How to Choose Running Shoes

Series Summary

Running is a popular recreational and fitness activity of many Americans. For cardiovascular health and convenience, running is hard to beat. Whether you live in a city, suburb or cornfield, you can put on a pair of tennis shoes and take a jog down the road to raise your heart rate and exercise the most important muscle of your body. Before it was a fitness activity, running served as one of the fundamental sports. Footraces have tested speed and athleticism in human cultures for thousands of years. Many people are familiar with the origins of the marathon, a race created for the 1896 Olympics that recreated the legendary run of a solider from Marathon to Athens with the news “Masters! Victory is ours!” In this free video series on running, get training tips for running from a level one certified triathlon coach. Learn about selecting the right shoes and warming up for a run, implementing a proper eating routing for running and how to avoid chafing. Hear about running on sand, eating to train for a marathon and how to prevent blisters during a marathon. Finally, get tips on how to start a running program and how to train for a first triathlon.

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is David Brown and today we are going to talk about how to select a running shoe. Now selecting a running shoe can sometimes be very daunting, especially since there's so many difference styles and colors and brands that are available out there. A variety of runners can fit into many different categories of shoes. I would barely get them into three or four. So the first thing you got to look at is what kind of foot do you have. Now a good way to know what kind of foot you have is what's called the wet test, or once you step out of the shower, you want to step onto a paper bag, lift your foot up and see what kind of shape you see. If you see a very thin line, you know that you have high arches. If you see a very flat line, you know you have flat feet. Most of us fall somewhere in between. But if you know you have very flat feet, or high arches this is going to require a very special shoe. And sometimes even an insert called orthotics. Now once you know this about your foot, you may want to do some other research. By looking at some of your other running shoes or perhaps some walking shoes. And you want to see where they wear. Do they wear mostly on the outside, or mostly on the inside. They wear more on the heel, or more on the forefoot. And you will be able to tell right away. On this shoe what I'm talking about is you can look at the heel down here or the forefoot up here. I'm talking about the outside of the shoe here, the inside of the shoe here. You can look at wear points on all these spots. So why am I telling you to do all this research, well that's the very next step, is to go to a very nice running store. Don't just go to any place to buy your shoes, especially running shoes. But go to a running shoe store. Tell the people there what you've found. Now they may even do some other steps like have you run on a treadmill and be able to look at your feet and see how your feet land. But at the end of the day, this is a scientific process, we are trying to find the right shoe that fits you. So after you go to the running shoe store, decide what kind of budget you have, also let the people know that. Now the final thing is also how much are you going to run. If you are training for a marathon, or you are just going to be running a few times a week, this could also dramatically effect your choice of shoe. And your purchase price. And when you put together what you can afford and what science tells you, you should buy, you should be able to know what running shoe you should select."