High Heels Better for Your Knees Than Running Shoes -- OMG! Seriously?!

[Barefoot TJ]

High Heels Better for Your Knees Than Running Shoes
Yahoo! News
"Reducing joint torques with footwear completely, to that of barefoot running, while providing meaningful footwear functions, especially compliance, should be the goal of new footwear designs," said Kerrigan.

 

[Ahcuah]

Interesting. Kerrigan has been looking at this stuff for a long time, and is the lead author on the studies that showed that high heels put something like 25% more stress on the knees. And this newer study says that running shoes are even worse (and bare feet are still the best). (Strangely, this "new" study was published in 2009.) Kerrigan's earlier studies:

http://refs.ahcuah.com/papers/lancet1.htm

http://refs.ahcuah.com/papers/lancet2.htm

 

[Ahcuah]

Interesting. Kerrigan has been looking at this stuff for a long time, and is the lead author on the studies that showed that high heels put something like 25% more stress on the knees. And this newer study says that running shoes are even worse (and bare feet are still the best). (Strangely, this "new" study was published in 2009.) Kerrigan's earlier studies:

http://refs.ahcuah.com/papers/lancet1.htm

http://refs.ahcuah.com/papers/lancet2.htm

OK, the newspaper articles are a bit misleading. The earlier papers compare high-heeled walking with barefoot walking, and come up with around 25%. The newer study compares barefoot running with shod running. I bet if they tried running in high heels, heels would still be worse that running shoes.

Anyways, the newer results:

Increased joint torques at the hip, knee, and ankle were observed with running shoes compared with running barefoot. Disproportionately large increases were observed in the hip internal rotation torque and in the knee flexion and knee varus torques. An average 54% increase in the hip internal rotation torque, a 36% increase in knee flexion torque, and a 38% increase in knee varus torque were measured when running in running shoes compared with barefoot.

 

[Longboard]

"Reducing joint torques with footwear completely, to that of barefoot running, while providing meaningful footwear functions, especially compliance, should be the goal of new footwear designs," said Kerrigan.


Just what type of compliance is he talking about?

 

[Ahcuah]

"Reducing joint torques with footwear completely, to that of barefoot running, while providing meaningful footwear functions, especially compliance, should be the goal of new footwear designs," said Kerrigan.

Just what type of compliance is he talking about?

Man, I had to burrow deeply into some scientific papers to discover that "compliance" is the inverse of "spring stiffness".

In other words, it's "squooshiness".

Oh, and Kerrigan is a she.

 

[Longboard]

OK, as long as she wasn't advocating compliance with the shoe police.

 

[Ahcuah]

OK, as long as she wasn't advocating compliance with the shoe police.

Well, in a way she was. All she could think of was messing with shoe design to make it more like barefoot, instead of realizing: just go barefoot!

 

[Barefoot TJ]

You are a great resource, Ahcuah! You too, Board!

 

[migangelo]

you'd think anyone with the name Kerrigan would be more cautious with their knees.

 

[Longboard]

you'd think anyone with the name Kerrigan would be more cautious with their knees.

Yeah but at least Gillooly's wife was a fast barefoot runner. Remember when she stopped her car from being towed away?

 

[Ahcuah]

you'd think anyone with the name Kerrigan would be more cautious with their knees.

For the win!

 

[Bare Lee]

It's funny, I've enjoyed barefooting for a long time, but since becoming aware of the barefoot boom three years ago, nowadays I see that almost everyone is essentially wearing high-heels. It's so absurd. Like everyone wearing turtlenecks that make their heads tilt upwards slightly. Culture trumps reason once again.