Why changing running shoes could triple your injury risk
Release time: 2025-01-03 14:22:30Zhenxing Latex
Picture yourself running down a trail or treadmill. Do you land on your heel first (rearfoot strike), or do you land on the middle or front of your foot (non-rearfoot strike)? If you’re like most runners in a new, comprehensive study of 710 participants, you might be wrong about your answer – and that misconception could be setting you up for injury.
“The shoe lies between the foot and the ground, and features like a large heel-to-toe drop make it more challenging for runners to identify how they’re striking the ground. That clouds how we retrain people or determine if someone is at risk for future injury,” explains Heather Vincent, Ph.D., director of the UF Health Sports Performance Center and lead author of the study, in a media release.
The research team leveraged their unique position at UF Health’s Sports Performance Center and Running Medicine Clinic, which sees hundreds of runners annually. This allowed them to analyze data from over 700 runners across six years, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of its kind.
Beyond simple awareness, shoe characteristics emerged as a crucial factor in both injury rates and foot strike detection accuracy. After accounting for several variables, shoe heel-to-toe drop proved to be a consistent predictor of both accurate strike detection and running-related injuries. Higher heel-to-toe drops were associated with a lower likelihood of accurate foot strike detection and increased injury risk.
Among the study’s most intriguing findings, runners who admitted they “didn’t know” their strike pattern had the highest prevalence of running-related injuries – 73% compared to 56% and 58% for self-reported non-rearfoot and rearfoot strikers, respectively. This suggests that body awareness might play a crucial role in injury prevention.
“The shoe lies between the foot and the ground, and features like a large heel-to-toe drop make it more challenging for runners to identify how they’re striking the ground. That clouds how we retrain people or determine if someone is at risk for future injury,” explains Heather Vincent, Ph.D., director of the UF Health Sports Performance Center and lead author of the study, in a media release.
The research team leveraged their unique position at UF Health’s Sports Performance Center and Running Medicine Clinic, which sees hundreds of runners annually. This allowed them to analyze data from over 700 runners across six years, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of its kind.
Beyond simple awareness, shoe characteristics emerged as a crucial factor in both injury rates and foot strike detection accuracy. After accounting for several variables, shoe heel-to-toe drop proved to be a consistent predictor of both accurate strike detection and running-related injuries. Higher heel-to-toe drops were associated with a lower likelihood of accurate foot strike detection and increased injury risk.
Among the study’s most intriguing findings, runners who admitted they “didn’t know” their strike pattern had the highest prevalence of running-related injuries – 73% compared to 56% and 58% for self-reported non-rearfoot and rearfoot strikers, respectively. This suggests that body awareness might play a crucial role in injury prevention.
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