Overpronation?
When I first started running again years ago I remember going into a local running shop for some advice rather than venturing out too far in my old trainers.
It was during this first visit to a proper running shop that I was told I severely overpronated. I'd never really thought about my feet much but after them explaining that as my heel strikes my foot rolls in a lot which would cause problems so what I needed was a nice pair of shoes that prevented this.
What puzzled me over the years was that despite spending a fortune on different shoes and several pairs of orthotics nothing every really stopped the pain. This got me thinking about what was actually happening and I started to look into mid/forefoot running as an alternative, most physios and podiatrists told me not to go near it as it wouldn't solve anything and would most likely lead to a whole host of other problems.
What I did do after this counter advice was a fair amount of research, some of this I was discussing with a colleague at work today.
The first study I found interesting was with a relatively small sample size of 81 female runners, grouped into different foot types. The runners were then put on a 13 week half marathon training plan and studied. The conclusion was that the current method of using shoes depending on foot type was simplistic and could actually cause problems (rather than solve?). What was really interesting to me about this study was that it was funded by Nike and used Nike shoes throughout - fair play to them for publishing the report. Full details can be found here.
The other piece of research I came across more recently was conducted over a year with 927 novice runners covering almost 327,000 km's in neutral shoes. Of these 252 sustained injuries. This concluded that in novice runners moderate foot pronation didn't really necessarily increase injury when running in an neutral shoe. It did however say more work was needed to see the impact in highly pronated feet.
I now know that my underlying cause wasn't really my overpronation but a bone disease but that hasn't stopped me thinking that it doesn't really matter whether you pronate or not. What confirmed that recently was my session with Kinetic-Revolution, which showed me that even with a midfoot strike I still pronate -I'd figured as I wasn't landing on my heel it wouldn't be as bad. I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure everyone pronates, like everything though, some more than others.
What I've concluded throughout many years of trying to solve a problem from the feet up is that I would probably have been better off looking at how I run and how I can better control or improve overall movement rather than one specific element. If I had my time again I'd start off concentrating on this aspect and not what was on my feet.
It was during this first visit to a proper running shop that I was told I severely overpronated. I'd never really thought about my feet much but after them explaining that as my heel strikes my foot rolls in a lot which would cause problems so what I needed was a nice pair of shoes that prevented this.
What puzzled me over the years was that despite spending a fortune on different shoes and several pairs of orthotics nothing every really stopped the pain. This got me thinking about what was actually happening and I started to look into mid/forefoot running as an alternative, most physios and podiatrists told me not to go near it as it wouldn't solve anything and would most likely lead to a whole host of other problems.
What I did do after this counter advice was a fair amount of research, some of this I was discussing with a colleague at work today.
The first study I found interesting was with a relatively small sample size of 81 female runners, grouped into different foot types. The runners were then put on a 13 week half marathon training plan and studied. The conclusion was that the current method of using shoes depending on foot type was simplistic and could actually cause problems (rather than solve?). What was really interesting to me about this study was that it was funded by Nike and used Nike shoes throughout - fair play to them for publishing the report. Full details can be found here.
The other piece of research I came across more recently was conducted over a year with 927 novice runners covering almost 327,000 km's in neutral shoes. Of these 252 sustained injuries. This concluded that in novice runners moderate foot pronation didn't really necessarily increase injury when running in an neutral shoe. It did however say more work was needed to see the impact in highly pronated feet.
I now know that my underlying cause wasn't really my overpronation but a bone disease but that hasn't stopped me thinking that it doesn't really matter whether you pronate or not. What confirmed that recently was my session with Kinetic-Revolution, which showed me that even with a midfoot strike I still pronate -I'd figured as I wasn't landing on my heel it wouldn't be as bad. I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure everyone pronates, like everything though, some more than others.
What I've concluded throughout many years of trying to solve a problem from the feet up is that I would probably have been better off looking at how I run and how I can better control or improve overall movement rather than one specific element. If I had my time again I'd start off concentrating on this aspect and not what was on my feet.
Overpronation?
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