The Secret To Buying Running Shoes: Comfort

Writing in the New York Times, Gretchen Reynolds gives us the lowdown on several scientific efforts to find the best way to buy running shoes. Some studies looked at that bugbear of running specialists: pronation. Guess what? When you’re buying shoes, it doesn’t matter. When runners who pronate and runners who don’t were given the same shoes for a year, those who overpronate actually had fewer injuries than those who don’t. What does matter? Comfort. Reynolds cites a 2001 study that asked soldiers to select one of six shoe inserts, which varied in terms of cushioning, arch height, heel shape, thickness. The study’s unsurprising finding: “After four months, the soldiers wearing the shoes fitted with inserts that felt comfortable to them had a much lower incidence of injury than those wearing standard shoes.”  Our bodies, the researchers concluded, are “very good judges” of how each of us should run.