A year ago, I was bored and used a Google tool to get an estimate of the search volume for the different running shoe brands and posted the results. I decided to update it. Here is the December 2014 estimated monthly search volumes (along with 2013’s): As with the 2013 post, there are some disclaimers: […]
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Transition to Minimalist Running Shoes With or Without Gait Retraining?
This is an interesting one… A number of previous studies have looked at the mechanical and economy parameters with minimal running shoes compared to traditional running shoes. Some of these studies were cross-sectional and some were prospective and followed a period of adaptation or transition. One of the concerns expressed about some of these studies, […]
Use of Toning or Unstable Shoes to Aid Post Marathon Recovery
Toning or unstable shoes do not exactly have much of good track record due to the exaggerated health claims that got made for the product and the multi-million dollar settlements that some of the manufacturers had to enter into. This was based on the lack of evidence for those health claims. That does not mean […]
The Effect of Footwear on Running Performance
I have to be honest and say I getting a little bored with the running economy stuff as I have covered the studies on it so many times and its gets harder to rewrite about the same thing again and re-litigate the same issues again. Some previous posts on running economy have ligated all the […]
Effects of a seven week transition to minimalist footwear
One of the criticisms of some studies comparing the mechanics of minimalist vs traditionally shod footwear is that the intervention is acute and the effects were not measured after a period of appropriate acclimation to the different conditions. The results may or may not be the same after that acclimation or transition – we simply […]
Injecting a Placebo to Run Faster!
Not exactly one from within my area of expertise, but worthy of posting: The Effects of an Injected Placebo on Endurance Running Performance. Ross, Ramzy; Gray, Cindy M.; Gill, Jason M. R. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: November 19, 2014 PURPOSE: To quantify the placebo effect magnitude on endurance running performance, in ‘real-world’ […]
Running may protect the knee from osteoarthritis
I was just perusing the abstract book from the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting in Boston last week (all 3018 of them!) and found more than a few gems. We already know that pretty much all the previous studies have generally shown that the prevalence of osteoarthritis in former or older runners is no […]
Why do people make this stuff up for?
Time to call out another loon. This time its an article in the Inquisitr, How David Accidentally Slayed Goliath: Vibram FiveFingers And Why Barefoot Is Best. I will ignore that it failed totally to show that barefoot is better and even worse, totally ignored all 10 of the systematic reviews of the science that its not. […]
Social Media Influence of Running Shoe Companies
A recent post by Thomas Neuberger on Big Run looked at the number of followers the main running shoe companies have on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Adidas came out on top on all three platforms. Thomas’s post inspired me to take it one step further and look at the Klout score for the running shoe […]
The Risks and Benefits of Running Barefoot or in Minimalist Shoes
Nine formal systematic reviews of the evidence have so far been published looking at the evidence on barefoot or minimalist running having systematic benefits or not. Every single one of them concluded the same thing (reviewed here and here and here). Despite those conclusions, all by people from different backgrounds and published in a variety […]
Quality of the information on Kinesio Taping
I first became aware of the pretty colored tape and its methods when watching the London Olympics in 2012. Ever since then I have kept a superficial eye on the literature on it and it varies. The research results are mixed as to its effectiveness. A 2013 systematic review concluded: “There currently exists insufficient evidence […]
Muscle Activity Differences in Forefoot and Rearfoot Strikers
Different running techniques load different tissues in different runners differently which has implications for subject specific differences in running economy and running injury risk profile. In that context it was nice to see this turn up: Differences in Muscle Activity between Natural Forefoot and Rearfoot Strikers during Running Jennifer R. Yong, Amy Silder, Scott L. […]
Best Selling Running Shoes at Amazon.com
In May last yr, in a fit of boredom I looked at list of best selling running shoes at Amazon.com. As I said then its certainly not the most valid source of market share or popularity as some brands are not even sold at Amazon.com and there are day to day fluctuations in the list […]
Predatory Publishing (and does footwear in runners influence foot ‘disease’?)
What has that got to do with running? At first glance not a lot, but bear with me. I was first alerted to the concept of predatory publishing by Hylton Menz a while back in the context of a new journal that was launched by a predatory publisher, Clinical Research on Foot and Ankle (and yes, that […]
Footwear and Flatfeet: Correlation or Causation?
One of the arguments that often get advanced for a barefoot lifestyle is that shoes cause flat feet as they weaken the muscles. Not sure how people make that conclusion as there is no evidence that footwear wearing populations have feet that is any weaker than barefoot wearing populations – you would have thought that […]