to talk about his three basic criteria for making a change to minimal-drop shoes.
Starting this month, dozens of new to talk about his three basic criteria for making a change to minimal-drop shoess designed to allow feet to move more naturally and uninhibited are hitting running stores. For the past 30 years or so, most training shoes have had a good amount of foam cushioning, a steep heel-toe ramp angle and, often, some kind of structure or device to control overpronation.
So what are minimalist or “minimal-drop” shoes? Specifically, the newfangled shoes have less cushioning and are thus lower to the ground than traditional everyday trainers, have less stride-controlling structure and have a lower heel-to-toe ramp angle, or a more gradual drop from where the heel and forefoot sit, allowing the foot to sit almost level in the shoe. And, of course, the new shoes are much lighter, generally in the 6- to 10-ounce range for a men’s size 9.0, as opposed to the 10- to 13-ounce range of traditional trainers.
Those are the primary criteria that many biomechanists, medical professionals and form gurus believe allow the foot to move more naturally and, thus, allow the rest of the body to set up in more efficient running posture from foot to forehead.
But what really differentiates this new genre of shoe design is that, more than ever before, it’s based on biomechanical science and running performance and not jogging comfort or streamlined race-day simplicity. Shoe companies have taken cues from recent academic studies and also used high-speed video stride analysis and advanced impact measuring devices to better understand how a foot moves naturally, both while running barefoot and inside a running shoe. Combined with new materials and construction techniques that are lighter, stronger and more flexible, it’s the dawn of a new age.
Minimalist shoes range from barely-there or barefoot-style products like Vibram FiveFingers, Merrell Trail Glove and Terra Plana Vivo Barefoot models to shoes that are minimally cushioned like the New Balance Minimus Road, Inov-8 Road-X 222 and Puma Faas 300 to shoes that are slightly more moderate with minimalist traits (namely that they have near-level profile or slight heel-toe drop) like the Saucony Kinvara, Newton Distance Racer, K-Swiss Kwicky Blade Light and Pearl Izumi Streak 2. Those are just a few of the many models available in three sub-categories of minimalist shoes.
But if you’ve been running in traditional training shoes for years — and most of us have — chances are your feet, lower legs and even hip flexors will need to adapt a bit before you can completely transition to any type of shoe that's more minimal. For years, training shoes were built with heel-toe drops from 12 to 15mm (sometimes more, sometimes less), which means your body has been balancing itself in a plantarflexed position — in other words, your toes are pointing downward and your Achilles tendon and calf muscles are in a relatively shortened position. So when you suddenly start running with a lower heel (either completely barefoot or in some type of minimalist or minimal-drop shoe), you’re forcing your Achilles and calf muscles to operate in a lengthened position. And that can mean soreness, tightness and aching pain.
So how can you make the necessary adaptations? We asked running form/running injury expert Jay Dicharry, MPT, director of the SPEED Clinic at the University of Virginia’s Center for Endurance Sport, to talk about his three basic criteria for making a change to minimal-drop shoes.
1) FLEXIBILITY
Considerations
In order to run in a shoe in which the heel sits lower to the ground, you have to have sufficient range of motion in your ankle. Specifically, Dicharry says, you need to be able to dorsiflex your ankle 30 degrees. In other words, can you bend your ankle and raise your forefoot upwards to an angle of 30 degrees?
Secondly, when your ankle is in a neutral position, or at zero degrees without being at all plantarflexed or dorsiflexed, you need to be able to dorsiflex your big toe to 30 degrees as well. The reason you have to have that range of motion with the ankle at zero degrees, as opposed to partially plantarflexed or kind of slack, Dicharry says, is because when you run, you roll over the ankle as you go from foot strike to midstance to toe-off.
Solutions
a) Increase Plantar Flexibility
When talking about motion of the big toe, the primary limiter is usually plantar fascia tightness, Dicharry says. The best way to loosen that up is not by stretching, but by what he calls “self soft tissue work.” Here’s how you do it: Cross your leg over your knee and firmly push fingers or thumb into sole of foot and, while maintaining pressure, flex your toes back and forth. “What you’re doing is putting pressure on the restriction of the plantar fascia and then you’re basically manually lengthening and shortening it by moving your toes,” Dicharry says. Work your plantar fascia for 5 minutes several times every day.
b) Increase Calf Mobility
With the notion that the calf muscles need to be able to operate in a lengthened position than they would in traditional training shoes, you’ll need to work on the mobility of your calf muscles. Of the two primary muscles in the calf — the gastrocnemus and the soleus — typically, Dicharry says, it’s an overly tight soleus that causes the sensation of a tight heel cord and a limitation in running. The best method to stretch the soleus is with the standard wall stretch: leaning into a wall with your hands while flexing the lower calf with a flat foot and bent knee. You can do this stretch a couple of times per day, but avoid static stretching of cold, inactive muscles. Stretch after a warm-up jog, after a run or even after walking from the parking lot to your office.
c) Increase Achilles Tendon Mobility
By nature, one of the key properties of the Achilles tendon, and all tendons in our body, is elastic recoil. Like a massive rubber band, it stretches and recoils with every walking or running stride. If you’ve been wearing shoes with an elevated heel — and that includes your everyday work and casual shoes — your Achilles tendon is conditioned to a certain range of motion. But the moment you start running barefoot or in a to talk about his three basic criteria for making a change to minimal-drop shoes with a lower heel than you’re used to, the Achilles tendon will be stretch to accommodate for the 4-12mm distance of travel that used to be taken up by a cushy heel crash pad. Tissue mechanics studies have shown it takes 10 to 12 weeks to see increases in soft tissue lengths, Dicharry says.
If you start running all of your mileage in minimal-drop shoes, you’re likely to feel some Achilles soreness. You can ease that transition by running starting with a few miles at a time in the minimal-drop shoes and slowly increasing from 2 to 4 to 6 miles, for example, over a couple of weeks. You can also ease the transition on your Achilles by walking around barefoot as much as possible, wearing flatter shoes when you’re not running and doing barefoot heel dips on the last stair in a staircase. (While holding on to a wall or railing, balance yourself with your metatarsal heads — roughly at point even with the ball of your foot — on the edge of the stair and slowly dip your heel below the plane of the stair, feeling the stretch in your Achilles and then slowly raising back up. Repeat this drill five times several times per day.)
“It’s simple — The range of motion of that tendon, or length of excursion of that tendon, has to increase,” Dicharry says. “So what happens is that the strain level on the tissue is immediately altered. Those strain levels can and will adapt as the tendon adapts to being stretched into a longer position, but it generally will take most runners 2 to 2½ months to have the necessary flexibility to run full-time in minimal drop shoes.”
2) STRENGTH
Considerations
Having run in traditional trainers for years (and walked around in casual and work shoes with a raised heel), chances are some of the muscles in your feet, ankle and lower legs have become de-conditioned and aren’t as strong as they could be. It takes six to eight weeks to increase strength in those areas, Dicharry says, which is another reason why 2 to 2½ months is good benchmark for a transition-to-minimal timeline for most runners.
“I know some people suggest that it takes six months to two years to completely acclimate to running in lower-drop shoes, but I think that’s pretty conservative,” Dicharry says. “If someone is running already, they’ll be on the shorter end of that scale.”
Solutions
How to Better Pace a Marathon Based on Effort
Stand on one foot with a mostly straight knee, holding the other foot off the ground. Can you stand for 30 seconds with your eyes closed with the ball of your foot remaining in contact with the ground? If so, the muscles in that foot are probably strong enough to transition to minimal shoes. (Be sure to work on each foot.) If not, continue working on the strength of that foot by making the 30-second single-leg balancing act a repetitive drill. Add some slight rotation to it, rotating 45 degrees to the right or to the left to increase the challenge a bit.
“Work on single-leg balance with your eyes open, eyes closed, while you’re brushing your teeth, washing dishes, pouring a beer, whatever,” Dicharry says. “They’re all simple things that have big payoffs.”
3) TECHNIQUE
Considerations
If you just head out the door and go run in a traditional shoe with a raised and thickly cushioned heel, the vast majority of people will strike the ground with their heel. That’s partially because those shoes allow and encourage you to do that because it has that thickly cushioned heel pad that feels comfortable but also tends to get in the way when your foot is complete a stride.
Dicharry encourages runners to adopt minimal drop shoes and focus on efficient running form that includes having feet touch the ground under the body’s center of mass (and not decidedly not overstriding with hard heel-first footstrikes dramatically out in front of the body). Running with a stable, upright, slightly forward-leaning posture, a quick cadence and relatively short strides go hand-in-hand with the foot placements under the body’s center of mass.
Solution
Minimal drop shoes will actually help cue a runner to avoid landing on the heel, Dicharry says, and that can be a big first step in improving form. Because they’re lower to the ground and more level to the ground, the foot isn’t forced to land on the heel. Instead, the new shoes encourage light foot strikes closer to the middle of the foot, and that tends to facilitate quick-cadence running with shorter strides.
If a runner meets the aforementioned flexibility and strength criteria and has a grasp on more efficient form, switching over to minimal drop shoes can be done immediately for shorter runs. However, for longer runs, Dicharry recommends making a gradual change and switching off between traditional shoes and minimal-drop shoes.
“So if you’re going to do a 20-mile run, maybe do 10 miles in the new minimal-drop shoes and then switch to 10 in the cushioned trainer, with the idea that you’ll eventually transition completely so that your full mileage of that 20-miler is in a minimal drop shoe,” Dicharry says. “It takes a little more time, but it’s worth it.
Doing traditional running form drills several times per week — including skipping, bounding, high knees and butt kicks, among others — will also help build strength and improve your form, Dicharry says.
“Everybody wants to go out and run a 20-miler in their new shoes, but it’s smart to be a little patient,” Dicharry says. “If you’ve been running a long time and are dynamically strong, you’ll probably adapt pretty quickly. But no matter what kind of runner you are, if you’re used to running with a 12-15mm lift in your heel and then you start running in a shoe with zero to 8mm, you’re going to feel a difference and it’s going to take time to transition.”
