I am reading Lydiard's "Running to the Top" and he says all the technology in the running shoes is what is causing all the injuries rather than letting the foot do what it does naturally. He says that before all this technology, runners did not get plantar faciitis.
As someone who does suffer from plantar faciitis and wheres the very expensive ASICS Gel Kayanos, is there any legitimacy to Lydiard's theory? Comments appreciated.
I would trust Lydiard for his training advice because it has been proven time and again to produce great results. His advice on shoes has not. Does he have a degree in biomechanics or some formalized study in the area?
I suspect that Lydiard worked mainly with athletes who had little need for such features in shoes. But some people just plain need motion control if they want to run without injury. And some people (especially those of us who run on pavement all the time) need a little cushioning from time to time.
Perhaps he is right for the few biomechanically efficient runners out there. When I have have skimped on shoes I got sore knees, forefeet, and heels. The knee problems brought me to a layoff period. However, I don't advocate those clunky boots like the Brooks Beast or Asics Gel MC Plus. You'd have to have cerebral palsy to run in them
Let the "foot do what it does naturally"? Sounds like he advocates going barefoot to me.
Lydiard was a shoemaker!!! I believe he made shoes well into his coaching days and made spikes for his athletes even after the likes of adidas were in the business.
Lydiard is always right and god help you if you disagree with him face to face.
I run with a number of runners who always seem to have new shoes often eg; every 2000 training km's or so. They have a lot of 'niggle' injurys and it is worse when they put their spikes on at the beginning of track season. Torn calves, ripped hamstrings, the lot.
I like to keep my running costs to a minimum so I've had running shoes for up to 1.5 years and I never get injured. I train as much as they do, race as well as they do. Another thing; these same guys go all cautious on downhills too.
Barring bad bio-mechanics, I think that wrapping your feet in 'cotton wool' makes your feet soft.
And Lydiard aint soft.
I've found that medial posts give me plantar fascitis. So I avoid them. I also can't run in anything but racers or very basic shoes, and I'm not a lightweight, nor do my feet have any ideal structure for running. A local massage therapist who does quite a business with runners used to ask my advice with clients who could barely run or couldn't run at all due to injuries and I'd always tell him to send them off for racers or very basic shoes and the problems always went away. So I tend to agree with Arthur's ideas.
Let me ask a few questions? Why would you need a shoe that costs $130, full of numbing padding that other shoes would not do? ASICS Gel Kayanos are an overly high-tech, heavily padded shoe, PF is about your weak muscles giving in & letting the PF take all of the load during running. WE use shoes like crutches, which in turn weaken our senses & ability to run properly. Sounds crude but, using too much shoe is like wearing three condoms, you lose the feeling of running properly.
What year is the edition of his book?
A lot of injuries are cause because people are in the wrong shoe for them. There have been many, many people I have seen that come in with whatever problem, and I find that they're in completely the wrong shoe or have completely outrun the shoe.
Modern shoe technology works. Cushioned for neutral runners, stability for moderate pronators and motion control for severe over pronators. Just find the right match for you.
my belief is that if you had NEVER put on a pair of shoes in your life you would have very very few injury problems. whether you over or underpronated, your body would adapt to however your feet and legs worked. but since you have been wearing shoes since you were a child your feet and legs are weak and "need" the support and cushioning. i agree with lydiard in theory. but figuring out how to undo the damage and strengthen your feet is very tricky.
Personally, I switch out of shoes when a 15-mile run leaves my feet sore. The few times I ignored this and put up to 900 miles on a pair I ended up with a never-ending string of small lower leg/foot injuries.
I also know a former college teammate plagued by constant IT band problems who has gone injury-free for many years since switching to motion-control shoes.
I'm no expert, but I trust my personal observations on shoes a lot more than what anyone else says. If it works, don't fight it.
I think you just have to find a shoe that works. Pick a shoe that is consistent and lets you run injury free. With me it has been a lot of experimentation to see what works. I just like to try stuff out based slightly on my mechanics, but mostly on how they feel. Buy a pair of shoes, take them home try em out on a tread mill...and if you dont like em or they hurt, return em. Some shoes will just work, while others just might not. Stick with what works.
Anyone remember the shoes Lydiard helped design for Converse about 15 years ago? I don't recall the model of the shoe (maybe the "lydiard trainer" or something), but they were lightweight, sliplasted trainers that were supposedly designed to allow the foot to do what it was supposed to do, like he says. I was working in FW retail for a running specialty store in Michigan and we brought Lydiard himself in for some clinics and stuff. It was way cool meeting and hanging with him (this was about 1986 or 87).
The shoes and Lydiard's foot philosophy is great if you don't really have problems to begin with. In an ideal world, we would all have great feet, run around on grass as kids to make our feet strong and so on.
But for an adult who already has problems, Lydiard's philosophy just ain't gonna work. You can't put someone who has had such problems for all his life and put him in shoes like that and expect him to be OK.
Sounds similar to the theories of Gordon Pirie who wrote on this theme in his book "Running fast and injury free" - which can be downloaded free from
I certainly found 'gimmicky' shoes to be a waste of time. I reckon 90-95% of runners can get away with wearing neutral, lightweight shoes.
Dougruns26 wrote:
Lydiard was a shoemaker!!! I believe he made shoes well into his coaching days and made spikes for his athletes even after the likes of adidas were in the business.
So was Bowerman. So was Ron Daws (he made his own). Neither one had any formal study of biomechanics, as far as I know.
For what it's worth, I tend to agree with Lydiards philosophy more than I disagree. I usually wear lightweight, neutral shoes myself. I don't like a lot of motion control (ever) or cushioning (most of the time). But I've known people who simply could not train without motion control shoes. There are people out there who need them.
As for cushioning, well after a long hard week on the roads, I sometimes just need to put on a pair of cushioned trainers. Perhaps the human foot was not meant to wear these complicated shoes, but the human foot was not meant to run 100+ miles a week on concrete either.
I think a neutral runner can pretty much run in any shoe, but if you overpronate like I do, the proper shoe is very important. I have found that since I have changed to a stability shoe - A3, 2080, structure triax, that a lot of my pains have gone away. I was running in cushion shoes, and I think it let my arch stretch too much causing all my pains.
I think iti is very important to be in the right shoe.. But I would never spend some of the prices for it......I wait for sales! And even though it might sound dumb for runners that have been training hard for years, I think a gait analysis can help a lot. Seeing what you look like in a cushion shoe, and to see how a little added stability can help makes a big difference as well.
In 1969, I actually ran in shoes that Lydiard designed. If I recall, Lydiard was operating out of Texas at the time, or at least the shoes were made there. They looked great, but they repeatedly gave me and two friends of mine terrible blisters on the back of the heels. These shoes were not well designed! Of course, as a coach, Lydiard was superb, but I think that most people don't sufficiently underscore one element of his method that was central to his success: periodization. What this really means is that human beings tend to adapt to whatever it is they are doing, and this applies to stress. Too long with one kind of stress limits the salutary effects that stress can have. Thus, long runs--but only up to a point; tempo runs--but only up to a point, etc. Also, what most people forget entirely is that Lydiard thought that repeat sprints, that is, 60 to 80 meter sprints, were essential for sharpening during one's peak periods.
ds-man wrote:
Anyone remember the shoes Lydiard helped design for Converse about 15 years ago? I don't recall the model of the shoe (maybe the "lydiard trainer" or something), but they were lightweight, sliplasted trainers that were supposedly designed to allow the foot to do what it was supposed to do, like he says. I was working in FW retail for a running specialty store in Michigan and we brought Lydiard himself in for some clinics and stuff. It was way cool meeting and hanging with him (this was about 1986 or 87).
The shoes and Lydiard's foot philosophy is great if you don't really have problems to begin with. In an ideal world, we would all have great feet, run around on grass as kids to make our feet strong and so on.
But for an adult who already has problems, Lydiard's philosophy just ain't gonna work. You can't put someone who has had such problems for all his life and put him in shoes like that and expect him to be OK.
I used to wear "high tech" shoes and eventually developed pain near the ball of my foot. So I went to a podiatrist who had me try all sorts of stuff with no improvement. I finally decided if my feet were going to hurt from running I may as well do it in inexpensive shoes and stop wasting time with office visits, etc. and got a bottom-of-the-line pair of $30 running shoes. The problem cleared up within a few weeks.
My opinion: Low tech all the way; the closer to the bare foot, the better, and beware, because apparently not all foot "experts" know what they're talking about. (Mine sure didn't.)
Have we ever thought that instead looking at the foot we should be looking at the training or over(s)training? If those that get hurt slowed down during their training maybe they would recover better & not need the crutch of heavy overpriced shoes? Maybe too we should look at an excess adrenal stress as a contributing factor in our foot & leg problems? Adrenal glad overstress from over training has been found to be highly related to tibialis posterior weakness. This weakens the stability in the foot thus causing foot pain & what not.
They were called the Converse Lydiard Equinox. And they were damn good shoes. They came out right around the LA Olympics. They were prefect shoes for a light footed runner. Really a cross between a racing shoe and heavier weighted training shoe. Unfortunately I don\'t think Converse ever marketed them correctly. Or it was very diffucult to break the Nike/adidas/Tiger/Puma/New Balance, etc stranglehold on the market.
For me, simple is best. I'm on my 8th pair of Nike Accelerators ($39.99) and I frequently get 900-1000 miles on a pair. No frills but effective for me.