If you’ve ever sustained an injury from running, you’re not alone; about half of all adults who run regularly will get injured each year. And if that’s not enough to put you off, having a history of previous injuries is one of the strongest risk factors for getting injured again.
So it’s no surprise that avoiding injuries is a priority for runners.
One third of runners are so concerned about this, in fact, that they'll ditch their plain old running shoes for fancier footwear they feel is safer and will improve their performance. But do the promises made by global footwear companies about their expensive running shoes stack up?
The Evidence
The first thing we need to address is whether the modern running shoe’s extra safety features, such as increased stability or extra cushioning, are protecting people from injury. Not very much, according to a provocative 2009 review that highlighted a lack of research testing exactly this.
More evidence has emerged since, but we’re still none the wiser.
One study that randomly allocated 81 female runners to shoes with different levels of stability based on their foot posture (pronated, neutral, supinated) found no difference in injury rates during a 13-week training program. Another, which randomly allocated hard or soft-soled shoes to 247 runners, also found no difference in injury rates over a five-month period.
But despite the current state of research literature indicating no clear benefits of running shoes with extra safety features, we’re bombarded by claims from global footwear companies about the advantages of their expensive products.
When we dissect the content of the claims made by these manufacturers, we see a recurrence of vague terms, teetering dangerously between the medical and sportswear industries.
Words conjuring imagery of sport and performance such as “zoom”, “fast”, “elite” and “launch pad” are littered among others suggesting direct benefits from their shoes, such as “better” and “safer”. Terms once synonymous with expensive cars are also adopted by global footwear companies, who claim their products offer the most “fluid”, “smooth” or “plush” experience for runners.
Problematic Claims
The problem is compounded by running footwear companies using “surrogate outcomes” to support claims that their newest technology may reduce risk of a running-related injury. But what’s a “surrogate outcome“?
If we want to test whether a new model of footwear, or piece of footwear technology, actually protects against injury, we'd measure – in a controlled study – how many people get injured wearing (and not wearing) the product.
But tracking who does and doesn’t get injured over an extended period is a time-consuming and expensive exercise. To circumvent inconvenience and cost, we could instead measure what effect the new footwear has on outcomes that may relate to increasing risk of injury.
