Are You Wearing the Proper Shoe?
The human foot is comprised of some 28 bones, 20 muscles and tendons, 112 ligaments and 33 joints. The individual characteristics of each of these components and how they work together make for an almost endless variety of feet and foot movement. By understanding the characteristics of your feet and their motion through analysis at a specialty running store, by a podiatrist, or through your own observations, you can take the initiative to make sure that you end up in a running shoe that best serves your needs.
Begin by determining your foot strike and motion. When you run, do you land on your forefoot or your heel? If you land on your forefoot, you need a cushioned shoe. If you land on your heel, what happens next? Do you roll up the outside edge of your foot, do you roll pretty evenly up the center area of the foot, or do you roll toward the inside edge of your forefoot to toe-off?
This can be difficult to determine, especially since wear patterns on your old shoes can be misleading. The gold standard is biomechanical analysis of your gait. A less technical method is to stand on a flat surface with your knees bent and your feet flat and ask a friend to look at your achilles tendons. Do they curve or tilt noticeably inward from vertical or do they remain fairly straight up and down?
If you fall into the first category, you are probably part of the 65% of the general population who overpronate (roll to the inside edge of the foot). Overpronators need motion stabilizing shoes, which are designed to guide the foot to a more neutral position from heelstrike through toe-off. Shoes in this category offer various levels of stabilization to meet the needs of mild to severe overpronators. If your achilles remains relatively vertical, you are among the 30% who have neutral feet and simply need cushioned shoes.
Next, determine the shape of your foot using the diagram below. Approximately 35% of us have high arches and require curved shoes, 40% of us have medium arches and require semi-curved shoes and the remaining 25% of us have minimal to no arches and require semi- straight or straight lasted shoes.
By determining your foot strike, foot motion and foot shape, either in the general way we described above or with the more technical help of a podiatrist or running specialty store retailer, you have narrowed down your shoe search to the category that you need (cushioned or motion stabilizing) and then further refined it by determining the shape of the shoe you require (curved, semi-curved, semistraight or straight lasted). Now you can use this Shoe Review as a starting place to view many of the latest offerings from the shoe companies. Combine it with feedback and evaluation from your podiatrist and your running specialty store retailer and you're on your way to finding a great new pair of shoes.