Each year Lava Magazine has been publishing the running shoe counts from “Kona”, the Ironman in Hawaii. They just published the 2015 data from David Jewel at Shoe Ranger of the shoes worn in the marathon leg. I have been putting into table form their data from over the years: Just a couple of notes: […]
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The Functional Movement Screen for Predicting Running Injuries
I like studies like this. Straight forward research question; methods designed to answer the question; and sound methods and analysis. This make a change from the depressing nature of the failed peer review process of some recent reviews I did (and a few more coming up). I already reviewed a PhD thesis on the Functional […]
The effect of ‘energy boost’ footwear on running economy
The energy boost running shoes from Adidas came to the market a few years ago to mixed commentary. Adidas were cautious what they claimed about the shoe, but bench testing did show the the material did provide a better ‘energy return’ than a typical running shoe material. Did that translate to better running economy? At […]
Foot strike pattern and injuries in ultramarathoners
The preponderance of studies on foot strike pattern and injury risk have shown that there are no differences. In terms of injury rates, they are the same regardless of the foot strike pattern. Yet despite that evidence, I fail to understand why there is still a debate and so much rhetoric on this. It is […]
Shoe inserts for Sacroiliac Joint Pain?
It is always a pleasure to comment on some good research that really has the potential to change clinical practice; its just a shame that bad science keeps me distracted from commenting on the good science. Journals have a responsibility to not publish bad science, so hopefully no one does bad science. As much as […]
The Minimalist Index for running shoes
One of the problems with running shoe research is that different running shoe manufacturers use a different set of design features to try and achieve the same effect. For example, there are a number of different design features that could be considered attempts at ‘motion control’. If a study uses a shoe with one of […]
Vibram FiveFingers and muscle strength … umm, err…
{POSTSCRIPT: The journal have removed this paper after they were informed of the conflict of interest by someone who had read what I wrote below. } {POSTSCRIPT 2: The journal have published the paper with all the flaws mentioned still there. They should not have. It should be retracted} I had heard about this study […]
Foot morphology in barefoot vs shod runners and its effects on biomechanics
A few weeks ago there was this publication that looked at morphological differences between habitual barefoot and shod runners and it was only of mild interest due to the ethnic differences between the groups. Were the morphological differences due to the barefoot vs shod or where that due to Indian (barefoot) vs Chinese (shod)? I […]
Motion control running shoes do affect the running injury rate
Earlier today I summed up some of the key papers and discussions at the Footwear Biomechanics symposium in Liverpool (here). In that summary I did promise more on this study as it has the potential to put a real spanner in the works, especially in the context of the continued rhetoric and propaganda that we […]
Relevant Gems from the 2015 Footwear Biomechanics Symposium
The Footwear Biomechanics group of the International Society of Biomechanics meets every two years; right now its meeting in Liverpool, UK, so here are some of the relevant selected highlights from this meeting for me: Darren Stefanyshyn started of the meeting with his keynote on Footwear Research: Where do we go from here? The take […]
Mechanical and physiological analysis of minimalist versus traditionally shod running
This is the 4th new study to be published in the last few days. The first one showed no injury differences between barefoot and shod runners; the next one showed no differences in injuries and performance between heel and midfoot/forefoot strikers; the third one found some muscles generate more force when barefoot running and other […]
Muscle Activity in Barefoot vs Shod Running
A number of relevant studies a have been published in the last few days. Rather than add them to that massive backlog of papers I need to write about, I am trying to knock them out quickly. The first one showed no injury differences between barefoot and shod runners; the next one showed no differences […]
Foot Strike Pattern and Injury Rates
Hot on the heels of the prospective study I just reviewed on injury rates between barefoot and traditionally shod runners that showed that there really weren’t any differences we have a publication showing that here were no differences between different foot strike patterns as well. I have already discussed this study as it was first […]
Comparison of running injuries between shod and barefoot runners
I have previously reported that so far all the systematic reviews and meta-analyses on barefoot running vs shod running were all concluding the same thing: that there are no systematic differences between the two. Now we have the first published prospective study on injury rates between shod and barefoot running: Prospective comparison of running injuries […]
“All anti-barefoot running research is paid for by the running shoe companies”
Time to call out another loon…and I not in the mood for some serious science. I belong to a number of skeptic groups involved in fighting anti-science and pseudoscience in many topic areas. In those groups I am always impressed about how often they take screenshots of debates and comments. I now know why they […]