Shoe Outsole Width discussion

Triathlon Forum
1

some questions and topics arising from my article on outsole widths and their impact on shoe speed have come up in the facebook comments appending to that article, as well as on the FB comments on my review today of the Bondi 5. easier to talk about this here, with images.

here’s camilla pedersen. looks like a pretty normal footfall. the width of the outsole is probably not going to affect her as much.

likewise sebastian kienle. good footfall. not an issue.

i believe this is corrine abraham. she’s going to touch down at an angle. we’ll get to this.

likewise caroline steffen.

in my opinion, based just on my own running, my own sense of it, when you come down at an angle, as in the bottom 2 pics above, a wider outsole (esp at the heel) means that when you touch down the force of the ground levers your foot down, flat, abruptly, and more quickly than you want. if you toe off toward the inside of the shoe, which i do, same thing. the extra outsole on the medial side of the sole of the shoe impedes my ability to push off with my own mechanics.

two problems here. one is that levering. i’m funneled into a mechanical paradigm foreign to how i run. second, the shoe contacts the ground before i want it to, and it leaves the ground after i want it to, i.e., it spends more time on the ground (a no no, if you want to go fast).

ergo, my thesis is that for some runners - overpronaters in particular - suffer from shoes with wider footprints, possibly in injuries, probably in speed, and that this metric - outsole width - is probably more important than shoe weight in determining a shoe’s speed. but, narrower shoes are less stable in certain conditions (offroad).

i think this describes, in part, why racing flats are so narrow, and why they’ve always tended to be flatter, heel to sole, than trainers (because that levering also occurs with shoes that have taller heels (more drop).

camilla_pedersen.jpg
112562-largest_1runTop15men2.jpg
corrine_abraham.jpg
112329-largest_5runTop15women2.jpg

2

Thank you to bringing to my attention something that I’ve never been able to pin down. I am definitely an over-pronator and love my low drop, narrow racing flat like trainers. When I’ve tried wider shoes like Hoka, they felt horrible. I love them on the trail, but not on the road. I thought it might be from the extra cushioning (and to some extent it still could be) but you’ve pointed to another intuitive reason wider shoes aren’t always good for pronators.

3

Thank you to bringing to my attention something that I’ve never been able to pin down. I am definitely an over-pronator and love my low drop, narrow racing flat like trainers. When I’ve tried wider shoes like Hoka, they felt horrible. I love them on the trail, but not on the road. I thought it might be from the extra cushioning (and to some extent it still could be) but you’ve pointed to another intuitive reason wider shoes aren’t always good for pronators.

i think i have some elevons coming to me. this looks promising.

i’ll report back.

elevon_composite.jpg

4

Great article and reply. I have found similar results. I have tested Hokas multiple times and love the cushioning they provide, but, there was something about the stiffness that I didn’t like. I land on the ouside of my foot and roll inward as I push off. It felt as though the Hokas were forcing my foot to land differently and I couldnt pin-point the issue until this article. Looking forward to the next article.

5

I still have a pair of original Bondi B and Tarmacs I break out for extra long runs. They’re really looking rough nowadays.

What happened Dan? They had me at Bondi B…it all went down hill from there (for me).

6

I still have a pair of original Bondi B and Tarmacs I break out for extra long runs. They’re really looking rough nowadays. What happened Dan? They had me at Bondi B…it all went down hill from there (for me).

what happened:

  1. original designers sold company to new owners.
  2. new owners switched factories where shoes were made.
  3. new owners completely turned over top management. everyone, from the top down.
  4. new product managers who were up to speed left, and now yet more product managers running it.

so, do these current people understand that brand? you can’t bring in folks who were traditional shoe dogs, who always had the capacity to make hokas yet never did, and ask them to somehow know, understand, embrace, and get in front of a tech that they never liked in the first place.

nevertheless, they may well get it. but if they do they have to prove it. the proof of the pudding is in the shoe making. now, as noted, i have a new one on its way to me. i have hopes for it. we’ll see. i’ll report. but one thing they need to do is remake the old bondi. they absolutely, positively, need to do that. call it some other shoe, a new model. doll it up with some new, better features. fine. but, one way or the other, fill that void.

7

Agree with your analysis on what changed. Now hoping the same will not happen to Altra (sold owners of NorthFace).

8

Thank you to bringing to my attention something that I’ve never been able to pin down. I am definitely an over-pronator and love my low drop, narrow racing flat like trainers. When I’ve tried wider shoes like Hoka, they felt horrible. I love them on the trail, but not on the road. I thought it might be from the extra cushioning (and to some extent it still could be) but you’ve pointed to another intuitive reason wider shoes aren’t always good for pronators.

i think i have some elevons coming to me. this looks promising.

i’ll report back.
I look forward to see what you think. We can’t get the elevens in nz or Australia. So I can test either.

9

I’m excited, it does look like a promising shoe. Looking forward to reading about it.

I still have a pair of original Bondi B and Tarmacs I break out for extra long runs. They’re really looking rough nowadays. What happened Dan? They had me at Bondi B…it all went down hill from there (for me).

what happened:

  1. original designers sold company to new owners.
  2. new owners switched factories where shoes were made.
  3. new owners completely turned over top management. everyone, from the top down.
  4. new product managers who were up to speed left, and now yet more product managers running it.

so, do these current people understand that brand? you can’t bring in folks who were traditional shoe dogs, who always had the capacity to make hokas yet never did, and ask them to somehow know, understand, embrace, and get in front of a tech that they never liked in the first place.

nevertheless, they may well get it. but if they do they have to prove it. the proof of the pudding is in the shoe making. now, as noted, i have a new one on its way to me. i have hopes for it. we’ll see. i’ll report. but one thing they need to do is remake the old bondi. they absolutely, positively, need to do that. call it some other shoe, a new model. doll it up with some new, better features. fine. but, one way or the other, fill that void.

10

Narrower shoes also tend to be less stable for the exact crowd that you’re describing, Dan - that “overpronator” (God I hate that term) needs a shoe that is going to give the right platform to get into stance phase without the knee being forced into excessive medial stress. (Naturally, this can also be a hip problem coming down and manifesting itself as a foot/knee problem, but I digress).

I think outsole width of racing flats basically just comes from their roots of track spikes. As we progressed to the road, we just took track spikes and added a little cushioning to them to create a road racer. And track spikes, if anything, have negative offset - so as an industry we probably kept that around. Hasn’t stopped us from creating some damn good 6-10 mm offset racing shoes, either.

My suspicion is that the shoes are slower on a combination of weight, fit, materials (particularly selection on the outsole), and less on lasting/outsole width.

11

Hey Dan,

I have hit this a few times on ST: here

I believe it is a factor in contributing to certain injuries in certain runners; width/flare/footprint and don’t forget rear stack height as it also increases the length of the lever arm from the virtual joint center of ankle (plane dependent). I also agree that it could be a factor in mechanically limiting a runner i.e. slowing them down…all about trade-offs…

Soft tissue and muscle need to react to the torque/rate load generated by the wide/deep shoe, but the rate in which the torque or load is applied also needs to be accommodated (or not). I bring this up because this also has potential implications on efficiency (sub-optimal mechanics), energy return…

Simple example increase of rate that the moment (torque) is applied: Frontal plane rear eversion external moment is initiated by the widest part of show lateral to virtual joint center of joint axis, so arm is longer and arguably rate of pronation will be faster.

This also applies to overall vertical rate load of ground reaction force that may be paradoxically steeper with max shoes (still early on this one) and another potential speed limiter is the high compliant forefoot stack in a lot of these shoes attenuating some push-off forces i.e. slowing you down.

It is a growing area of interest in terms of injury and while it would not be fair to directly associate mechanics that may be leading to overload/injury as making you slower, it isn’t a stretch either.

I think for the most part your hunch is correct. However, for some people these shoes may offer a unique solution to allow one to run/jog a bit faster than without or, as you have said, have assets that shine for certain terrain/conditions while being limiting in others.

Cool topic, for me anyway:)

12

Hey Dan,

I have hit this a few times on ST: here

I believe it is a factor in contributing to certain injuries in certain runners; width/flare/footprint and don’t forget rear stack height as it also increases the length of the lever arm from the virtual joint center of ankle (plane dependent). I also agree that it could be a factor in mechanically limiting a runner i.e. slowing them down…all about trade-offs…

Soft tissue and muscle need to react to the torque/rate load generated by the wide/deep shoe, but the rate in which the torque or load is applied also needs to be accommodated (or not). I bring this up because this also has potential implications on efficiency (sub-optimal mechanics), energy return…

Simple example increase of rate that the moment (torque) is applied: Frontal plane rear eversion external moment is initiated by the widest part of show lateral to virtual joint center of joint axis, so arm is longer and arguably rate of pronation will be faster.

This also applies to overall vertical rate load of ground reaction force that may be paradoxically steeper with max shoes (still early on this one) and another potential speed limiter is the high compliant forefoot stack in a lot of these shoes attenuating some push-off forces i.e. slowing you down.

It is a growing area of interest in terms of injury and while it would not be fair to directly associate mechanics that may be leading to overload/injury as making you slower, it isn’t a stretch either.

I think for the most part your hunch is correct. However, for some people these shoes may offer a unique solution to allow one to run/jog a bit faster than without or, as you have said, have assets that shine for certain terrain/conditions while being limiting in others.

Cool topic, for me anyway:)

i wonder what would happen if a shoe was built with an outsole that followed the contour of a well-worn shoe. obviously that shoe isn’t unstable, because the user is successfully running in it.

bear with me. that worn shoe, after 400 miles or so, has those “levers” knocked down. so build the shoe with typical wear patterns already built in. no more levers to torque the foot.

13

Please update us on this theory and how the elevon trial is going. Thanks,

14

Please update us on this theory and how the elevon trial is going. Thanks,

the elevon is still my go-to shoe. but, i raced the wildflower offroad tri in the clayton - an older model clayton that i hadn’t used, so it was new (to me) - and the clayton was notable for its cushiness.

which is ironic since the clayton is almost a racing flat.

so, the elevon is not even close to being a cushy shoe, however i’m running in it almost exclusively offroad, so it doesn’t bother me that it’s not as cushy. as a road shoe the elevon would for me be a non-starter. the search resumes.

15

I may have missed it somewhere but…have you tried a Clifton 4? I’m inclined to think, based on specs and your description of the experience in the Clayton, that it would tick the boxes for your beloved Bondi replacement.

I will now pour one out for the Bondi 2, which was my favorite iteration. Now onto whichever Boost shoe I decide to attempt to train for IMFL in.