Did you know that the running shoes you have on right now may not be the best suited for your foot?
Ok, don’t freak out. Everything’s going to be good.
But what I mean is that there are different molds of running shoes that are indeed intended for different runners. And this primarily revolves around the pronation of your foot.
While pronoation plays a major role, running shoes are also made for its intention. Many runners won’t wear the same shoes for training as many different types of lightweight trainers are made for race day. Popular among the high school and college rankings, racing trainers are meant to give you an extra push among race day while also provide the necessary support.
For now, let’s get back on the topic of pronation and how it plays the vital role in deciding on a certain shoe.
Pronation is the motion of your foot through distribution of the forces upon ground impact on each stride. If you’ve ever paid peculiar attention to each stride, you may see or feel some type of alignment, noticing one side of your foot hitting more of the ground every step. That is pronation in a nutshell. Runners are classified as having either a normal pronation, an under pronation or an overpronation.
Through knowledge on our anatomy and the different physical attributes of our feet, many shoe makers design different models of their kicks that may favor certain promotions.
Historically, all shoes are classified as motion control, neutral or cushion support. Motion Control shoes provide an angled base that limit your stride from stressing high impact on the inside portion of your foot while cushion support shoes provides higher level of support on the outer portions of your foot to prevent you from landing on the outside tips of your feet. And as you guessed it, shoes classified as neutral favor the normal to mild pronated foot runners. It may be apparent that some runners may have high pronation levels than others. In those cases, models may be made to favor more extreme cases.
So you may now be asking how in the world are you going to get an accurate measure. Are you going to wing it? Will you be needing some crazy space like tool?
Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.
Running shoes are at a majority of footwear and active/sports retailers everywhere. Footlocker carries many brands, as does Champs Sports and even Finishline.
However, most of these stores don’t specialize in analyzing foot pronation for the first time and choosing which running shoe works for every kind of runner’s foot. Most major retailers aren’t primarily targeting runners and do just as much to target all athletes, fitness enthusiasts and just shoe buyers in general.
To get a professional analysis on your foot, stride and recommendations for the shoes best for you, I would visit a running apparel store.
It’s only in a running store where you can get an introductory foot analysis if you don’t know exactly how to judge your promotion and which models fit your foot.
Major running shoes that I have personally purchased shoes from many times include Road Runner Sports, Fleet Feet and A Snails Pace. Of course, other’s such as Runner’s Fit, Big River Running Company.
I’ll talk about my experience with Road Runners simply because that was my first running store encounter ever (I know, so exciting!) which also happened to be one of my companies my really good friend worked at as well.
In case you were wondering, yes, I’m a little biased towards Road Runners because they sent me what I believe to be my first piece of addressed direct mail. If that doesn’t make you feel some type of way as a 15-year old, I don’t know what does.
So this isn’t like a regular shoe store. Road Runners pride itself on providing the perfect fit for all of it’s cusotmers. I, being completely new to the store and running scene, had no idea what the heck pronotion was.
If it fits, it fits. I didn’t know how big a role your foot stride and stability played in deciding which shoe model to purchase.
I was only 15. And my parents wouldn’t have considered it in a million years.
The rep who took me in of course asked me if I knew anything about my foot type, in which I obviously answered no. This opened up the matrix of shoe selection and foot traits that I had never heard of.
Road Runner Sports has a shoe fit process in what they call the Shoe Dog. What the Shoe Dog does is measure in real-time a runner’s stride along a measurable surface. While on a walking strip or on a treadmill at a preferred speed, the Shoe Dog is able to show the forces and pressures on each foot on each stride.
When I first did this, I was instructed to step on a treadmill and asked a comfortable pace I can run and to not try and alter my regular form in any way.
Upon running for a total of 30 seconds with each run, the rep was able to collect enough step data to present my stride form visually.
In my case, it was shown that I had a slightly normal pronation that favored a slight overpronation. Though I wasn’t completely classified a normal pronation, the angle of my stride upon impact to the ground was still close to 15%.
That means that I had a neutral shoe type.
Success!
Half the battle was done. Knowing that enabled me to choices of models classified as Neutral. Luckily Road Runner Sports has a huge and awesome selection of shoes since it can take me unimaginable periods of time to make decisions.
It still took me about an hour to just pick out the shoe I went with.
The ever so popular Asics Cumulus.
As previously mentioned, this was my choice of trainer. Because I wasn’t as serious as a runner at the start of my journey, I didn’t intend on buying lightweight racing trainers. This wouldn’t be the case the next summer as I made sure I picked out the correct racing flats with the same fit conditions in mind. Getting to know the anatomy and actions of your feet is awesome. As athletes, you want to know what makes you more effective in your training and what is actually best you. It makes you feel a bit empowered in knowing the steps you can take to make sure you stay injury-free and feeling like a boss when training.
If you’re looking to get fitted for the first time, feel free to visit a running store to get your in-house analysis.
It’s knowledge that lasts a lifetime.
