How to Buy the Correct Running Shoes

The Marathon season is around the corner, leading to a spike in shoe sales. Now buying shoes is easy business right... Wait for 40% discount season, walk into the store and look for the best colour and design thats available.

Unfortunately not, when it comes to buying running shoes, one needs to take special care. While Running on the treadmill/road your joints, archs, feet come under so much stress and one could do severe injury to oneself if one is not careful about ones running... While there are other precautions that one needs to take while becoming a full fledged runner, when it comes to shoes it is imperative to buy the right shoe according to your feet type and running style.

Heres a small note on how to purchase your running shoes:

Process for buying Running Shoes:

Step 1: Check out feet type, whether its flat feet , normal arch or high arch... you can do this test by dipping your feet in water and leaving an impression on a plain piece of paper. If you can see the imprint of the entire feet you are flatfoot if only little bit of the midfoot is visible you have normal arch and if the middle portion imprint is almost invisible you have got high arch.. There is no best feet type to have. Just the correct running shoes for it.

Diff foot types require diff running shoes...

for eg flat feet require lot of stability and midsoles so that your feet does not bend at your ankles. These type of runners usually go for stability shoes.

Normal to High archs require shoes with plenty of flexibility to encourage foot motion. These type of runners usually go for cushioned shoes, from neutral to high cushioned depending on normal to high arcs.

While the wet foot test is fairly used across the world, it is not fool proof as it fails to determine your running Style.....

Step 2: Style of Running... This is the most important process in buying a shoe. To understand the style of running,one has to understand a concept known as pronation. Pronation is the bending of your foot every time it lands on the ground. The degree of rotation varies from people to people...

To understand how you pronate, the best way is to check your old shoes... Understand where the wear and tear is taking place. Look at the front and midsole and find out if the wear is happening on the outside part of the shoe or the inner part of the shoe...

Ideal (or neutral) wear will be in the middle of the toe, Underpronation or Supination would be indicated by wear towards the outside of the toe & overpronantion would be shown by wear on the inside portion of the toe

Note: "We shouldnt look at heels for this assessment as most of the runners land first on the outerpart of the heels..."

Step 3: Weight and Toe Box...

If you are a heavily built runner you require different types of shoes as compared to if you are light weight runner. Also check out if your toe is wide, if its so then you may need shoes with a wide toe box....

To Wrap Up...

1) Find out your feet type with the wet test...

2) Find out where the wear of your current shoe is happening.

3) Is your toe Box Wide enough. Does it cause discomfort when your little finger in the feet hits the fabric of the shoes...???

The Kind of shoes for you:

If you have a neutral to high arch and are more likely to underpronate: look for Cushioned shoes
If you are a moderate to flat feet and are likely to overpronate: Stability and Motion Control Shoes

The above recommendation is based on the assumption that for majority of runners, certain arch types go with certain pronation styles, but this is not sacrosanct.

In case you are not in the majority, and you have to make a choice, buy shoes according to your running style(pronation style) rather than foot size...

Hope this post helps!!! Happy Running...