
Are expensive running shoes a waste of money? - terpua
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html
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biohacker42
My anecdote:

I run with a pair of very old flat shoes, with no cushioning or bounce in them
what so ever. Then one day I decide to try a pair of fancy expensive sneakers.

It was amazing, I was running A LOT faster with no extra effort! And then the
next day my knees were in a lot of pain.

A few days later I put the new shoes on again to go for a run, and I kept
thinking about how much faster I ran, it must have been the bounce. So I start
hopping with the shoes, but they don't bounce, they dampen!

That intrigued me, and I started playing around to make sure the shoes were
dampeners, and they were. But then they should have made me slower!

The only explanation I have is they fooled my brain into pounding the pavement
a lot harder, hence the knee pain.

Now I'm back to my old crappy shoes, no pain with them.

~~~
evilneanderthal
your legs were an inch longer or more due to the increased shoe cushioning.

hence you experienced a slight increase in speed.

~~~
diN0bot
i don't know why this was downvoted. Leg length is a reasonable hypothesis.
Taller musco-skeleton structure helps with long runs (for the average runner).

This also makes sense when combined with the heel-landing technique, which
lengthens the stride, whereas the ball-landing technique is more compressed
and piston like.

I think both the dampening and stride lengthening effects cause faster speeds
but at a greater detriment to the body.

~~~
unexpected
leg length is really not that important. The most important thing for a runner
is weight. The lighter you are, generally the faster you can run.

Sammy Wanjiru, the guy who won the olympic marathon, is 5'4" and 112 lbs!

When you have longer legs it also takes you more energy to move them. Running
long distances is all about running as efficiently as possible.

Weight also matters in sprinting. If you looked at the NFL combine results,
for the 40 yard dash times, the most factor tends to be weight- the lighter
you are, the faster your times are.

This is why it's such an anomaly to find someone that's really big that can
run extremely fast. (BC's BJ Raji for example).

It's been estimated that for every lb you use lose, you can lose about 2 lbs
on your mile time. Want to improve your mile time by 20 seconds? Lose 10 lbs!

~~~
evilneanderthal
Certainly, f=ma, but with all else being equal, I'd say that an increase in
lever length (hip joint to footprint) MIGHT explain an increase in speed.

Consider: an inch of shoe is probably lighter than an inch of leg. I resisted
the urge to call it "an inch of man" - you're welcome.

An additional factor: extra cushioning and the different shoe shape resulted
in the runner not bending his knees as much. This could result in increased
lever length as I described above; it could also explain the knee pain: the
knee joint was experiencing increased shock during impact with the ground.

------
Hates_
Just to point out, this was previously submited to HN and for some reason,
unknown to me, became dead. There is a good load of comments on there still:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=571447>

------
enum
My experience with motion-control running shoes quite different from what the
article reports. My knees stopped hurting once I switched to them.

~~~
gaius
Same for me.

The thing that matters is _where_ you buy your shoes. Go to a running store
like Runner's Need where they do gait analysis first, not to Nike Town where
you buy whatever Shaq is wearing this week.

~~~
ulf
Any problems should disappear wearing his size 16 running shoes. Of course so
would movement faster than 1mph.

------
TwoBit
They should make journalists take classes in critical thinking before they
write stuff like this.

Of course shoe manufacturers aren't going to respond with injury data. Because
as soon as they do then somebody is going to sue them as a result of this data
being taken to be a product claim. It's the same reason manufacturers sell
devices and then say right on the box that the device isn't supposed to be
used for what it is intended.

Also, just because injury rates haven't gone down doesn't mean the shoes
aren't helping. What the shoes may well be doing is allowing people to run
harder and longer on hard surfaces. Of course those Mexicans can run barefoot:
they're running on dirt. Also, these cushioned shoes are also allowing people
who aren't full-time runners be able run where otherwise their unconditioned
feet might not be able to.

There's a lot more I could say, but it's not worth the effort.

------
gregwebs
We need to make science based decisions, not marketing based decisions. This
article is dead on. In the absence of science (and sometimes in its presence)
we should look to history. What we find in indigenous cultures, besides just
the Tarahuma runners is barefoot or minimal shoe wearing people with very few
feet problems. Wearing a cast around your foot all day is not a good idea!

Personally, I recommend a mixture of barefoot and the vibram five fingers or
other minimal shoes.

~~~
jrussino
I recently had the chance to pick up a pair of Vibram's Five Fingers:

<http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/>

I saw these shoes about two years ago in ID magazine when the original won a
few design awards. Essentially, they are meant to provide a near-barefoot
experience while protecting the soles of the feet and providing some traction.

Wearing something like this goes against most of the advice I've received
about shoes; as someone with flat feet, I've always sought out shoes with good
support, motion-control, etc. However, I find them strangely appealing.
Whenever I run/play frisbee on soft surfaces like grass I find it very
comfortable to go barefoot. I don't think I've seen enough evidence to be
convinced that there is something wrong with common running shoes, but I'm
excited to try these anyway.

~~~
gregwebs
Its great that you are experimenting. Be prepared for people staring at your
foot-like shoes. You may want to try keeping your vibram five finger running
on grass or at least dirt, and getting into it as gradually as possible,
although if you already do frisbee barefoot you might be ready to go at it
hard. Our feet did not evolve to constantly run on concrete, although they
still absorb more shock than any running shoe.

You may also want to try practicing raising your arches by gripping the floor
in such a way that your toes bend backwards and you make contact with the big
toe and little toe ball of the foot.

------
glymor
_and footwear for the previous year; as it turned out, 45 per cent had been
hurt during that time. But what surprised Dr Marti was the fact that the most
common variable [...] shoes that cost more than $95 were more than twice as
likely to get hurt as runners in shoes that cost less than $40._

When the runners are free to choose their shoes you would expect correlation
between runners with more expensive shoes and those more prone to injures.

Presenting the results this way can only be viewed as disingenuous but then
again this is The Daily Mail.

------
jws
Interesting data point: On a $/mile basis, my friends who run spend more on
running shoes than I spend on gasoline for my car.

~~~
kajecounterhack
$90 for 500 miles. Hmm...yeah.

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listic
When I started running, I bought myself a pair of Dinamo trainers (very
simplistic trainers of old Soviet
design)(<http://www.fsidinamo.org/details.php?id=16>) by the advice of an old
runner. By the same advice I 'modded' them by putting a piece of porous resin
inside, under the heel.

I use them for running, 5 km daily, all year round; and also for hiking. I get
ironic grins when I mention that I run in them, because these are supposedly
definitely obsolete and uncool, but I don't care.

I don't have any problems. What am I doing wrong?

~~~
c_k
Where did you order those shoes?

~~~
Luc
Also, please tell us more about that resin, you shoe-hacker, you!

------
mapleoin
how about classic Converse shoes? Those have a flat and thin sole. I wonder
why they weren't mentioned in the article, since the brand is quite famous..

------
kajecounterhack
I'm a distance runner. When I had injuries, better shoes fixed them. I spend
~$400/yr on shoes. If you run enough mileage, they help. If you don't, they
aren't worth your investment. Also, sprinters seem not to require as much
cusioning as they require stability.

------
intranation
This is coming from the Daily Mail, one of the most populist and generally
poorly-researched papers in the UK (which has a glut of populist and poorly-
researched papers). I'm not inclined to believe this article for a second.

------
Maro
Find something (shoes, stretching routine, etc) that works and stick with it.
If you're an amateur, the bottleneck is you, your weight, etc. anyways, not
the equipment. Eg. last year when I did the Ironman I was 80kg, now I'm up to
90kg, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense to optimize the weight of my bike.

------
ALee
when I was in high school, I loved my track shoes, they were just this
sculpted shoe wth no padding almost like a slipper and we would put our screws
into them.

I felt like I could fly when I wore them.

------
pingswept
There is no need to read this article. These are clearly the words of a
madman: "No matter who you are, no matter how much you run, your odds of
getting hurt are the same."

~~~
lethain
He's basing that statement on a study performed on a number of runners which
tried to identify factors that would make someone likely to have an injury
over a year, and the only one that was statistically significant was price of
running shoe.

Certainly one study doesn't provide a definitive answer, but decrying the
article because he is inconsistent with common sense, which is he is
explicitly saying is wrong, seems a bit unfair.

~~~
pingswept
No. The sentence I quoted is in the 8th paragraph, above the first photo in
the article. The part you're mentioning is in the addendum, "Painful Truth No
1."

I stand by my claim. It is ridiculous to say that we all have the same chance
of getting hurt, which is what he says. He also says much later and in an
unrelated part of the article that, as you note, you're more likely to get
hurt in expensive shoes than cheap ones, according to one study. There is no
mention of "Remember that stuff I said at the beginning-- that was wrong."

Maybe "madman" is going too far-- perhaps "inconsistent and unreasonable
person" would be more accurate.

~~~
gregwebs
"inconsistent and unreasonable person", like "madman" is still stating your
disagreement at the lowest intellectual levels. See
<http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html> You need to remove the personal
attack ("person") and just point out that the ideas are inconsistent.

Refuting one sentence is useful, but does not refute the central point.

~~~
pingswept
I agree that I am stating my argument at a relatively low intellectual level
(but maybe not "the lowest"), and I also agree with you and PG that in general
we ought to avoid personal attacks as a form of disagreement.

However, I think you've mistaken my intent. I don't agree or disagree with the
article. Honestly, I have only skimmed the article, and I don't plan to read
it carefully, because I am convinced that the writing is sloppy, and that
makes the article, in my judgment, not worth reading. I would presume you feel
differently.

I had hoped to spare fellow readers the disappointment that I experienced,
clicking on the article, hoping to find insightful commentary on running
shoes, but instead finding writing that appeared to me to be unexceptional. It
certainly seems this has been ineffective. I don't know; maybe you all loved
the article, and I'm the one missing out. I'll stick with the heuristic of
"Articles that lead with unreasonable claims are not worth finishing."

~~~
gregwebs
The article is really sloppy and poorly explains the underlying ideas. Perhaps
I should have down-voted it and posted a link to good information.

~~~
pingswept
Hell yes, my good man!

