Running Shoes - don't believe the hype. Not one bit.

Check out this very interesting article from the Guardian while it's still available:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html

I strongly agree with the claims and complaints about running shoes made by this article. I have had the same position regarding running shoes for years now, and have been flamed every time I have put forth this opinion (now backed by data) on RW forums.

The core of my complaint is as the article describes. The proliferation of "shoe technology" and the concomitant huge advertising dollars promoting decreased injury (stability shoes, neutral shoes, etc.) and increased performance are based on pseudoscience, or actually, no science. If you look at injury data, injuries have increased in the past decade or two, and performance gains have NEVER been correlated to the type of shoe worn, at any running distance.

I detected this early on, and repeatedly, when I would go to a running-specialized shoe store, and a well-intentioned, and actually, well-trained shoe store clerk (often titled "running engineer" or some other faux-title in the store) would attempt to sell me shoes. I would not let on that I am a radiologist by training, and even have a special interest/expertise in musculoskeletal radiology, and I was always horrified by the "truths" that these salespeople would tell me as justification to buy certain (pricey) shoes. They had elaborate glossy catalogs saying how "pronation shoes are for x type of runners, neutral shoes for x type of runner, and lot of claims of increased comfort and running faster", yet even in the small print, or on their websites, did I EVER see one citation for a peer-reviewed scientific article backing up their claims.

Companies are also fully aware of the placebo effects of training. This scenario is perhaps the most common one I've seen: A new runner decides to get started, but doesn't want to invest much money up front in the sport, and just buys any cheaper "running type shoe." Because they are new to the sport, running hurts, in lots of weird places, but particularly the legs and feet. This is NORMAL! If you start any new strenuous physical activity, you will also experience normal adaptation pains. However, as they run more, and finally decide to get more serious about running, they finally take the dive to go to a running specialty store, where a clerk asks them what type of problems they've been having. After telling the clerk about sore knees, quads, calves, etc., the clerk recommends a shoe with some fancy technology that allegedly deals with these problems. The consumer buys them, and starts training with them. Of course by now, they have gotten past a baseline training condition, and invariably, running will be easier and more pain-free. This is however, due to the training effect, and not the shoe. Of course, all the consumer remembers is , "hey, I upgraded my shoes, and it did what the salesperson said. Must be the shoes!" And as a result, these beginner runners swear by their shoes and their magic curative properties. The positive effects of training have been misattributed to the shoes, and the company benefits. Also note how the "new technology" of the shoe is instrumental to this misdirection. If the rep had just recommended a generic shoe with no special technology, it would be much harder for the customer to justify that the shoes made the difference. This is why every season, running shoes seem to come out with some newfangled crazy technology, be it stability bars, anti-heel striking, gore-tex, strange plastics, etc. None of it is based upon real scientific evidence - and if you have doubts, you can be sure that if it were, they would be strongly touting the actual scientific articles to distinguish themselves from other shoes.

I knew this phenomenon very early on, and in fact, I was so sure of this that I even tested it for nearly nearly two years, where I searched for and then used the absolute lowest-cost yet still reasonably designed running shoe that I could use for marathon training. I found the completely unadvertised $25 Payless Amp running sneaker, and used it for two entire Pfitzinger 70+ mile per week training cycles of 18 weeks. They worked so well that I phased out my $110 Brooks Beast shoes from my training cycle, shifted entirely to Payless Amps, and then even wore them to the San Francisco marathon, where I ran a 40 minute PR (see my race report from 2007, which even has a picture of me in them.) It definitely was NOT the shoes, I can tell you.

Interestingly, as the article describes, the things I liked best about the Amps (beside price) were their minimalistic structure. No extra plastic, bars, or pads. Just the basics. The result was a lightweight, no-fuss shoe that performed extremely well. I still have a pair that I keep at my fiance's residence in NorCal, and I run 10-22 miles in them every time I am up there, and they work great.

The take home message: don't believe the hype. Advertising can mislead you from the truth. Physicians have to be so aware of the dangers of advertising that they have persuaded Congress to enact laws limiting pharmaceutical company advertising because it would be such a disservice to the general public. While there is certainly less risk of injury from shoe companies versus pharmaceutical companies, the underlying deception is remarkably similar - and the results remarkably profitable.