The painful truth about trainers: Are running shoes a waste of money?
By CHRISTOPHER McDOUGALL
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‘Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet and had a much lower incidence of knee injuries.’
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The modern running shoe was essentially invented by Nike. The company was founded in the Seventies by Phil Knight, a University of Oregon runner, and Bill Bowerman, the University of Oregon coach.
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If anything, the injury rates have actually ebbed up since the Seventies – Achilles tendon blowouts have seen a ten per cent increase. (It’s not only shoes that can create the problem: research in Hawaii found runners who stretched before exercise were 33 per cent more likely to get hurt.)
Roger Bannister
OXFORD, 1954: Roger Bannister crosses the finish line, running a mile in 3:59.4, in thin leather slippers
In a paper for the British Journal Of Sports Medicine last year, Dr Craig Richards, a researcher at the University of Newcastle in Australia, revealed there are no evidence-based studies that demonstrate running shoes make you less prone to injury. Not one.
It was an astonishing revelation that had been hidden for over 35 years. Dr Richards was so stunned that a $20 billion industry seemed to be based on nothing but empty promises and wishful thinking that he issued the following challenge: ‘Is any running-shoe company prepared to claim that wearing their distance running shoes will decrease your risk of suffering musculoskeletal running injuries? Is any shoe manufacturer prepared to claim that wearing their running shoes will improve your distance running performance? If you are prepared to make these claims, where is your peer-reviewed data to back it up?’
Dr Richards waited and even tried contacting the major shoe companies for their data. In response, he got silence.
So, if running shoes don’t make you go faster and don’t stop you from getting hurt, then what, exactly, are you paying for? What are the benefits of all those microchips, thrust enhancers, air cushions, torsion devices and roll bars?
The answer is still a mystery. And for Bowerman’s old mentor, Arthur Lydiard, it all makes sense.
‘We used to run in canvas shoes,’ he said.
‘We didn’t get plantar fasciitis (pain under the heel); we didn’t pronate or supinate (land on the edge of the foot); we might have lost a bit of skin from the rough canvas when we were running marathons, but generally we didn’t have foot problems.
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 
as salamu ‘alaykum
I’ve never liked running shoes because walking in them always made my feet hurt more.
Did you ever read this article – We walk wrong – http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ ?
Pretty good stuff.
Bismillahir Rahmaanir Rahiim
Asalaamu alaikum.
In my culture, people wore simple mocassins. They hunted in them, going through wooded areas, plains, in the mountains, etc. i have worn traditional mocassins and they really aren’t anything more than a layer, or at most two, of thin deer hide (they would be lined with a small amount of fur in the winter) with no “sole”. My people walked for many many miles, for days, even weeks, at a time when tracking food or when moving from summer camp to winter camp and back. Every tribe also had runners who delivered messages across the distances between tribes or bands. So it does not surprise me at all that the modern shoe would do more harm than good, nor that the old fashioned way of walking barefoot or in simple sandals or mocassins would be infinitely better for the feet. i know of my own personal experience that i went barefoot as much as i could as a teenager and young woman (prior to motherhood), even walking 3-5 miles in our city in my barefeet before putting my shoes on to go into the library or other necessary places, and it wasn’t until after i got into the habit of wearing shoes everywhere except in the house, out of the “necessity” of modern living and working, that i began to have problems with my feet and now have constant sores, blisters, corns and other problems no matter what sort of shoe i wear.
The world has changed. Because life has been getting more sedentary, more people are exercising recreationally, even more than they did in the 70′s. The ground is also much harder than in ancient times. I actually run quite a bit, alhamdulillah, and I can tell you that good shoes make a huge difference in terms of how my knees feel after running.
One should realize, of course, that not all sports shoes are designed for running. Some are for basketball, others are for cross-training. Furthermore, if you are going to do serious amounts of running, you need to find out if you need supinated or pronated running shoes, at the very least.
Our ancient ancestors exercised by simply living their lives. You had to fetch water, grind grains, bake your own bread, gather wood for a fire, milk the animals, etc. Life was hard. These days, if our only source of exercise and flexibility is typing at a keyboard, we’re likely to be falling over in our fifties. Physical fitness is also incredibly useful for worship. The more fit you are, the less likely you are to find difficulty in prayer, hajj, and fasting as you get older. Did I mention jihad? If the opportunity arises and you are not physically fit, you will be a liability more than anything else.
Bismillahir Rahmaanir Rahiim
Asalaamu alaikum Abu Fluffy. i am confused by your comment because you extrapolated from are running shoes really good/best for us to the need for physical exercise. No one here is questionning that we need to be active and physically fit. There are plenty of ahadith that point to the importance of physical fitness and our responsibility to our bodies. That does not automatically equate, however, to the need for particular shoes. While you may feel a difference in certain shoes, that is anecdotal and there are clearly others who will say different. There are marathon runners who continue to run barefoot, afterall.