The Right Footwear and Tips When Choosing Shoes

With Dry July ahead, it’s a great opportunity to start a new exercise regime to support your new health lifestyle. But if you are just getting back into running or getting into it for the first time, you need to really think about what shoes you are going to wear. 

When we are running, it’s our footwear that is making contact with the ground so our shoes play a pivotal role controlling the high impact forces that pass from the ground to the lower limbs at each step.

Sam Christie- a Sports Podiatrist from PodMED Podiatry, Double Bay- has seen potentially pathological footwear all too often. “People let their footwear get too old and compressed or women are running in fashionable casual trainers. Don’t buy on aesthetic alone or assume the most expensive shoe is the best shoe for you. Shelve that idea and get what you need, realizing an expensive shoe is not necessarily better, the proper fit is far more important”.

Here are some things to consider when choosing your shoe:

EXPERT FIT - Make sure your shoes fits your foot size and shape while providing the correct level of control needed for your walking or running style.

Q ANGLE - Consider your weight and gender. Wider hips in women will increase rolling in (pronatory) forces at the ground.

EXPENSE - Dispel the myth that the most expensive and technical shoe is the best shoe in the store. Technical footwear can actually alter your biomechanics and the way you walk

PRESSURE PLATE MAPPING – You know, the machine they get you to stand on in most sportng shops these days? This is not a good way to determine foot type or function and isn’t the best tool to match technical running shoes to foot types.

Here are 5 aspects of a shoe you should consider in order to minimise injury:

• Make sure the heel is held by a strong heel counter that effectively supports and holds the heel bone particularly in the middle of your stride when the pressure is highest and your foot is unstable.

• Do your shoes’ upper secure the middle of the foot and the instep without excessive pressure?

• Does the toe box accommodate room for swelling during exercise so that you can minimse any trauma to the phalanges?

• Does the shoe’s flex point mirror the flex line at the ball of the fore-foot?

• The sole shape must match your foot type and the natural contours of the three arches in our foot. Medial (main arch on the inside of the foot), lateral arch (outside of the foot) and transverse arches (under the ball of the foot between the big toe and little toe)

Running shoes fall into three main categories:

(1) Motion-control for heavy pronators,

(2) Stability for mild to moderate pronators.

(3) Neutral for those requiring minimal medial arch support.

                                                                      

Selecting the right level of in shoe support is essential to minimise injury; if you don’t know what you are, see someone who can help you work it out

Insufficient control or support may result in pronation (rolling in) injuries, for example Achilles tendonitis, patella tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, tibialis posterior tendinopathies, sinus tarsi syndrome stress fractures as well as the involvement of running related hip and back pain.

            
 
          Pronated Foot                                                    Neutral Foot

Excessive control or too much support will increase the ground reaction force through the limb which may result in inversion sprains, arthritis of the knee and other trauma related injuries.

So what are people doing wrong?

 

Not really knowing about athletic footwear and not taking the time to be properly fitted is generally the reason for selecting the wrong shoe. Talk to a Sports Podiatrist about any lower limb pain you may have or are experiencing when you return to exercise. If you are injured or exercising with pain there’s a reason, so listen to what your body is trying to tell you. If you don’t know what’s going wrong, ask someone who does. Finding the answers when it comes to lower limb injuries will improve your performance and allow you to be the fastest you can be.