When shoes get like this, it's time for new training shoes.
There's a lot of marketing hype surrounding various training shoe alternatives made by Skechers, New Balance and Five Fingers. According to podiatrists, shoe experts and medical experts, there is nothing revolutionary about these shoe adaptations, and more people can injuring their ankles and feet as a result. The best shoes for training, cross-training and exercise remain those that best fit your feet particularly. Seek out advice from running and training shoe experts in your choice of shoes, and you'll find it easier to walk and run for your heart's health.
Instructions
1. Know your own feet. Shoes for any type of training are of three types: those with no additional instep support for wearers whose feet are perfectly balanced; those with moderate support (the equivalent of built-in orthotics) for those with slight pronation; and rigid support for those with flat feet and/or the very overweight. Pronation refers to the inward roll of the foot during normal motion, and occurs as the outer edge of the heel strikes the ground and the foot rolls inward and flattens out.
2. Use the thumb rule. The width of your thumb should be the distance between the toe of the shoe and your longest toe. For many people, the longest toe is their big toe; for others, the second toe is the one that the thumb rule should be applied to.
3. Avoid pinched toes. The best fit for any shoe, according to podiatrists, is one in which your feet can be as spread as when barefoot. Consider the contortions many women go through to force their toes into pointy high heels. That's the total opposite of judging fit for a training shoe.
4. Ignore fad shoes. There's the rocker bottom fad, which purports to spur greater weight loss through more effort in maintaining balance while walking and running. There's also the barefoot alternative represented by Five Fingers, the molded shoes that fit the feet like a second skin. These shoes are good, as Ted Newcomb, manager of Runner's High in Long Beach, California states, "for only those people who can run a marathon barefoot." That equates, according to Newcomb, to one and one-half percent of the populace.
Tags: those with, training shoe, your feet, Five Fingers, shoe experts, shoes There