Tag Archives: footwear

Is the drop of a running shoe associated with injury risk?

I previously blogged about the evidence on the use of zero drop vs a higher drop of running shoes and concluded that there is no evidence for one drop over another. Judging by the comments that the post received the ‘fan boys’ did not like that conclusion, responding with the usual rhetoric and propaganda and […] Continue reading

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Minimalist vs Maximalist Running Shoes and Achilles Tendon Loads

Sometimes I struggle to decide what to include as the title of a blog post; this time is no exception. Should I title this post: “Minimalist Running Shoes Increase the Achilles Tendon Load” or should I title it “Maximalist Running Shoes Decreases the Achilles Tendon Load“? (I played with the headline concept before, here). Continue reading

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Relevant Gems from the 2015 Footwear Biomechanics Symposium

The Footwear Biomechanics group of the International Society of Biomechanics meets every two years; right now its meeting in Liverpool , UK, so here are some of the relevant selected highlights from this meeting for me: Darren Stefanyshyn started of the meeting with his keynote on Footwear Research: Where do we go from here? The take home message for me was his emphasis on the need to take lab based biomechanical research through to the field or clinic to see if the interventions actually do work to achieve the outcomes that is assumed or speculated from the lab based mechanical studies. Continue reading

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Effect of shoe drop on running mechanics

The topic of the “drop” keeps coming up and has generated a lot of interest as well as the usual rhetoric and propaganda. Continue reading

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Use of Toning or Unstable Shoes to Aid Post Marathon Recovery

Toning or unstable shoes do not exactly have much of good track record due to the exaggerated health claims that got made for the product and the multi-million dollar settlements that some of the manufacturers had to enter into. This was based on the lack of evidence for those health claims. That does not mean that these types of shoes are not useful and have some benefits Continue reading

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The Effect of Footwear on Running Performance

I have to be honest and say I getting a little bored with the running economy stuff as I have covered the studies on it so many times and its gets harder to rewrite about the same thing again and re-litigate the same issues again. Continue reading

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Do MBT Shoes Work?

What are they? MBT shoes were originally development in Switzerland and were the first of the toning shoes to come on the market. Continue reading

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Footwear and Flatfeet: Correlation or Causation?

One of the arguments that often get advanced for a barefoot lifestyle is that shoes cause flat feet as they weaken the muscles. Not sure how people make that conclusion as there is no evidence that footwear wearing populations have feet that is any weaker than barefoot wearing populations – you would have thought that if such claims were being made, those making it would have something to back it up. Just stating it and wishing it was true is a logical fallacy Continue reading

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Can mixing up the running shoes prevent overuse running injury?

An overuse injury is due to the cumulative load in the tissue being beyond what the tissue can take. To prevent an injury, you have to reduce that cumulative load and/or increase the ability of the tissues to take that load Continue reading

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Continuing to heel strike after transition to minimalist running shoes

I blogged back in July about a study that showed: Increased Lower Limb Loading with use of Minimalist Running Shoes and now we have another related publication: Short term changes in running mechanics and foot strike pattern following introduction to minimalistic footwear . Willson JD, Bjorhus JS, Williams B 3rd, Butler RJ, Porcari JP, Kernozek TW. Continue reading

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