Runners Knee Linked to Running Shoes with Cushioning

Too many knees in runners are hurting despite all the advancement’s in running shoe cushioning. This is because thickly cushioned running shoes aren’t playing the role that they are marketed to play in reducing injury proneness.

Runners Knee Linked to Cushioned Running Shoes
One of the greatest challenges a runner has to tackle is protecting their knees from injury.  Sadly, thick cushioned-heeled running shoes are proving less effective in safeguarding the knees from impact and mechanical stress as compared with flat or minimalist running shoes.


Contrary to conventional wisdom, the thicker the underfoot cushioning, especially under-heel cushioning of a running shoe, the more biomechanical forces that burdens the knee to the point of causing structural damage to the knee as compared with zero-drop (toe-box and heel are completely level) running shoes.

In a study published in the journal PM&R found that thick cushioned heeled running shoes increased knee flexion torque and compressive loading within a range where degenerative changes occurred at the knee-joint!

An explanation for this is excessive underfoot cushioning creates difficulty for our central nervous system to detect changes in surface dimensions and hardness to optimize foot strike behaviour. In other words, the thicker the under-foot cushioning, the less you can sense the ground when you run whereby instability is almost certain when you cannot feel how your foot is engaging with the ground, making it easier to mismanage your foot strike and leg swing mechanics which can be an obvious magnet for injury.

In alignment with this, thick cushioned heeled running shoes are directly involved in causing a number of mechanical imbalances, such as over-striding, heel striking and over-pronation, while causing the foot to pound harder onto the ground, all of which causes the knee to take a beating. Conventional running shoes might as well come with a knee brace!

The Take Home Message

All along runners have been asking the wrong question: how much cushioning should a running shoe have to protect my knees? To say conclusively, thick cushioned running shoes create problems where there doesn’t need to be any. These shoes are literally a mechanical disruptor by pushing many components of your running form away from the natural order, causing your knees to be at greatest risk for severe injury.

Last but not least, this work also proves that one of the strongest influences on your running form is footwear thereby furthering the interest in barefoot and minimalist running. Both barefoot and minimalist running protects from high impact through a range of reflexes in the foot and leg that are only activated by ground-feel.  What is more, minimalist running shoes are thin and zero-drop, which not only encourages a softer touch of your foot with the ground when you run, but they make it easier to connect properly on your forefoot. The same is true with barefoot running.

Running barefoot is a proven gateway strategy to making your forefoot strike more effective at suppressing harmful impact loads as well as other physical stressors that are caused by cushioned running shoes.  In fact, here are all the evidence-based reason that barefoot running its well worth trying!  


References:

De Wit et al. (2000). Biomechanical analysis of the stance phase during barefoot and shod running. J Biomech, 33, 269-78.

Kerrigan et al.  (2009). The Effect of Running Shoes on Lower Extremity Joint Torques. PM&R 12, 1058-1063

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Bretta Riches

"I believe the forefoot strike is the engine of endurance running..."

BSc Neurobiology; MSc Biomechanics candidate, ultra minimalist runner & founder of RunForefoot. I was a heel striker, always injured. I was inspired by the great Tirunesh Dibaba to try forefoot running. Now, I'm injury free. This is why I launched Run Forefoot, to advocate the health & performance benefits of forefoot running and to raise awareness on the dangers of heel striking, because the world needs to know.
Bretta Riches