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The question about the best kind of running shoes to wear arises very often at
our clinics and on
our
forum. It is really not easy for many runners and triathletes to make a proper choice in an ocean of information from the shoe making industry catalogues, ads, and press. The abundance of different designs around, all
appealing to your eyes, makes the actual choice an almost unbearable suffering.
What kind of shoes are better for training? And for racing? For everyone at
our clinics we recommend racing flats. There is a certain
philosophy behind this recommendation, which consists of several concepts:
1. The shoes should be light, so that their weight didn't
deteriorate the feeling of the foot as a part of the leg. It means that the
feeling of the foot wouldn't differ from the feeling of the whole leg,
psychologically. Biomechanically it may affect the foot transfer in space and
time: its speed, acceleration, and trajectory, which could all be deteriorated
by heavy shoes. We can deliberately use heavy shoes for some special occasions
of strength development, but not for a long time, and surely not permanently.
2. The shoes should have thin soles, with no cushioning at
all. It reduces the weight, but this is not the main reason. First of all, it
allows you to develop a very precise, refined feeling of interaction between
the foot and the ground, while landing. Obviously, it is impossible to do this
through a thick shoe sole. In a movement, when every hundredth of a second
counts (the time of support in best runners is 0.15-0.20 sec.), the support
time is a crucial thing for neuro-muscular coordination. When the signal for
the foot to touch the ground reaches the muscles and makes them prepare for
landing, it's already too late. And cushioning here is the factor which
deteriorates timing and as a consequence, running technique, by increasing the
time of support and due to this, loading of joints, ligaments, tendons, and
muscles.
Second, a thick sole and cushioning increase the possibility of pronation or
supination, if the runner has a tendency to it. Hence, it leads to injuries,
and we'll talk about this separately.
Third, in Pose Method landing occurs on the ball of the foot, not on the heel,
so the thick shoe heel structure doesn't make any sense. Even more, it reduces
the freedom of the heel, and ankle movement and decreases the calf muscle
stretching elasticity effect.
Therefore, we would recommend light weight shoes with thin soles, some
racing flats meet these requirements.
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