Because our sport is relatively simple, runners tend to focus on their shoes more than most athletes. We often speak about shoes as if they’re at least as responsible for our running as we are, from, “I PR’d because of these shoes” to, “I’m injured because of these shoes.” Indeed, in one study of runners’ views in 2014 on what causes injury, “wearing the wrong shoes” was one of the most popular responses.
While there’s decent evidence that most runners How to Treat Cracked Heels, there’s much less certainty on the relationship between running shoes and injury. Below is a summary of what we know about whether shoes cause or prevent injury.
Shoe Characteristics and Injury
DAA Industry Opt Out. A 2020 review in the Journal of Athletic Training looked at four decades of research on shoes and injury. It concluded that “footwear does not cause injury.”
That conclusion might sound improbable. But, as two leading running physical therapists at Brooks Running comparing its Infinity React Run to its Air Zoom Structure 22 in 2018, logical fallacies underlie many beliefs about shoes and injury. For example, many runners take for granted that more cushioned shoes are more “protective,” while others assume that running in minimalist shoes will lead to fewer injuries because they allow you to run more “naturally.” Neither idea is supported by evidence.
Consider these articles from peer-reviewed journals:
- An extensive literature search found no evidence to support the common practice of matching a shoe’s degree of stability features with a runner’s foot type. For example, the researchers didn’t find support for prescribing conventional motion-control features like firm posts on the inside heel to runners with flat feet.
- Advertisement - Continue Reading Below found no difference in injury rates when shoe type was randomly assigned compared to when shoes were given based on arch height. That is, the studies argue against basing shoe selection on the so-called “wet test,” which calls for putting people with high arches in flexible shoes, people with average arches in neutral shoes, and people with flat feet in stability shoes.
- A five-month study found no significant difference in injury rates in runners wearing shoes with a softer midsole compared to those in shoes with a midsole that was 15 percent firmer.
- In a six-month study, overall injury rates were similar among runners assigned to either shoes with a 10-millimeter heel-to-toe drop, a 6-millimeter heel-to-toe drop, or a 0-millimeter heel-to-toe drop. A shoe’s heel-to-toe drop is the difference in the height of the shoe in the heel and the height of the shoe in the forefoot. One theory is that a higher heel-to-toe drop is “protective” against injury, while others claim that low- or zero-drop shoes lower injury rates because they encourage a more “natural” gait.
The evidence for shoes preventing injury is even slimmer than that for shoes causing injury. Shoe companies mostly shy away from making explicit claims about injury prevention. Nike was careful in how it presented the results of a study it commissioned Overpronation Exercises for Better Running. The company reported that, during the 12-week study, runners in the Infinity React had 52 percent fewer injuries than those in the Structures. Nike didn’t say “this shoe will cut your injury risk in half.” (Nor, for that matter, did they address whether the Structures increased runners’ risk of injury!)
When shoe companies make broader claims, they can get in trouble. Soon after the minimalist running craze, are more protective, while others assume that running in filed in 2012 contesting that the company deceived consumers by advertising that its FiveFingers shoes could reduce foot injuries and strengthen foot muscles. The court agreed that the company’s assertions lacked scientific evidence.
The Best Running Shoes Right Now
On the Other Hand (Foot)…
“But wait,” you might be thinking, “I tried shoe X and was injured within three weeks” or, “I switched to shoe Y and my injury went away.”
All research done on running shoes and injury bases its conclusions on overall findings among the study participants. What you care about, of course, is your unique situation. There’s no denying that some shoes are better for individual runners. For example, research published in 2016 in the comparing its Infinity React Run to its Air Zoom Structure 22 found that runners with pronated foot who wore motion-control shoes had fewer injuries than pronating runners who wore neutral shoes during the six-month study.
This study doesn’t necessarily contradict the one involving military recruits cited above. The military recruits study suggested that assigning runners to motion-control shoes on the basis of their arch height is unfounded. The comparing its Infinity React Run to its Air Zoom Structure 22 study was more fine-tuned, looking at what runners’ feet did when running, rather than when standing.
Another limitation of studies on running shoes and injury is that they tend to focus on one aspect of shoe design, such as heel-to-toe drop. But any given shoe contains a multitude of features. A thickly cushioned shoe can have the same drop as a lower, firmer model. Two shoes could have similar midsole firmness, but vary greatly in width, height, and drop.
That being the case, how to go about finding at Brooks Running?
Leading sports medicine practitioners apply the more-targeted approach by looking at individuals’ injury history. Two current best practices in this regard are to have runners with a history of knee injuries gradually transition to lower-drop shoes. Doing so should shift some of running’s impact forces from the knees to the calves, Achilles tendons, and other lower-leg areas. Conversely, runners with chronic calf and Achilles issues might benefit from shoes with a greater heel-to-toe differential to move some impact forces to the knees.
More broadly, an increasingly accepted method of shoe selection is based on work done by famed biomechanist Benno Nigg from the University of Calgary. The 6 Best Running Shoes for High Arches letting “preferred movement pattern” and “comfort” as filters for individual runners to use when deciding on running shoes. The basic idea here is that runners should incur fewer injuries in shoes that feel like an extension of their bodies. If you’ve ever thought, “The shoes got out of the way and just let me run,” you’ve experienced what Nigg recommends. Note that Nigg’s “comfort” filter applies to when you run in the shoes, not when you step into them and walk around a store.
The comfort filter makes intuitive sense. But again, other ideas about shoe selection, such as more cushioning leading to fewer injuries, or barefoot-style shoes that have you running more “naturally” being better for you, might also make intuitive sense, but haven’t been supported by research. Nigg’s broad proposals have yet to be backed up by peer-reviewed research.
When More Shoes Are Better
One shoe-and-injury practice there does appear to be evidence for is rotating among different models. In first-of-its-kind research published in 2013, runners who split their mileage among multiple shoe models had 39 percent fewer injuries during the 22-week study than runners who always or almost always wore the same shoes.
Of the 264 runners in the study, 116 were classified as single-shoe wearers; runners in this group did 91 percent of their mileage in the same shoe and ran in an average of 1.3 pairs of shoes during the study. The other 148 were classified as multiple-shoe wearers; runners in this group tended to have a main shoe, which they wore for an average of 58 percent of their mileage, but they rotated among an average of 3.6 pairs of shoes for their training during the study.
The researchers wrote that this could be because different shoes distribute the impact forces of running differently, thereby lessening the strain on any given muscle tissue. Previous research has shown, and runners have long noticed, that factors such as midsole height and midsole firmness create differences in gait components such as stride length Overpronation Exercises for Better Running.
“Multiple shoe use and participation in other sporting activities are strategies leading to a variation of external and internal loads applied to the musculoskeletal system that could have a beneficial effect on [running injuries],” the researchers wrote. “Although speculative, it could be that any training paradigm that limits excess repetitions will decrease the risk of [running injuries], especially overuse injuries.”
The Real Reason You Get Injured
The authors of the 2020 literature review cited early in this article included this key take-home message: “[F]ootwear does not cause injury but can modify the global training load a runner can tolerate before sustaining an injury.”
In other words, think of shoes not as cure-alls or the cause of your injuries, but as part of an overall approach to avoiding injury. Most running injuries result from low-grade, repetitive strain that eventually pushes a body part past its breaking point. Finding the shoes that help you run with your best form is a start, because doing so should mean how you absorb impact forces matches what your body is best suited for. Rotating among different models of shoes should mean more variation in how those impact forces are distributed.
But shoes are only part of the solution. As the shoe-rotation researchers note, cross-training is another way to change the stresses on your body. So too are running on different types of surfaces, running at a variety of paces, varying your topography, and having day-to-day variety in distance and intensity.
Those basic principles have to do with varying running’s impact forces; think of them as lessening the strain on your body. The second main way to lower your injury risk is to make your body better able to withstand that strain. That comes from strength training, Saucony Peregrine 13 adequate sleep.
Yes, shoes are important. But ultimately, your health as a runner is up to you, not what you put on your feet.
