The science of athletic footwear

So many sports and so many shoes! Often finding the right information to help you understand the technical aspects of athletic footwear can be a real minefield! bartoldbiomechanics will help you to understand and make the right recommendations.

Sports people come in all sizes and shapes. Some are performance athletes perhaps even professionals in their chosen sport. Others just participate for the pure enjoyment of the game and the many benefits physically and mentally that may be derived from being active. Remaining injury free is a common goal for everyone involved in sport, and athletic footwear plays a big part in this quest. The human body is an example of engineering excellence. It is the model for much of the research and design employed by the athletic footwear manufacturers, and the impetus for the science that drives independent biomechanical and bioengineering studies in relation to athletic footwear. Our desire to understand human locomotion and system biomechanics has set the framework for some meaningful advances in sports footwear over the past decade. Studying specific patterns of foot and lower limb motion has played a fundamental role in refining and improving athletic footwear. Research into the mechanical properties of human fatty tissue and our ability to measure more accurately loading patterns in sport, especially ground reaction force and pressure, has dramatically improved our perception of cushioning as it applies to sports shoes. And whilst many science-driven gains have been made, there is much to still achieve, especially in the field of Windlass mechanics, long considered the “Holy Grail” of technical footwear design. Any shoe design element that helps to enhance the Windlass Mechanism of the foot will unlock the secrets of true functional stability and probably offer significant gains in performance and injury reduction. A handful of companies are at the forefront of this technology. Athletic footwear is a technical area, because the science that drives it is quite complex, and certainly beyond the understanding of the average consumer. So it behoves the sports medicine practitioner to be familiar with the issues and features that separate good from bad in relation to sports footwear. If you want to know more about the science of athletic footwear, go to the members only section for an encyclopaedic description of footwear, now and then, updated consumer footwear profiles, downloads, powerpoint presentations, videos, research papers and much more!