For years the running shoe industry has cast its products more or less like well, a cast: Wear this protective device or you’re at serious risk of injury. Fortunately, that mind-set is starting to change; shoe companies and runners increasingly recognize that the goal of running shoes should be to allow the feet and ankles to do their thing with as little interference as possible. You hear a lot less these days than even five years ago about a shoe’s “protective” qualities and more about how it enhances the body’s natural mechanics.
That was a needed change—as if one of humanity’s most basic movements was possible to do free from injury only if done in something mass-produced with foam and plastic in an Asian factory. If anything, many runners, including me, have considered most modern running shoes potential vectors of injury.