What has been your experience in zero drop or minimal drop running shoes?

While Hoka is listed as a "low drop" with all of that cushion and height to it, surely that negates that feeling usually associated with a low drop shoe. I ran in a pair of Clifton 2s and it never felt like I was more level in the shoe, great fit though, loved 'em.

I've been through 40 pair of different Altras in the past few years. I kind of wish I didn't love them so much, but put in 6 marathon blocks with most weeks at 100 mpw and I've been injury free. I go back and forth between Torins, One 2.5s, and Escalantes depending on what I am doing and how I feel.

Steve from Flordia wrote:

I've been through 40 pair of different Altras in the past few years. I kind of wish I didn't love them so much, but put in 6 marathon blocks with most weeks at 100 mpw and I've been injury free. I go back and forth between Torins, One 2.5s, and Escalantes depending on what I am doing and how I feel.

I had the first pair of the instincts, but didn't like them. They felt really clunky and poorly fitting in the toe box. Have they improved over the years?

Escalantes are light years ahead of original Instincts. Different type of foam and knit upper are fantastic. Agree that original offerings felt like 2x4s...

OP- Minimal and low drop are not the same thing. Minimal refers to amount of cushion; drop refers to the difference btwn the heel and toe. Shoes can be one and not the other... or both... or neither. I actually ran a few halfs in VFFs; they improved my form, times, and efficiency drastically; they also gave me a sesamoid stress fracture, lol.

I would encourage anyone to look into some low-drop moderate-cushion shoes. Newton, Altra, Hoka are great (I prefer Newtons); other companies have comparable offerings (Kinvara, Pureflow, Free).

I have tried pure minimal and it fixed my form and reduced injuries. I was able to train 100 mpw for a handful of years.

I agree with the poster who said as close to zero drop as possible with some cushioning is best. I like the new balance minimus these days. I do want to try the Altras at some point.

I used to wear the Merrell trail vapor, but the lack of any cushioning really was annoying running on trails with rocks. A stach heigth between 15 and 20 mm is pretty ideal, imo.

Rough rule of thumb: If you're having foot problems you want a more cushioned shoe and if you are having leg problems going more minimal might help correct some form deficiencies. IMO, you want to be as close to zero drop as possible regardless of cushioning.

clifton 2 (assuming mens) is 7mm drop, that's not zero/minimal drop at all

I think 4mm is considered minimal

even the NB Zante is 6mm drop

When I was 25 years younger, I could wear whatever shoes for whatever running. Minimal, low drop, track spikes, it didn't matter. Now, low drop shoes specifically, cause way too much Achilles strain to wear more than twice a week. Even then, it takes days for my lower legs to recover from those shoes. I am a midfoot striker. Adding just 4mm of drop seems to alleviate this strain so I'm not hobbling when I get out of bed.

Changing drop doesn't help to change form, and doesn't prevent injuries.

Johnny Karate wrote:

Rough rule of thumb: If you're having foot problems you want a more cushioned shoe and if you are having leg problems going more minimal might help correct some form deficiencies. IMO, you want to be as close to zero drop as possible regardless of cushioning.

I've found this to be true for me. I have minimal, moderate, and cushioned shoes at home I can wear depending on where I feel aches building up.

Torn calf guy wrote:

When I was 25 years younger, I could wear whatever shoes for whatever running. Minimal, low drop, track spikes, it didn't matter. Now, low drop shoes specifically, cause way too much Achilles strain to wear more than twice a week. Even then, it takes days for my lower legs to recover from those shoes. I am a midfoot striker. Adding just 4mm of drop seems to alleviate this strain so I'm not hobbling when I get out of bed.

I've gone in the other direction, toward lower-drop shoes. These days I run in 4mm drop shoes for pretty much everything, and my calf problems are gone. Dropping weight probably helps too.

Serious Answer wrote:

Escalantes are light years ahead of original Instincts. Different type of foam and knit upper are fantastic. Agree that original offerings felt like 2x4s...

OP- Minimal and low drop are not the same thing. Minimal refers to amount of cushion; drop refers to the difference btwn the heel and toe. Shoes can be one and not the other... or both... or neither. I actually ran a few halfs in VFFs; they improved my form, times, and efficiency drastically; they also gave me a sesamoid stress fracture, lol.

I would encourage anyone to look into some low-drop moderate-cushion shoes. Newton, Altra, Hoka are great (I prefer Newtons); other companies have comparable offerings (Kinvara, Pureflow, Free).

Sorry to hear about the sesamoid stress fracture, man. Yeah, maybe I chose my words unwisely, as I was trying to communicate zero drop or just a little drop (ie, maybe 4mm tops). I didn't mean to imply minimal shoes, which obviously is a different property to the shoe altogether.

The responses have been pretty darn positive, and I'm not surprised. Normal human biomechanical function is altered when a heel lift is introduced. One confounding factor is that most people wear a shoe with a heel lift throughout their lives in their non-running activities, and functional adaptations likely develop, although I believe they can be reversed in many cases.

My own personal experiences have been somewhat mixed. I've been running primarily in Altra shoes for the past few years, using Torins on the roads and Instinct 3.5s on the grass. Before that I had gone through many pair of Brooks Connect and Nike Lunaracers. Prior to all this, I was wearing more traditional drop shoes, mainly Asics mild stability shoes. I was actually motivated to change because I was experiencing a series of left hamstring strains that were late swing-phase induced (I have a very weak left hamstring since undergoing a semi-tendinosis tendon transfer to fix an ACL knee rupture in 2010), and I felt like a lighter weight shoe would help reduce the stress on my hamstring in swing phase of gait (which worked), so it really had nothing to do with any of the heel drop properties of the shoe in my case.

Since then, I've had a few stretches of maybe 6 months or so of pretty good running before some different injuries have crept back in. All the shoes I've run in generally felt great. I've had many injuries throughout the years, regardless of the shoes, and I'm really not sure the shoes, specifically, have been the crux of the problem, except for aggravating the hamstring due to the weight, but that really was due to my own personal physical problem.

Since switching to the low drop/zero drop shoes, I've had a sacral stress fracture (in the Brooks Pure Connects), a fibular stress reaction (Pure Connects), and more recently a right adductor/sartorious strain w/ a femoral stress reaction (Altras), and a number of left lateral sided calf strains sprinkled in throughout all this (all the shoes), including one I'm currently dealing with. I'm actually contemplating going up to a few mm of drop to see if the calf stops acting up but need to find something under 9 ounces and w/ decent cushioning. I did recently experiment w/ a pair of neutral Saucony shoes that had a 6mm drop while dealing w/ one of my calf strains and it still got aggravated, but I'm not sure I gave them a fair chance.

Video gait analysis in the Altras showed me as a midfoot striker but there were a lot of asymmetries in my gait. I've been working hard in the gym to even things up w/ strength, range of motion, core stability, etc., so maybe that will eventually help.

old calves wrote:

Torn calf guy wrote:

When I was 25 years younger, I could wear whatever shoes for whatever running. Minimal, low drop, track spikes, it didn't matter. Now, low drop shoes specifically, cause way too much Achilles strain to wear more than twice a week. Even then, it takes days for my lower legs to recover from those shoes. I am a midfoot striker. Adding just 4mm of drop seems to alleviate this strain so I'm not hobbling when I get out of bed.

I've gone in the other direction, toward lower-drop shoes. These days I run in 4mm drop shoes for pretty much everything, and my calf problems are gone. Dropping weight probably helps too.

You've actually given me a good idea there. I may just add a 3mm heel lift into my Altras to see how the calves respond. Much easier than getting an entirely new pair of shoes.

I just run barefoot in grass 60% of the time. No problems now, after 50,000 miles of not always healthy career.

Zero drop is the absolute the best. Altra, Tesla and the New Balance minimus (4mm drop). Minimalist zero drop to 4mm drop is the way to go.

I run in 4mm drops as my daily trainers. Took some getting used to in the beginning, but I've never been happier since getting away from 10mm drop shoes. I have far less issues now since making the switch. Of course, I'm a sample of one.

I have osgood-schlatter (a bump in the knee causing patellar tendon pain that often happens during adolescence), and have had patellar tendinitis-like symptoms for a fairly long time. I had run in low drop shoes for a few months (my calves hurt like hell) and started to increase my mileage even with the mild amount of pain in my knee and the tightness in my calves (starting from 18mpw). I started doing eccentric decline squats and made sure to run 100% consistent mileage, and I didn't even feel a hint of injury in the whole period when I was going from 30-50mpw (by this point, I was used to the low drop).

However, right before the XC season (~25-30mpw), my teammates pretty much peer-pressured me into getting some heavy support shoes (what I'm supposed to be running in). The shoes literally felt like weights on my feet and I ended up very far behind where I normally was in training. 2 weeks later, I get a huge amount of patellar tendon pain (I can't run without limping no matter how hard I try), and I get told to take the weekend off. I go back to low-drop minimalistic shoes and the pain literally disappears within a week.

Although I do feel like having more minimalistic shoes helped me stay injury free, the best piece of advice I can give is to choose shoes that fit your foot well and are comfortable. In my experience, the more comfortable a shoe feels (and the better it fits around my foot), the less likely I get injured in it.

heyyo wrote:

Steve from Flordia wrote:

I've been through 40 pair of different Altras in the past few years. I kind of wish I didn't love them so much, but put in 6 marathon blocks with most weeks at 100 mpw and I've been injury free. I go back and forth between Torins, One 2.5s, and Escalantes depending on what I am doing and how I feel.

I had the first pair of the instincts, but didn't like them. They felt really clunky and poorly fitting in the toe box. Have they improved over the years?

Altras across the board are definitely improving, both in function and appearance. They still have a long way to go in the aesthetics department.

Master runner here and bigger- 6-4 , 195

For the last year I've been alternating Altra Torins and Hoka Cliftons and have been injury free. I like the zerodrop but definitely need cushioning