If The Shoe Fits: Stability Features

  

These days athletic shoes run the gamut from no support at all (minimalist shoes) to shoes that sport an array of features aimed at tightly controlling the movement of your foot (motion control shoes). Figuring out what level of support you need can be tricky at times, but knowing how the different features work can help you sleuth out which shoe is best for you.

Before we talk about any specific features I want to first say that you should not be using the footprint method to decide how much support you need in a shoe! I know, it sounds like heresy, and I might get banned from certain running shoe stores for saying so, but that old method of looking at a foot print to determine arch height (and thus shoe type) is exactly that - old. The height of your arch is only one small factor in the way your foot functions, and it can't reliably tell you if you overpronate or not. Real life is far more complicated, and when you're dynamically moving your body has surprising ways of compensating for problems you may not be aware you have. You might look at your foot print and see that you have a high arched foot, but that does not automatically mean you will be a underpronator (rolling on the outside of your foot). If you'd like to delve deeper into science, Gretchen Reynolds wrote a great piece on the NYTimes Well Blog about this very issue.

The support features in a shoe are theoretically aimed at helping your foot move through (what some people consider) the ideal foot motion from heel strike to toe off; which is a landing with more weight to the outside of your foot, then transferring your weight toward the inside before the final movement through the big toe...there's been some controversy on this issue as well, but we'll save that for another post. Conventional wisdom has been that people who overpronated (or roll to far to the inside) need a shoe that will help push them back towards the middle, so most stability features center around this idea. Here are some of the common stability features you'll find in a running shoe:

Duel Density Midsole: The gray section of midsole you sometimes see in a shoe indicated that it is a denser material than the white foam. The idea is that the harder material will slow down some of the foot's pronation during your stride. Some shoes will have different amounts of the higher density material - generally speaking, the more gray area there is the higher the level of support. This area may also be called a "medial post."

Shank: This is the hard plastic piece seen in the middle of the shoe. The shank prevents the shoe from flexing under the area of your arch.

Midsole and Outsole Flare: If you look at a shoe from the top down you'll notice that some shoes have a midsole that extends further out than the upper; sometimes you'll see this more in one section than another. This is called midsole flare and is another method to try to help guide your foot towards an ideal pattern.
 





Heel Counter: No matter where a shoe falls on the stability continuum all shoes have a heel counter, what varies is how stiff it is. An inflexible heal counter will help prevent your heel from pronating too far one way or the other at heel strike. You can easily determine how stiff a heel counter is by trying to bend the cloth portion of the shoe that wraps around your heel and Achilles tendon - the harder it is to move, the more stability it affords.



When trying to decide how much stability you need in a shoe the best thing to do is try the shoe on and go for a run. Most good running stores will let you do this, and some even have a treadmill inside the store to test out their wares. Don't relay on your foot print shape or standing arch height to determine the level of stability you need. Go by comfort - if you feel like you're going to twist an ankle just walking in a shoe, try one with a bit more stability...but don't go so far that you feel like your running in a brick. A good shoe should work with your foot and feel quite natural without a lengthy break in period.

~Nicki