Running Insight

movement path to minimize effort around its specific parameters. "If you put people in a shoe, they have a preferred moving path, the path of least resistance, where energy demands are at their lowest," Nigg says. When I tell him about my results in experimenting with wearable stride monitors and finding that my metrics stayed fairly consistent in a wide variety of shoes, from racing flats to Hokas, he is not at all surprised. "If you put all these gadgets on, they just show you that you are running in the Jonathan style, and the shoe doesn't make a big difference," he says. "If you start to fiddle around and control movements," Nigg says, "These elements may want to throw you out of your preferred movement paths. That means your muscles work against that, and that costs energy. That's not desirable." It is easy to accept this analysis if the shoe is messing with our natural gait, like being too stiff to let our toes flex, but our pronationism makes us think that controlling excessive inward rolling is necessary. Nigg disagrees. "Let's take a person who is heavily pronated," Nigg says. "If you put that person back into straight alignment, that costs energy. They want to pronate, then their muscles have to do something against that, and that certainly is not advantageous." While Shorten agrees that "most stability features don't work," he is "not ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater." He explains that while science can't very well measure what is happening within a control shoe—and scientists don't even agree on what exactly pronation or overpronation is—in practice, out on the roads, support shoes work for many people, relieving symptoms and allowing them to run comfortably. A 2016 study by the Luxembourg Institute of Health confirmed that people with pronated feet showed a lower risk of injury while wearing motion-control shoes. "Some people need a [Brooks] Adrenaline," Shorten says. He agrees, however, that probably far fewer need a stability shoe than think they do. The bottom line is that if we want to run better, either to avoid injury or run faster, we shouldn't look to shoes and think they will make up for stride weaknesses. This type of thinking leads to such fallacies as believing you need more shoe because you're increasing your mileage or training for a marathon—thinking that with added stress you'll need more support. Bartold thinks the opposite: "If you're marathon training, you're probably going to lose weight, improve your technique. You're probably going to need less shoe as you go along." If your stride is falling apart due to excessive fatigue from your marathon training, the shoe isn't going to prevent you from getting injured—you need to look instead at your training and timing. Some might argue that a clunky shoe is a small price to pay for protection. But science and years of experience show that the perceived protection is false. "It's a choice borne out of fear, and the fear is not reality—it is probably the opposite of reality," Bartold says. "At the end of the day, in the sport of running, the less shoe you have is better." n 6 runninginsight.com © 2017 Formula4media LLC. The Myth of the Magic Shoes (continued) EVERY RUNNER WANTS A SMOOTH, light, powerful, and resilient stride. But there isn't one ideal form all runners should try to emulate. Instead, research and experience show that people can run effectively in a wide variety of patterns with some universal elements. Runner's World Your Best Stride distills the expertise of physical therapists, podiatrists, biomechanics researchers, and coaches to reveal in runner- friendly terms how you can apply these principles to improve your running performance, avoid injury, and enhance your enjoyment on the run. FIND OUT MORE AT RODALEBOOKS.COM RUN THE WAY YOU WERE BORN TO RUN 14640 AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR MACMILLAN SALES REP OR CALL 888-330-8477 14640_BestStridesAD_7.5x2.5.indd 1 7/7/17 4:30 PM We shouldn't look to shoes and think they will make up for stride weaknesses. PICK UP A COPY OF RUNNER'S WORLD YOUR BEST STRIDE for more expert opinions on shoes, including where minimalism overpromised, what matters most in shoe choice and how the specialty retailer can best assist in this process.

• Cover