Running Shoe Selection: Everything You Need to Know feat. Mitch Lorkin

A lot of people focus too much on brand names and choose solely on, you know, what their friends recommend without considering their individual needs. And not really a day goes by where I don't have someone come in saying, you know, I've been doing a bit of research and.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. Mitch, very warm. Welcome back onto the podcast. Thanks for joining us once again.

Thanks for having me, mate.

First question, I want to know before we get into the shoe stuff, is have you trained this morning? And if so, what session did you do?

He got me at a good time. Sometimes I haven't trained yet at this point, but today I have, and I did two sets of 10 by a minute on 30 off on Zwift because the weather was horrible.

So the people might want to know. You're a shoe enthusiast and come from a big running background, but you have been training a lot more on the bike recently, is that correct?

Yeah, just. I like to mix it up, learn different things. I think the running and cycling go really well together, especially from an aerobic point of view. And it's just good to move your body and develop, I guess, different pathways from a muscular sense and, you know, include some new stress. Initially it was just more aerobic stuff and I really started loving it. Um, and it's kind of helped me fall back in love with running, too, because I haven't been as focused on the one thing.

I totally agree. Have you. Have you dived into the specifics of cycling shoes much? Are you as into it as running shoes or you find it's a bit more obsolete?

It's a great question because there's obviously some crossover and parallel things. I've been thinking a lot more about it when I'm on the bike. What denotes the right sort of fit and function from a, I guess, cycling shoe point of view. And with it not being weight bearing, it's roused my curiosity enough to go do a bike fit course to see if I can use that to help inform, I guess, what we're doing in a running point of view. But I'm kind of becoming more curious about how I might be able to use it from a cycling point of view with footwear, too.

Have you been yet or you're going.

To go, gone and go?

Yeah. Nice. I totally agree with you. About the cross training and we've spoken about this one on one a few times about how I personally feel that my cycling benefits so much from running. And I know you felt the same vice versa. Cycling helps running and running helps cycling. Do you think that's a strength thing when you're so one dimensional on the bike? I personally feel stronger on the bike when I've been running more, whereas when I'm just more cycling dominant, I almost don't feel like I get that. That strength that you get from that impact of running.

Yeah, there might be a very good reason for that, given that the fact remaining bone density point of view, like if we're seated on a saddle, we don't have the same stress from an osteo point of view. So I guess long term, if you're spending too much time on a bike, not weight bearing and mixing up those movements, there's probably from a bone point of view, a reduction in the density, but maybe there's some other elements in terms of tendon stiffness and the rest that running helps create and you can miss that if you just stick with the same cycling only.

Yeah, for sure. I definitely anecdotally feel it. I'd love to see some pretty hardcore studies, but the reality is a lot of cyclists don't run just because of injury and previous injury and they kind of have to tend to just stick to pure cycling. And that's where strength and conditioning comes in, which is a whole other topic. So we'll stay off that for now and we'll get into another area of your expertise, the main area of your expertise, and that's shoes. So I want to start off on a bit of a topic that is really about picking the running shoe. And you are really good at understanding the technologies, technicalities of the shoes themselves, plus foot mechanics, plus plus general biomechanics. That is definitely your strength. But it's very interesting that I have this experience with you and a lot of people do. When they come to buy a shoe off you, one of the most common things that you say is, oh, how do you feel? And you'll get me to. And this is the same process for everyone. You'll get us to try on potentially five or six different shoes. And you're constantly just saying, well, how does it feel? And you kind of gearing the choice towards that feel, even though you place a lot of importance on the technicality. So my question is how. How do you get that balance right between understanding what's technically important for the person's body to just as you're asking, how do you feel?

Yep, it's a good question. If you just focused on that alone, it would seem like it's being driven largely by subjective feedback. But you have to remember, before we got to that point of the conversation, I was looking at you on the treadmill barefoot, to get baseline understanding of how you move and distribute weight. And then once I know we're in the right category from a footwear perspective, I might bring out a few things that are probably sort of left of field in terms of what they're trying to encourage. And then it's a matter of using subjective feedback, which is another, I guess, skill in itself to really tease out what. What I want you to find with the shoe. And really, I'm not prescribing it. I'm giving you multiple options. And then the second part of that process is trying to help you find the, I guess, the most natural or the most comfortable one. And despite all the science that's been used with footwear and biomechanics, there's really one study that drives home the one thing that we do know that has evidence to support it is a comfort filter will help people get in the right shoe. So it's a matter of kind of reinterpreting people's ideas of comfort and getting them to find what we. What we have an idea of comfort in that shoe. So for a lot of people, it'll mean undoing this preconceived notion that they need to feel supported and trying to get them into a shoe where they don't really feel a whole lot at all. You know, where it's feeling like it's part of their foot, they're moving naturally, there's not too much interference, things like that.

I can't tell you the difference I've felt. And, you know, the shoes you've been putting me in the last 18 months since we've been seeing you, from someone that's run my whole life, you know, in supported shoes, to the difference I now feel in shoes that are exactly how you describe, they just kind of feel effortless or they just don't even feel like they're there. It is a world of difference. And I can't believe I spent, know, 20 plus years of my life running in heavier, clunkier, supporting shoes thinking that was normal, you know, and that's just such a, I think, a universal experience for a lot of runners. They don't know the difference.

And to be fair, you don't know what you don't know, so, like, that your experience is pretty standard. And I guess from an industry point of view, historically, that was pretty standard. Yeah. Armed with the right tools and kind of analysis, you. You don't need to be feeling like that.

So I want to break down that process a little bit more. So when you start off and you're looking to put someone in kind of a category of movement and you are checking them out on the treadmill, or you're just looking at them, how they walk or maybe start to run, what are the different categories you're kind of putting someone in to then select a general range of shoe for them to try on.

Well, outside of the movement baseline stuff that we just touched on. From a biomechanical point of view, if someone's got particular injury history or I guess something that's limiting how they move, we might use the shoe outside of trying to create just a stable platform to encourage something, which is, say, someone came in with a history of bilateral Achilles tendinopathy, and I'm pretty limited through that ankle range of motion. We might look for a shoe with a rocker sole and a higher stack to limit the need for the ankle range of motion firstly, and then help them shift weight a little bit easier through and over that big toe, which is something they might have a hard time doing. So that's probably the. The function of the shoe is one thing that we're looking at. But when you're on the treadmill and you're looking at weight distribution, what we really need to understand is whether someone needs a little bit of structure or guidance. So if they have a tendency to distribute too much weight medially and deform a midsole, we might look to put them in a shoe with more integrity. And then if they've got balanced weight distribution, we might look to put them in a shoe that's a balanced midsole. So it doesn't have that dual density foam or posting or rear foot support on that. More and more these days, footwear is going to start to move away from the traditional structure. There's a number of reasons for it. The first one would be we. We've kind of understood over time that there's probably not a huge benefit nor group of people that really do need it. And then to elaborate on that, we found smarter ways to provide stability without having unbalanced midsoles. So we can use geometry now with shoes to create a more stable platform by simple things like increasing the base net under the foot. So that means the surface area in contact with the Ground and the foot. And just think of it like a building foundation. A larger footing means, you know, it's getting all of its weight and force distributed over a larger surface area. And the same thing applies for, for a shoe. The other thing is flaring the geometry. So if you imagine in the forefoot, instead of having the midsole come straight down, we taper it and flare it out. So at toe off you've got this stable edge for the big toe to press through or even for someone who sort of comes down more laterally on a knife edge, that lateral flare off to the outside of the shoe will help shift the weight back in towards the big toe where we want it. So less risk and they suit more people. I'm, I'm more excited about that because I think the structure thing was probably a bit of a miss. Historically there's a focus on trying to control foot structure that a shoe was never going to be able to achieve just because there's nothing in there actually under the foot contouring it. So I was kind of shoes playing podiatrist a little bit and I don't think that really works. I don't think it's effective.

Yeah. So is that what's happening industry wide? If you look at the main sort of range of trainers that brands are bringing out, they are bringing out these trainers that are less structure based and more exactly what you described just then. More giving, I guess.

Yeah, I like we've only started to see it, but I'd say that'll be the next big change footwear wise. Next two to three years. It's kind of been going on for a while. Like one of the first brands to sort of acknowledge this and change their entire line was probably Brooks. They took their best selling structured shoe worldwide after doing on gathering a lot of data on runners in the States. I had a pretty big pool of people in the 1500 range, I think, and they looked at what forces were causing the most injuries and they discovered that, you know, excessive external tibial rotation was causing injuries at the knee. And that probably sounds complicated, but it's basically people being overcorrected or having too much weight distributed away from that medial line and that creates external tibial rotation. So yeah, a huge group of people with good intention ending up in a supportive shoe, but not really understanding that to warrant a supportive shoe you need the mechanics, otherwise it can cause stress too. So with that data, Brooks went and said about redesigning their range so that their best selling structured shoe was a guidance shoe which just Means they've made it balanced. They took out that dual density foam and went to a system that they called guide rails. I think you could still almost call it just a stable neutral shoe. It's really just, you know, 10 mil of denser foam on the medial and lateral edge of the heel counter works for a lot of people. The risk for that group of people that have more neutral weight distribution is, you know, pretty much gone. And the people that still need that integrity, they'll, they'll most likely be fine in the adrenaline. This is actually a really intelligible thing to do. The next brand that's been really heavily focused on structure for a long time, Asics have even in the back half of this year, taken their best selling structured shoe, definitely in this country anyway, which is the Kayano. Kayano. So, yeah, 29 versions of it. And the 30th shoe is actually going to have a post that's softer than the rest of the midsole. And they're saying that their testing shows that it's more stable than their previous versions. Which is funny because if you argue about, which we do often argue with them about what's the right way to do it, they would say, nah, testing showing this, and then a year later their testing's not showing that.

So, yeah, yeah, it's all pretty technical stuff. And I ask these questions because it's good to just even get an insight into what you're thinking, what shoe companies are thinking. But I guess a broader question is how important is it that the general athlete understands this and knows this, because it can sound very technical very quickly and be a little bit overwhelming.

Yeah, I guess the thing you need, you probably would want to know whether you've got neutral or structured mechanics as a baseline, because armed with that, you could go into a shoe store in anywhere around the world and say, you know, even if you don't really know what you're doing, you can say at least to them that you only want to try neutral options because you know that they suit you. I think the other stuff is probably not that important. If you don't want to get it wrong, you just go see a run specialist, like that's what we're there for, to help take all the complexity, complexity out of it and just guide you along the process and get you in the right shoe.

Can you give us a pretty layman's terms example of what a neutral runner would look like versus a structured runner?

Yeah, a neutral runner, generally balanced. So if I look at the rear foot of a shoe and then the medial edge. Most of the posting generally occurs under the midfoot, sort of just behind the first mpj back to the calcaneus, which is the heel bone. And if you're really good, you're really.

Good at technicalities, I'm going to pull you up on everyone. Put the posting. What do you mean by posting in the shoe?

So we're looking fine. So, yeah, if we cut the back of the shoe in half, like imagine a cross section of the shoe, what you would see is sort of a graduated wedge like this of a foam that is denser compared to the rest of the shoe. So as the foot lands and shifts weight, which it naturally does towards the medial edge or towards the big toe side of the foot, that dual density foam on the inside edge is less compressible. So that means it's more resistant to being deformed. And you know, that's. Historically, they thought that they could control forces of pronation with something like that, which we know they can't. Just with a midsole, you would need a device like an orthotic after the point to control that, which is why it's kind of become less important and probably a little bit more redundant versus the, the structure.

Yeah.

So, yeah, structured shoes, they have the dual density foam in a simple sense, or a type of structure. A neutral shoe doesn't. It's just one density foam the whole way through. And that doesn't mean they're not stable. It just means they don't have anything in there trying to control weight distribution. Yeah, they're balanced.

Yeah, yeah. And so if, if someone. Yeah, I guess they're, they're on a treadmill, you're looking at biomechanics. Obviously seeing a run specialist like yourself is going to be a really easy way to, to get into what you do. But what are some indicators? Is it just some sort of pronation either way, medially or laterally, inside or outside, that indicates that you're not a neutral runner? Or is there other factors that you're looking at?

Yeah. So for me and for us and the way we look at biomechanics, pronation has very little to do with it, which will probably shock a lot of people because that is a natural mechanical movement that we want to see occur. And most people are going to have a degree of that. It's not a problem in itself because it's the way that the foot absorbs shock and then creates propulsion. So we're not trying to control that. What we're looking at from I Guess like a center of pressure idea. So that's probably going to sound complicated too. We want to see, if you imagine a horizontal plane, we want to understand where most of the weight is being distributed on that. So when we're looking at a foot barefoot, we're trying to understand whether the foot has weight being distributed in a bias sense towards the medial or lateral edge. And then when we look in a shoe, we want to see how it translates. So if we're seeing the shoe compress medially, we know that there's being too much weight distributed there. So we want to try and offset that by giving the midsole a bit more integrity in that area that might be going to a structured shoe. And in another sense, on the opposite side, if we see too much weight being distributed through the foot structure to the outside edge, well, we definitely want to avoid a structured shoe because that can create that to be exaggerated or overloaded further. But we probably also want to stay out of shoes that are soft through that lateral edge because they can compress and keep the weight distributed out there. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it really did. And I guess. Would an accurate summary be that's not so much about the direction of the person's rotation, but it's where. As you just kind of. The keyword you used just then was kind of that. That pressure point where the foot's actually, I guess, lifting off. And, and that. Where that. Where that sense of pressure is. Is that correct? Where it ends up being medial or lateral? Yeah, yeah. And so how many shoes are you. Are you kind of thinking of when you start this process, is it literally 150 potential trainers or is it a top 20, or is it kind of just six to 12 main shoes that you're kind of thinking about?

Oh, we, I mean, we want to give people choice, so we generally bring out four to six options.

How wide is the pool that you're personally starting with? Do you think that's a possible applicable trainer that you could choose from before narrowing it down to four to six?

How many do I think there's a pool of?

Yeah, that's. That's actually relevant?

Well, we would probably be able to offer 12, 15 per person, but we know enough that we don't need to do that because we can narrow it down to six that are going to be better. Like, you know, if I've seen their foot, I know width wise, you know, four of them are out, and then, you know, if they're pretty lateral, well, then I know another three are out and we've got a pretty, you know, condensed version already. Don't maybe they, you know, they're not super stable. They're a newer runner. So we avoid anything that's too soft or flexible and then that's a spat out range 5 shoes. So that person will go through awesome.

And there's generally we see among most things in life an 80, 20 kind of principle of 80% of the people will be in 20% of the shoes in this example. So I guess what are the top most common shoes that you're prescribing to most people? What's been spat at? Is there a trend? Firstly, can you confirm that and secondly, is there a top kind of 20% that 80% of people are in?

There probably would be. Was definitely from a market point of view. I don't know if all run specialty will reflect it because kind of probably depends a little bit on what you being you're bringing out too. For us there's a few given, you know that generally in the population we would probably see 75 to 80% of people that will be appropriately put into a neutral shoe. Stable neutral shoe. That makes up the biggest range of shoes that we would put people into. And then inside that there's a few staples that most people find comfortable. That could be for two factors I think normally. One is that a lot of the people that we see being general public and recreational level athletes or age groupers, they're not, they're not necessarily after something that feels like it's super bouncy or really responsive. They actually sort of gravitate towards things that feel predictable underfoot. I find that tends to change with people as they progress through their sort of running journey. Definitely for people that are out doing, you know, five, six days a week or you know, even seven days a week with some doubles, they start to kind of want to get a little bit back from the shoe. And that could be because they're going out with dead legs in the afternoon or you know, just racking up a lot more mileage. They sort of tend to go for, we call them runners shoes but they're really just shoes that have a little bit more stack, a little bit more pop underfoot. And then for someone that's running, you know, up to 30 to 50Ks a week, they probably end up generally speaking in something that feels a bit more predictable. So it's got a bit more ground feel, I feel a little bit more confidence inspiring underfoot. But it is really subjective. Yeah, neutral definitely make up the main category.

And.

And you Know there's. Yeah, that, that's probably the easiest way. There's not one shoe or one, two or three shoes. It's pretty broad because you gotta remember the fit is the next thing that's gonna really dictate that too.

Yeah. I guess to get specific, what. What are some of the most frequent selling. I don't wanna say top selling because that's not the goal isn't for a shoe to be top selling. But what are the most frequently sold neutral trainers that you just see people ending up in?

Brooks Ghost Asics Gel Pursue Nimbus Light Saucony Triumph Speed. They're two options that are kind of that bouncier style and the Novablast from Asics which I think you're running in now, aren't you? Yeah, from Hawker. Like a Clifton sort of a softer rocket option that's you know, not as stacked. The Cumulus From Asics WaveRider 880, which is flexible and soft from New Balance.

Yeah, I guess it still shows it's a bit of range that people are ending up in. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't. Yeah. And I don't want to bog you down on the technicalities. It's. It is again this balance which is the original point of, of understanding this stuff and knowing what to look for versus what people end up feeling right in. I guess from a race perspective where we've touched on kind of the standard trainer. But you know, a lot of our athletes are racing triathlons anywhere from 5k sprint, 10k Olympic to half Ironman Ironman. The last time we spoke, the main dominant super shoes were definitely from Nike. But since then, and I know there was a lot of development happening quickly but it seems like basically every other brand has released some sort of super shoe or carbon plated shoe. What are your thoughts on a lot of the shoes that have hit the market ratios that are hitting the market and the fact that we are now seeing not such a dominant monopoly by Nike amongst especially the pros. You know, if you look at I think the Boston Marathon, the top three runners, none of them were in Nikes.

So it's probably less helpful looking at the pros because it depends who's got more money and shoes to put on more feet at the pointy end of the races. But. And that'll change depending on who turns up. But they've all got access to the technology now to you know, create shoes with high rebound. Carbon's been around forever so getting that into a shoe is not an issue. And I think now that we've had a few years of sort of the initial drops and protos being refined with feedback from both athletes and in the lab, everyone's got a fairly good and consistent sort of product in that space, which is awesome because it, it's. I think it's unhelpful to have just two shoes there. But there's fit issues, though. Not a lot of people will work in a vapor. And an Alpha was pretty narrow through the midfoot and particularly the new version you see carving up a lot of people through that midfoot because they're just sitting down on the midsole too much. So it's good to have other options and broader options. There's definitely more durable options now. I remember the early days, like the first 4%. Like we used to be so particular about don't run in it until race day. Which was kind of unconventional advice anyway, but it was purely because they were so feeble in an abrasion sense. They would break down really quickly. You know, we were saying 150ks of performance out of the shoe, which, you know, it's three marathons. If you put it on and jog to the start line and then took it off straight away, it's kind of bit. Yeah, disappointing really. But now they're. They've really increased the durability and that's a. That's a probably a big thing. Lots more options as well from a different ways that the plates are shaped, where the rocker point is in the forefoot. So it's, it's going to give more options to a broader and more diverse group of runners and athletes too.

Are there any brands that you've been really impressed with that you really think they're almost leading the way in terms of the super shoe?

To be honest, this last season, I think Saucony's done really well. Well, they've got the third version of the pro coming. They've got the Elite, the Endorphin Elite, which is kind of like, I guess, like their alphafly more stable too. Feels really poppy. They've put a new foam in that that feels even more responsive. That. Yeah, they. I mean, the Endorphin Pro was already a good shoe and it's. It's just as good, if not better now. And those two shoes are different enough from each other that, you know, one will suit and feel better for some person and then the other will work for someone else. New Balance with the Super Comp Elite. That's been a really good shoe. And Nike's still bringing out new iterations of Alpha and Vapor that are still working for people. Um, but I think the other guys are just sort of catching up in that space. And even Mizuno's Rebellion Pro, that's. Was Belter as well.

I really. I mean, yeah. Whenever I talk to you about this, and I think it's good that you don't have any biases towards any brand. And that's not. That is just because that is. That's the truth. Right.

And it's nonsensical, too.

Exactly. Yeah. But whenever I ask these questions, it feels like the answers kind of come off vague because I. I fire questions about you like this all the time because you're kind of like, oh, yeah, I'm happy with all these. You know, that doesn't seem like there's any brand that's particularly unreal. There's no brand that's particularly worse than others. Is that supposed to give us confidence that, you know, generally what you're saying is if you can find the shoe that's. That's going to be fit for your biomechanics and feels right, then you're going to do okay, and we don't need to stress too much about getting it 100% right.

Yeah. It's just the brand thing, is it. It's not gonna. Yeah. Like, we've talked about everything before this point that says how different it's going to be per person depending on how they move, how their foot shape is, all those things. So if I then turned around and said this brand's the best in a universal sense, would pretty much be undoing everything I've just said. So it just doesn't work like that. Even in a daily trainer or race shoe. We just need to get as many as we can on your feet and help flesh it out.

Yeah. That's awesome. So what. What kind of mistakes do you think? What kind of mistakes are you still seeing then? And I'll start off with just the general population. What. What are you still seeing happening that you think people need to know about?

Probably the biggest thing is. Yeah. What. Just to relate it to what we were just talking about, a lot of people focus too much on brand names and choose solely on, you know, what their friends recommend without considering their individual needs. And not really a day goes by where I don't have someone come in saying, you know, I've been doing a bit of research and. And then. And I get it, like, it's good to be informed, but all you're doing when you Research shoes. Unless you're looking purely at objective measurements on the stack height and you know, the level of cushioning and stuff like that is just taking someone else's opinion, which might not be relative at all to what you need and it's unhelpful. So you get away from that and just keep an open perspective. You're going to always end up in the right shoe and that might change all the time. You might end up in a. Yeah. Brooks ghost 14. And then the next time you try on a bunch of shoes you end up in a totally different brand. And that's okay because that's what suits you at that time. And they do change as they know update models as well. The other thing is like people not considering their foot types like, such as the width, the weight distribution, you know, even things like your foot structure and how high it is. Some shoes are just not going to suit you because of those individual characteristics. So we've got to look at that as a another factor. Buying online and not trying shoes on properly, it's crucial if you're going to run in a shoe for 10Ks, let alone 40, that you, that they feel good and that you've tried them on and made sure you can run. And that means getting up and jogging in the shoe, which is what we do in store. But you can't just sit down, put it on your foot. I can almost say every shoe these days is going to feel pretty good from a first sense. But it's only when you start to run and put some force through it that you're going to get the feedback that's really required to make a decision on it. My biggest pet hate is choosing shoes on appearance. Again like it's as bad as helpful as choosing a shoe on a brand name. Like not going to get anywhere doing that. And there's a very good reason we've hidden a mirror in the store. It just it like I get some people want them to look good but it's more important that they function well. You can look good when you're not running. Like if it's performance orientated, put it out of mind and get in the right shoe. Another one would be replacing shoes soon enough so they do have a lifespan, should be replaced after, you know, certain amount of K's or time. And there's simple reasons for it though. If we don't replace them soon enough and you keep the same training load and the shoe gets really compressed, then we're going to see a load spike on the body. So it's to avoid discomfort, injury and those kind of things. And probably to conclude the last one would probably be choosing shoes based on what you. You're attempting to do. So if I'm running trails, and particularly this time of year when it starts to get softer and wetter, a trail shoe is going to be more appropriate in some settings than a, you know, a road shoe. And that's. That can be partly to do with stack height. So if we're placing the foot on continually uneven terrain, there's a risk increased with a higher stack shoe or a soft shoe. Just, you know, you're moving your center of mass further away from the ground. So we can see an increase in acute risk, like ankle rolls, stuff like that. So, you know, make those kind of considerations too. If you're racing, you're probably going to be better off if you really know, have goals in mind in a race shoe rather than a mileage shoe. It's going to give you more responsive feel. It's going to be lighter, the swing weights down, all those things. Yeah, they're probably the, the main ones. Like it's got a. And, and this isn't more about selling shoes, but if you're invested in your sport, you might end up with three or four different pairs of shoes. If you're running on trails, racing on the road, and having two, you know, shoes you do mileage in.

Yep, that's that. You just, you just nailed some absolutely brilliant points for people to think about. And one in there, which was a probably pretty big myth you've just dispelled, which I think needs to be restated, is not having, I guess, brand preference. And that goes both ways. And am I correct in saying that just because a brand hasn't fitted you before, you shouldn't rule it out forever? The same way that just because a brand does fit you, you shouldn't stick with that shoe forever.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, someone will come in often to the store and say, I can't do Nike because of this factor. Like, they're too narrow for me. And it's just not true. They've got wide shoes as well. The one shoe that you tried that other time isn't a summary for the brand in total. And like, sometimes those factors that are listed with why the brand doesn't work are like, unrelated. So you don't use brand. And, and we, even when we put people in to say they end up in a shoe and it's a Brooks shoe or an Asic shoot, we always reiterate that next time they come in if they're not time poor. It's worth doing it every time. Even if you end up in the same shoot, at least you can say you tried multiple options and we know then you're going to end up in something that makes sense mechanically and feels good.

I guess it comes from historically, as you mentioned earlier in the podcast, you know, brands have kept their structures pretty much the same. So unless they're doing a really big overhaul of the, you know, integrity of the shoe, a Brooks Ghost last year, the new version is probably going to be pretty similar. It's not going to be that different. So that's why people would feel safe going, well, I've run in that. It was awesome. I just want the Brooks Ghost again.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

You've had a really great experience with a pro athlete that I want you to talk about in terms of understanding foot mechanics and a real lack of understanding of foot mechanics. Can you, can you explain to the listeners what happened when you got approached by a really high level triathlete who was having serious shoe problems and had chronic injury that you helped get rid of?

So, yeah, she was, she's an Olympian and our highest placed athlete at Tokyo and I'm sure she'll make to Paris too. She's been struggling with a six month long issue and I guess it was kind of a large, largely a last ditch effort to sort of see if the footwear might have had something to do with contributing to it. And she had initially been diagnosed with a tib post and flexor hallis longus overload, which is basically two tissues, connective tissues that run down the medial side of the foot and tibia and often thought to be overloaded with running when people over pronate or dump too much weight medially. So it was a, you could see based on the symptoms why they would have gone down that road. But when I had a look at her on the treadmill, she was super stable despite having sort of a flatter foot structure. She's really strong. She does everything right. She does all the extra stuff. She's got really good SNC program and I can just tell above the foot there's no way she doesn't have that tissue capacity to deal with that kind of load. So immediately I was looking for what's not occurring when she's running. Like what is sort of the missing picture here. And what I initially noticed was her, her big toe was almost spewing out the side of the shoe, like, and I thought straight away, I'm like, okay, well One good thing here is that the shoes that she's in don't fit. So that's going to be an enormous change as well and a beneficial one. And it was significant. She was probably in a shoe a size and a half too small, which is about almost like, oh, 12 to 13 mil too short.

And this is still so common. You still see this in most people, right, that they're wearing shoes that fit tight every day.

Yeah, every day. And so if we think about what the big toe's role is in that windless mechanism where it has to actually whip through and engage to create propulsion, she's missing that entire part of her mechanics. Her foot is so jammed up in that shoe that she's basically got a fist at the end of her leg and she's still running at a high level, which is incredible. So as soon as we got her out of that shoe, I said like, look, you're going to be frustrated that it's. This is a really simple thing, but your shoes are just way too small and you're getting a lot of interference from, from that alone. So put her into a bigger shoe. She immediately felt better. And I think she went from. She said she was about an 8 out of 10 when she initially came in. And then a couple of weeks later we had another little look at things and watched her move and we started to see that whole side free up and start to move properly. And that was because a lot of her foot structure had been so jammed up and limited in how much range had gone through. After the physios had sort of worked on mobilizing those structures, everything started to articulate properly again. She was able to engage through that big toe and instead of overloading those tissues that she was to create propulsion, she was now able to use the muscles that correctly needed to be used to. To get over her big toe and, and toe off properly. So it was a really good change. It was a simple change and you would like a lot of people would be probably dismissing it that it could have such an effect. But I'd say this, the probably the biggest thing overall that people get wrong is the fit of the shoe and it'll have a profound impact, a negative or otherwise.

And just that change, was that enough for the. Yeah. For the injury to basically go away?

Yes. So sorry. Two weeks later it went down to 2 out of 10. Now it's kind of non existent.

Did you end up changing Sherry the actual shoe brand and model as well as going us a different size?

We've got her in A few different things depending on what she needs to do at the moment. So she's in. Yeah, she's in. I think she's in four different brands. So that's again summarizing the, the fact that one brand's not going to work for her. We've got her in a hocker for one type of need. We've got her in an ASIC shoe for another. We've got her in two saucony shoes. One other but I can't remember what it is. But yeah, she's in quite a diverse range and it's, it's based on specific needs for different sessions, you know, recovery days. I've even got her in a different shoe for days where she's not running at all and she's in the gym. And we want to encourage range of motion through her feet. So that shoes, a really flexible shoe, it's a flat shoe. It's going to ask more of her calf and soleus which is what we wanted to sort of achieve and it's going to get her moving her metatarsals more and using her big toe more when she's yeah, using, doing gym work and just walking around.

It must have been a pretty rewarding experience for her. Or maybe rewarding is not the right, right word. Like you said, a, a simple solution to get rid of this six month problem. But it must have been relieving for her.

Yeah, I think for her part frustration. But you know it's always good to get on top of something like that. For me I love it because that's, that's why we do the job like the, those more complicated things or where we need to really problem solve that. They're the most rewarding days when you can really get someone moving better or feeling better.

It must be hard for, harder for a professional athlete because a lot of them would like to get a shoe sponsor where they can commit to one specific brand. But you're kind of saying that that's just really not helpful for pro athlete. That's really not what they need.

You know what's interesting actually on that even related to this athlete that we're just talking about, she's smart. I, I, I had other brands approach me to say we will look after her, you know, permanently. And I, I just said hey, I'm just going to pass this on and you know, this is your call because it's, you know, they're after you and I and I'm just going to be the messenger. And she came back and said I don't think that would be that helpful given, you know, I'd have to wear one type of shoe. And I was like, you know, that's kind of my view as well. I don't, I don't think it would be that helpful to a. I mean, great for her because she's under supported and most athletes are from a financial point of view, if there was an element of it to that. But I'd say it probably wouldn't have been. And then she's limited because she has to stay in their shoes.

It's an unbelievable, unbelievably deep topic. I can't believe how often I ask you questions and I still have more to ask. I would normally finish off an episode like this and say, you know, can you give me your favorite shoe recommendation? But I'm not going to do that because it will just contradict everything we've just said. It's a bit of an insult to your expertise. But unfortunately that's all we have time for today. So I would like to know, is there any message you want to get to people out there? Because just I think understanding this process is so important. Just understanding the new. A little bit of the nuances of what you're looking for without having to have your knowledge. But is there any kind of message you'd want to leave for the listener about how important this is or what they should be paying attention to?

How about I just give you like 5 dot points on stuff to consider?

I'd love that.

Yeah. All right, so if you're a runner and you're serious about your running, whether you're running 15Ks a week or 180, have different pairs of shoes in your rotation. Choose the shoes with different features depending on what you need them for. So like we're talking about workouts. You need a faster shoe racing a mileage shoe for slower days or easy days. Rotate them based on that so you know, jogging the more cushioned shoe, do your workout in the faster shoe. Keep track of the mileage on your shoes and replace them when you need to. Don't overdo it in the same shoe. Just overlap them so that you, you know, you're not getting that load. Spike I mentioned earlier, don't introduce new shoes if you've got an important race coming up. If they're vastly different and that might be hard to know, but you can always ask someone in the store and they'll, generally speaking, they would say, you know, I would wait until after, or if it's safe, they'll say, jump in it today. Like it's not going to be an issue. It's not. It's not different enough from what you've been in. And overall, choose a shoe that feels good and fits well. You need space, so don't be worried if it's bigger than you used to because there'll be a very good reason. That doesn't mean it's going to feel sloppy, but we want it to have an appropriate amount of space or the right amount of space. And remember, yeah, everyone's feet are different. So it's important to find a shoe that make sense for you.

That's unreal. I just want to clarify one point in there in terms of the trialing a new shoe for a race. Would it be okay if it's the exact same model that you've been. You've done the last few races, but you may be just the timing wise, you're just kind of getting to the end of that, that shoe's lifespan and you wanted to just race again in a new pair of the exact same ones. Would that be still not ideal?

Yeah, no, that sort of stuff's absolutely fine. And to be fair, even like, you know, going from one neutral shoe to a different type of neutral shoe, within reason, the changes that you kind of want to avoid are if you weren't in a race shoe and you had come from a, say, a structured shoe to a neutral shoe and you were going to go do a marathon, there's a big enough change there with the body adapting to sort of some new range of movement in the tissues. So wouldn't be advisable to go and run the marathon in that shoe. You'd want to sort of get a four to six week window to let your body adjust. Sometimes you won't have anything at all, but it's just sort of advisable not to do that, for sure.

Unbelievable insight. Mitch, thank you very much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot, mate.

And everyone listening. I hope you got as much out of that as I did. And we'll definitely have Mitch on again sooner rather than later because there's more to explore. So thank you very much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.