runs and trains in modern "springloaded" shoes?

Not doing so puts them at a decisive disadvantage. Like not wearing the now banned tech swimsuits was a few years back in competitive swimming.

I find the current trend of springloaded shoes that incentivice people to have a terrible running gait absolutely disgusting.

Yeah, that is truly just, like, your opinion, man. “Terrible running gait”? I’m not even going to ask for any evidence because there isn’t any. What there is evidence for is faster times, faster recovery from races and hard workouts. There is further evidence that the shoes don’t work for everyone, some are “super responders” for whom the shoes work really well, others find benefit, and for others the shoes are a waste of money.

What’s disgusting is r/barefootrunning turning shoes (or lack thereof) into a religion when, like many religions, the evidence is minimal.

Signed, a guy with a lot of thin-soled shoes on the shelf, and two pair of Vaporflys.

The thick soles and their geometry are designed with heel stricking in mind, as it allows for a longer stride while not injuring your heel and not losing energy (that otherwise would be dissipated in the heel impact).

It is an unnatural, unhealthy way of running and it rewards the runner with the better gear instead of the one with bettertechnique and conditioning.

as long term runner, this was fascinating. however I'd have appreciated a bit more of a discussion of forefront first running.

Why?

The indigenous runners that he wrote about wore sandals made of recycled tire tread.

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