Are expensive running shoes a waste of money?
dailymail.co.uk
dailymail.co.uk
I run with a pair of very old flat shoes, with no cushioning or bounce in them what so ever. Then one day I decide to try a pair of fancy expensive sneakers.
It was amazing, I was running A LOT faster with no extra effort! And then the next day my knees were in a lot of pain.
A few days later I put the new shoes on again to go for a run, and I kept thinking about how much faster I ran, it must have been the bounce. So I start hopping with the shoes, but they don't bounce, they dampen!
That intrigued me, and I started playing around to make sure the shoes were dampeners, and they were. But then they should have made me slower!
The only explanation I have is they fooled my brain into pounding the pavement a lot harder, hence the knee pain.
Now I'm back to my old crappy shoes, no pain with them.
hence you experienced a slight increase in speed.
This also makes sense when combined with the heel-landing technique, which lengthens the stride, whereas the ball-landing technique is more compressed and piston like.
I think both the dampening and stride lengthening effects cause faster speeds but at a greater detriment to the body.
Sammy Wanjiru, the guy who won the olympic marathon, is 5'4" and 112 lbs!
When you have longer legs it also takes you more energy to move them. Running long distances is all about running as efficiently as possible.
Weight also matters in sprinting. If you looked at the NFL combine results, for the 40 yard dash times, the most factor tends to be weight- the lighter you are, the faster your times are.
This is why it's such an anomaly to find someone that's really big that can run extremely fast. (BC's BJ Raji for example).
It's been estimated that for every lb you use lose, you can lose about 2 lbs on your mile time. Want to improve your mile time by 20 seconds? Lose 10 lbs!
Consider: an inch of shoe is probably lighter than an inch of leg. I resisted the urge to call it "an inch of man" - you're welcome.
An additional factor: extra cushioning and the different shoe shape resulted in the runner not bending his knees as much. This could result in increased lever length as I described above; it could also explain the knee pain: the knee joint was experiencing increased shock during impact with the ground.
The thing that matters is where you buy your shoes. Go to a running store like Runner's Need where they do gait analysis first, not to Nike Town where you buy whatever Shaq is wearing this week.
Of course shoe manufacturers aren't going to respond with injury data. Because as soon as they do then somebody is going to sue them as a result of this data being taken to be a product claim. It's the same reason manufacturers sell devices and then say right on the box that the device isn't supposed to be used for what it is intended.
Also, just because injury rates haven't gone down doesn't mean the shoes aren't helping. What the shoes may well be doing is allowing people to run harder and longer on hard surfaces. Of course those Mexicans can run barefoot: they're running on dirt. Also, these cushioned shoes are also allowing people who aren't full-time runners be able run where otherwise their unconditioned feet might not be able to.
There's a lot more I could say, but it's not worth the effort.
Personally, I recommend a mixture of barefoot and the vibram five fingers or other minimal shoes.
Running is a mechanical process. If there is something wrong with your feet, say your arches are too low or too high, or if one of yours legs is longer than the other, you will have problems with your gait that will likely increase your chance of injury. I don't see how history plays into it.
History gives us knowledge we can apply to even mechanical concepts. We don't need to reinvent the steam engine, we can just look it up in a text book. Likewise, we don't need to try to reinvent running or the human foot when our inventions are not as good as the original.
You have no evidence for this statement.
The Lore of Running is a good reference if you're a runner I suggest getting it.
One of the things the author deals with was the introduction of running shoes to the existing athletes at the time. It did make much difference and for some it caused problems. But there are now athletes who couldn't compete without them.
As an example how would you deal with flat-feet historically? Looking at how armies have handled it just excludes you from fighting.
You are right that scientific peer reviewed research on barefoot native cultures (and barefoot running in general) is hard to find. But when you recognize that it is scientifically proven that shoes decrease cushioning and increase joint stress, you start to think we haven't progressed much from them. http://www.mskreport.com/articles.cfm?articleID=2980
http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/
I saw these shoes about two years ago in ID magazine when the original won a few design awards. Essentially, they are meant to provide a near-barefoot experience while protecting the soles of the feet and providing some traction.
Wearing something like this goes against most of the advice I've received about shoes; as someone with flat feet, I've always sought out shoes with good support, motion-control, etc. However, I find them strangely appealing. Whenever I run/play frisbee on soft surfaces like grass I find it very comfortable to go barefoot. I don't think I've seen enough evidence to be convinced that there is something wrong with common running shoes, but I'm excited to try these anyway.
You may also want to try practicing raising your arches by gripping the floor in such a way that your toes bend backwards and you make contact with the big toe and little toe ball of the foot.
When the runners are free to choose their shoes you would expect correlation between runners with more expensive shoes and those more prone to injures.
Presenting the results this way can only be viewed as disingenuous but then again this is The Daily Mail.
I use them for running, 5 km daily, all year round; and also for hiking. I get ironic grins when I mention that I run in them, because these are supposedly definitely obsolete and uncool, but I don't care.
I don't have any problems. What am I doing wrong?
I felt like I could fly when I wore them.
Certainly one study doesn't provide a definitive answer, but decrying the article because he is inconsistent with common sense, which is he is explicitly saying is wrong, seems a bit unfair.
I stand by my claim. It is ridiculous to say that we all have the same chance of getting hurt, which is what he says. He also says much later and in an unrelated part of the article that, as you note, you're more likely to get hurt in expensive shoes than cheap ones, according to one study. There is no mention of "Remember that stuff I said at the beginning-- that was wrong."
Maybe "madman" is going too far-- perhaps "inconsistent and unreasonable person" would be more accurate.
Refuting one sentence is useful, but does not refute the central point.
However, I think you've mistaken my intent. I don't agree or disagree with the article. Honestly, I have only skimmed the article, and I don't plan to read it carefully, because I am convinced that the writing is sloppy, and that makes the article, in my judgment, not worth reading. I would presume you feel differently.
I had hoped to spare fellow readers the disappointment that I experienced, clicking on the article, hoping to find insightful commentary on running shoes, but instead finding writing that appeared to me to be unexceptional. It certainly seems this has been ineffective. I don't know; maybe you all loved the article, and I'm the one missing out. I'll stick with the heuristic of "Articles that lead with unreasonable claims are not worth finishing."