NY Times DESTROYS shoe industry: "The idea that any running shoe can prevent you from getting hurt doesn’t hold water."

Literally never had a single injury of any type after I started using Hoka shoes, beforehand I was hurting my feet and had to be very careful even at lower mileage. It's more expensive but so worth it. I run more than any runner on my team (HS) and never get injured and most of them seem to get injured every once in a while.

The New York Times doesn’t have enough credibility left to “destroy” anything. Rag.

Steven Sashen knows nothing about shoes. He's just a marketeering grifter out to make a buck off naive people. He started off with so-called "minimalist" sandals over a decade ago. They were complete utter garbage. Now he makes and markets flimsy shoes that are complete utter garbage. Xero shoes are no different than a stripped down weight lifting gym shoe. Then he appeared on Shark Tank a few years ago. Steven bombed so hard that the Sharks laughed him out of the building. Would anyone here besides TheRealTaro honestly ditch their high tech running shoes and switch to Xero?

I hear you. Most HOKA models have a cushioned yet stiff rockered platform. For some people that type of design is going to protect the foot tendons and bones from injury. HOKA once had a lock on this mix shoe characteristics but nowadays there's other brands that not only incorporated these HOKA elements but also improved upon them.

I think rather then stating “no shoes prevent injury.” That it would be more helpful stating, in these shoes this type of injury is less or more common. Then individuals could decide based on their passed injury background, what shoe is more likely to benefit them. But I doubt their is much gathered background info on specific models. It is realistic that this Hoka user benefited from wearing them, similar to me benefiting from minimalistic shoe, that this sort of differential is much more realistic, then a cut and dry answer, that was given in the original post.

1.Running shoes do not eliminate injury but a proper shoe can reduce the stress of running and reduce some of the risk.

2.The primary function of a running shoe is not to reduce injury but enhance training.

I thought the foot scanning machines were useful, as well as the gait analysis, at Fleet Feet. At least the ones in Cbus; they are run by serious runners that know what they are doing.

I overpronate and have tight hips/glutes (which I'm working to improve) so Hoka Arahi 6s work for me. They look weird but I don't care. I was in Brooks Ghosts for many years. I did a 14-miler today and felt fast with the new shoes! No real soreness after and I haven't run this distance since October, although since January I've had LRs steadily go from 8-12 miles over the last 2 months to avoid injury.

Prevent injury? No. Reduce the risk and/or severity of injury? Yes yes yes.

And it does vary by runner, pace, surface (pavement, trail, track, et ).

Malmo, may I ask, do you think it has any effect on the possibilities of getting injured if your way more tired and stiff from training than if not?

This has been debunked.

I do think, however, that we don't give minimalism enough credit for some enduring changes in the footwear industry. Almost all running shoes have less drop now than they did 20 years ago. Also, the medial posts of "supportive" or "motion control" shoes are now far less common. In 2000, if you went into a running store, 90% of what they were selling was to "control pronation." These were probably doing more harm than good for most runners. Those kinds of shoes still exist, but they're much more niche now. Also, I think minimalism has generally gotten runners more interested in doing PT so that they have adequate flexibility and ROM to run healthy, rather than simply trusting that shoes will fix everything.

As for the whole "shoes don't work because they don't prevent injury" argument, I agree with the posters who say this is missing the point. I don't think most runners view shoes as an injury prevention tool. They are a piece of sports equipment to facilitate better performance and enjoyment. The research is pretty clear that cushioning makes you faster. (And distal weight makes you slower, so the ideal is a supershoe where you maximize cushioning without adding too much weight.) It also seems that cushioning allows you to adopt higher training loads, which is an indirect way of making you faster.

There are a few, narrower ways that shoes prevent injury. There's some evidence indicating that rotating different shoes reduces injury rate. This certainly seems plausible. Minute differences in running form, necessitated by different shoes, should theoretically reduce the chances of an overuse injury.

It's also pretty clear that heel drop has an impact on injuries to the heel cord complex, though that's more about what you're used to. Everyone knows that if you run in a high drop trainer most of the time, but then you run a 10k in spikes, your calves and heel will be shredded.

Good post!

But, I disagree.

Before supershoes, doing a 150km+ week would be hard on your calfs and legs. Especially for double treshold.

Now? Theres "nobody" in the nordics ever complaining about tired legs the same way as before. Its fascinating, the complaint about stiff leggs have almost vanished. There is not doubt in my experience that supershoes does allow for higher training loads. Perhaps you meant that the reduced fatigue means the load isnt higher, than sure, that is an argument and I've misunderstood you, although I wouldn't necessarily agree with that either.

Regarding the last part, I think it really doesnt matter that much anymore, as you could actually run a treshold workout in dragonflys and barely get stiff leggs. Its incredible how "easy" it is to train both with spikes and a larger volume now than before supershoes.

Really? Link(s) please.

And I think you're quite obviously wrong in assuming that "most runners" don't think of shoes as a means of injury prevention. A cursory look at even just the posts on LRC would show you that the shoe choices of many runners are based on what they think will help them avoid injury.

Right. Because bloated old blowhards like Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary know so much more than Sashen about running and running shoes. GMAFB.

The video says he went on to generate millions in revenue so it looks like the sharks were wrong. How could you post that video and possibly think you are “owning” him?

Throw this into the same useless knowledge as the "running long distance is going to kill you" fluff they write every year that the sedentary point to for self-justification.

My understanding is that Fleet Feet is a franchise operated outfit. Anyone can buy into the franchise and set up a store.

There's two FF stores in my area. One location has been around for maybe 15 years and they seem to have a good reputation. Another store just opened up 18 miles away from the other store. This new store is owned by a couple that don't appear to be runners. Speaking frankly the owners are a fat white married boomer couple who look like your typical overweight lazy junk food eating American slobs. Based on the store setup, photos of the staff (who are equally fat and out of shape) and some initial reviews on Google reviews it's abundantly clear that this new mom and pop FF store is just out to grift on the current popularity of the running hobby. The first customers to go to this new FF store reported that the staff jumped on them as soon as they entered the store and hovered over them as they browsed the shoes. Another customer reported that an employee pushed insole inserts and other unnecessary accessory crap. Even the photos of the inside of the store demonstrate that the owners are just out to make a buck without regard to ethics or the best interests of the customers. On the display cases closest to the front of the store they give those garbage ON shoes like the Cloudmonster top billing along with a few lame HOKA models like the Clifton. It's clear that these owners know nothing about running or shoes and have no interest in serving real runners.

Wish I could agree with you. This how I used to view this issue of the impact of strenuous exercise on cardiac health. But the research is now clear that excessive running does indeed cause a thickening and hardening of the ventricle walls of the heart and cause calcification of the arteries. Dr Aaron Baggish is perhaps the most notable researcher on this topic. Check out his taped videos on YouTube where he delivered an overview on the research on exercise and health at various medical conferences.

If anyone is interested there's a good article at Harvard Health that provides a broad strokes view of this topic and links to studies. The research Harvard highlights shows that running more than 2.5 hours per week has negative effect on all-case mortality. Definitely something to consider if you're a runner.

health.harvard.edu

Running for health: Even a little bit is good, but a little more is probably better - Harvard Health

Open link