Hi-tech trainers pose injury risk

BRITAIN: Runners wearing hitech expensive trainers are more likely to injure themselves than those who use simpler shoes with no cushioning, new research suggests.

A study found that thinner trainers encouraged athletes to land on the ball of their foot rather than the heel, putting significantly less stress on the body.

Those wearing traditional trainers, by contrast, exert a much higher ‘‘loading rate’’, the speed with which force is applied to the body when a runner’s foot hits the ground.

Running as a sport or simply as a means of keeping fit continues to grow in popularity. Figures from Sport England earlier this year revealed that two million people in the UK are now running regularly, a jump of 73 per cent in the past 10 years.

However, injury rates have not fallen despite decades of research.

Dr Hannah Rice, who led the research at the University of Exeter, said: ‘‘So many people use running as a means of reducing the risk of chronic disease, but about three quarters of runners typically get injured in a year.

‘‘Footwear is easily modifiable but many runners are misguided when it comes to buying new trainers.

‘‘This research shows that running in minimal shoes and landing on the balls of your feet reduces loading rates and may, therefore, reduce the risk of injury.’’

The research found that modern-day runners in cushioned footwear tend to land on their heel, known as a ‘‘rearfoot strike’’, while those who run barefoot are more likely to perform a ‘‘forefoot strike’’, landing on the ball of the foot.

Rearfoot strike runners experience an abrupt vertical impact force each time the foot lands on the ground. That impact force is often missing when running with a forefoot strike, but previous research has shown that forwardbackwards and sideways forces can be higher, meaning the total force is similar.

‘‘This seems to suggest that for runners in traditional, cushioned running shoes, foot strike pattern may not matter for injury risk,’’ said Rice. ’’However, we suspect that the same may not be true of runners who regularly use minimal shoes, which don’t have the cushioning provided by traditional running shoes.’’

She said that becoming accustomed to running in minimal shoes that lack cushioning promotes a landing with the lowest loading rates, and that this is likely to reduce the risk of injury.

Britain’s passion for running has been fuelled in recent years by mass events such as ParkRun - the free, weekly Saturday morning 5km event held across the country - and large city marathons. A record quarter of a million people applied for a place in the 2016 London Marathon, more than 55 per cent of whom had not run seriously before.

The University of Exeter study is published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise. Telegraph Group