Running shoes strain joints – new study

Running shoes may do more damage to the joints than high heels, researchers warned yesterday.

Modern shoes cause significant twisting of the knee compared with running barefoot, researchers found.

The experts called on manufacturers to put more work into developing shoes that do not cause harm.

The findings come from a study of 68 young adult runners, each running at least 15 miles a week. There were 37 women.

The runners were studied using a treadmill and motion analysis.

The study showed a 54 per cent increase in twisting of the hip and increases of more than 35 per cent in twisting of the knee compared with barefoot running. the findings have been published in PM&R: The journal of injury, function and rehabilitation.

An earlier study of high heels had found they only increase twisting of the knee by up to 26 per cent.

Researcher Dr Casey Kerrigan, who works for a technology company in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, said joints also had to tolerate greater loads during running than walking.

He said: "Remarkably, the effect of running shoes on knee joint torques during running that the authors observed here is even greater than the effect that was reported earlier of high-heeled shoes during walking.

"The current findings indeed represent substantial biomechanical changes."

He added: "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."

The Effect of Running Shoes on Lower Extremity Joint Torques – by D. Casey Kerrigan, MD, Jason R. Franz, MS, Geoffrey S. Keenan, MD, Jay Dicharry, MPT, Ugo Della Croce, PhD, and Robert P. Wilder, MD. PM&R: The journal of injury, function and rehabilitation, Volume 1, Issue 12 (December 2009)