HOW WE TEST SHOES

HERE’S HOW WE GET THE DATA THAT HELPS US DECIDE WHAT SHOES FIND A PLACE IN OUR SHOE GUIDE

SWEAT TESTED

We receive multiple pairs of each shoe from the manufacturers. These go to more than 200 runners of varying abilities and preferences. Each spends a month running in their shoes over multiple sessions, before filling in a detailed questionnaire.

LAB TESTED

Under the direction of veteran biomechanist Dr Martyn Shorten, mechanical tests – see below – are conducted on each shoe at the RW Shoe Lab in Portland, Oregon, US. When the detailed wear-test and lab-test results are in, we distil the information from both sources into the reviews you see here.

CUSHIONING

A machine called an impact tester measures how soft or firm each shoe is underfoot. An 8kg weight is repeatedly dropped onto the heel and forefoot of a men’s size 8 shoe from a height of two inches. The lab gauges the force of impact and how much the midsole compresses.

FLEXIBILITY

Flexibility indicates how smoothly a shoe will move with the foot from heelstrike to toe-off. We measure this by securing a shoe’s forefoot to a machine that bends it 45 degrees – about the same as the foot flexes on the run – 60 times in 20 seconds. The force required to achieve this indicates how pliable the shoe is.

HEIGHT+ WEIGHT

We weigh men’s (size 8) and women’s (size 5) models. We also measure ‘stack height’: the outsole foam rubber, midsole foam and insole. We use a digital contact sensor to determine the shoe’s ‘heel drop’ – the difference in height from heel to forefoot.