It’s a great time of year to buy shoes, so we wanted to ensure you get the right ones for you!
Here are 3 rules to help you decide:
- Comfort – Comfort is the most important rule. Runners need to try them out running, not just walking in them. No matter what, go for at least a few steps at a jogging pace to see how they really feel.
- Lightweight – Running shoes need to be lightweight. It’s easy to find the weight of shoes, and the weight really impacts the work runners need to exert while running.
- Favorable Form – People’s running form responds very differently to certain shoes. So, gait analysis to compare your mechanics in different shoes is an invaluable part of the shoe-buying process and injury prevention. A proper gait analysis should incorporate whole body mechanics (not just pronation and supination!) and 3D technology. I’m in the market for a new pair of shoes for my 5K race and used 3D gait analysis to compare three models. Check out the video to see what I found!
If you want to learn even more about how running shoes can change your form, you can watch Doug’s video below. It’s a bit long so the TL:DR version is that there were some measurable changes in his gait when comparing different shoes. What this means for each individual might be different. We may change the cue for gait retraining in that shoe, we may recommend you use caution when switching to that shoe (give yourself some adjustment time), or we may learn that it isn’t a great shoe for you.
The main takeaway here is to use the 3 rules and find a running specialist near you who can assess your running mechanics in different shoes. It is worth the investment if you can avoid spending a bunch of money on a shoe that might be the wrong fit for you!
Blog contribution by Doug Adams and RunDNA
