The Footy Boots Thread

[Delair]

Some interesting arguments for and against the Asics raised heel in this thread. I have no doubt they consulted with physiotherapists, biomechanists, podiatrists etc when designing the feature. Would be curious to know if any of the people speaking out against it here hold similar qualifications? Not having a dig, genuinely curious.

And for whats its worth, I kept count as the Eagles players received their medals (yes, I'm a massive boot nerd) and 10/22 players had Asics on. Can't be that bad if half an AFL team prefers them?

 

[GEEitLONG]

High heels on footy boots are probably the recent result of good science, but historically bad shoe design by the same people for many years.

Its only natural that if you have shoes with raised heels on all your waking and walking hours, during your school years, weekend sports, of your life, that your calf muscle will naturally shorten. Humans learned long ago that the body is 'plastic.' Heads were wrapped to make skulls longer, feet were wrapped to make them smaller, muscles stretched to make them more flexible, and indeed, heels put on shoes that have shorted calf muscles.

Shoe companies know this. That's why Asics are putting extreme heels on their footy boots. Obviously to compensate for players shortened calf muscles and lessen injury.

So why don't they just sell full range of shoes with linear (zero) gradient to eliminate this problem for all their cusomers through life? Because they loose a major marketing tool (gel heels, and all that other advertising crap they put on heels) and would basically admit their designs have been the cause of so many hamstring injuries (something has to give) and calf injuries in later careers (old mans injury) and quite possibly ACL etc knee injuries also.

It isn't natural for humans to run 'heel - toe'. Shoes with heels make it possible. Go for a run barefoot and you will find you run naturally on the balls of your feet. And hard to run heel toe. The jarring hurts.

IMO the remedy is to right now, begin wearing shoes with at least an even gradient on the sole. Start doing some running in zero gradient shoes or even barefoot shoes, and let your body begin to naturally lengthen your calf to its natural length. I don't know how long it would take. A year? More? In the meantime, while you are wearing zero gradient shoes daily, by all means wear the Asics high heel gradient boots for training and games.

Wearing heels on our boots daily for all our awake hours is what's doing the damage by shortening our calves. During a game of footy or training when stretch is tested, is when shortened calves are exposed. But it is the longer hamstring that often goes before the short solid calf muscle does.

 

[Aeglos]

High heels on footy boots are probably the recent result of good science, but historically bad shoe design by the same people for many years.

Its only natural that if you have shoes with raised heels on all your waking and walking hours, during your school years, weekend sports, of your life, that your calf muscle will naturally shorten. Humans learned long ago that the body is 'plastic.' Heads were wrapped to make skulls longer, feet were wrapped to make them smaller, muscles stretched to make them more flexible, and indeed, heels put on shoes that have shorted calf muscles.

Shoe companies know this. That's why Asics are putting extreme heels on their footy boots. Obviously to compensate for players shortened calf muscles and lessen injury.

So why don't they just sell full range of shoes with linear (zero) gradient to eliminate this problem for all their cusomers through life? Because they loose a major marketing tool (gel heels, and all that other advertising crap they put on heels) and would basically admit their designs have been the cause of so many hamstring injuries (something has to give) and calf injuries in later careers (old mans injury) and quite possibly ACL etc knee injuries also.

It isn't natural for humans to run 'heel - toe'. Shoes with heels make it possible. Go for a run barefoot and you will find you run naturally on the balls of your feet. And hard to run heel toe. The jarring hurts.

IMO the remedy is to right now, begin wearing shoes with at least an even gradient on the sole. Start doing some running in zero gradient shoes or even barefoot shoes, and let your body begin to naturally lengthen your calf to its natural length. I don't know how long it would take. A year? More? In the meantime, while you are wearing zero gradient shoes daily, by all means wear the Asics high heel gradient boots for training and games.

Wearing heels on our boots daily for all our awake hours is what's doing the damage by shortening our calves. During a game of footy or training when stretch is tested, is when shortened calves are exposed. But it is the longer hamstring that often goes before the short solid calf muscle does.

How do you run on the balls of your feet and still take your ankle through full dorsiflexion?
If anything by allowing a heel strike, cushioned shoes encourage a greater ankle ROM during running gait

 

[GEEitLONG]

How do you run on the balls of your feet and still take your ankle through full dorsiflexion?
If anything by allowing a heel strike, cushioned shoes encourage a greater ankle ROM during running gait

There have been tests of running heel / toe/ vs On balls of your feet. Athletes were hooked up to computers and skeletal stresses of both displayed on screen. Heel strikes were shown to put massive stress on legs and back that the balls of feet running did not. Here... Start at 7.45 if you are time poor...

 

[Aeglos]

There have been tests of running heel / toe/ vs On balls of your feet. Athletes were hooked up to computers and skeletal stresses of both displayed on screen. Heel strikes were shown to put massive stress on legs and back that the balls of feet running did not. Here... Start at 7.45 if you are time poor...

Do they measure ankle kinematics?

 

[GEEitLONG]

Do they measure ankle kinematics?

If only common sense was common. Go for a run down the park barefoot, and try and run heel 1st. Just because you cant rotate your headlike an owl, doesn't mean you must measure 'neck Kinematics'.

Sports shoes with supersonic, gel, carbon, moon dust heels are marketing frauds. Kinematics, sectional densities, ballistic coefficients mean crap when it comes to natural human locomotion.

.

 

[Aeglos]

If only common sense was common. Go for a run down the park barefoot, and try and run heel 1st. Just because you cant rotate your headlike an owl, doesn't mean you must measure 'neck Kinematics'.

Sports shoes with supersonic, gel, carbon, moon dust heels are marketing frauds. Kinematics, sectional densities, ballistic coefficients mean crap when it comes to natural human locomotion.

.

I’ll take that as a “no they don’t address kinematics and therefore do no address whether or not there’s a reduction in dorsiflexion during gait when using a shoe”

 

[GEEitLONG]

I’ll take that as a “no they don’t address kinematics and therefore do no address whether or not there’s a reduction in dorsiflexion during gait when using a shoe”

Your, 'shoes have improved on nature' because you use 'big words' to 'prove' it....looks exactly like....you use 'big words' to 'prove' 'shoes have improved on nature'.

Sports shoes are a scam. Basketball shoes anyone....?


.

 

[Aeglos]

Your, 'shoes have improved on nature' because you use 'big words' to 'prove' it....looks exactly like....you use 'big words' to 'prove' 'shoes have improved on nature'.

Sports shoes are a scam. Basketball shoes anyone....?


.

Ad hominem attack anyone?

 

[Aeglos]

To add some actual science and more big words to the equation;
Comparison of toe runners, forefoot strikers, midfoot strikers and rearfoot strikers showed that rearfoot strike and midfoot strike have similar amounts of peak ankle dorsiflexion, which is insignificantly more than forefoot strikers (by a single degree) and noticeably more than toe runners (by almost 5 degrees).
In layman’s terms no, running in a shoe with a heel strike will NOT result in “short” posterior calf muscles.

 

[GEEitLONG]

no, running in a shoe with a heel strike will NOT result in “short” posterior calf muscles.
View attachment 604074

I never said that. I said (paraphrasing) 'wearing footwear, every waking hour with elevated heels, will shorten calf muscles'. Binding ones head with cloth will change skull shape, inserts in the earlobe will make big holes in the lobes, binding feet (Japan) will deform and make feet smaller, Womens high heels cause RSI, etc, etc, etc. The human body is plastic. Do something unnatural and the body will adapt. THATS A FACT JACK! (Stripes)

The whole point of what im saying is that elevated heels on footwear cause many problems. Multi billion dollar corporations will NEVER pay for studies on the subject. Any studies that show anything negative never gets released. Footwear science is bought and paid for by the corporate establishment. As with most information these days, one must look beyond mainstream for the truth.

 

[Aeglos]

I never said that. I said (paraphrasing) 'wearing footwear, every waking hour with elevated heels, will shorten calf muscles'. Binding ones head with cloth will change skull shape, inserts in the earlobe will make big holes in the lobes, binding feet (Japan) will deform and make feet smaller, Womens high heels cause RSI, etc, etc, etc. The human body is plastic. Do something unnatural and the body will adapt. THATS A FACT JACK! (Stripes)

The whole point of what im saying is that elevated heels on footwear cause many problems. Multi billion dollar corporations will NEVER pay for studies on the subject. Any studies that show anything negative never gets released. Footwear science is bought and paid for by the corporate establishment. As with most information these days, one must look beyond mainstream for the truth.

Taking off your tinfoil hat for a second, the study I took those figures from was funded by the Uk ministry of defence (presumably in an attempt to see whether they could reduce the incidence of running related injuries to servicemen)
https://dacemirror.sci-hub.tw/journal-article/e9f603218c005c1c0e303ad433c102b7/nunns2013.pdf

No one will ever deny that the human body is plastic/adaptable (to an extent - obviously there is an upper limit). I just disagree that the adaptation to wearing a day to day shoe with a slightly raised heel automatically equates to a negative one.

Going back a couple of posts as well, interestingly whilst looking for a study on ankle kinematic I found evidence of people using a rear foot strike in bare footed running
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254614000283

N=1 as well, but if the surface has enough give I will still rear foot strike bare footed and, when running on hard surfaces in a shoe, I’ll shorten my stride length but increase stride frequency if my shins start to play up.
I’ve tried forefoot and toe running but don’t have the calf strength/endurance, and it goes out the window the second my concentration goes elsewhere (rendering it useless for footy)

 

[GEEitLONG]

1. Taking off your tinfoil hat for a second,

2. (A) No one will ever deny that the human body is plastic/adaptable ). (B) I just disagree that the adaptation to wearing a day to day shoe with a slightly raised heel automatically equates to a negative one.

3. /endurance, and it goes out the window the second my concentration goes elsewhere (rendering it useless for footy)

Breaking down what you really said..

1. Ad hominem attack anyone? (you sook)

2. (A) You concede my point. Heels change calf length. (B) Opinion. Just you are wrong.

3. Elevated heels shortening calves creates injury. That's why elevated heels are relevant to all athletes.. No one is advocating not wearing footy boots.

 

[Aeglos]

Breaking down what you really said..

1. Ad hominem attack anyone? (you sook)

2. (A) You concede my point. Heels change calf length. (B) Opinion. Just you are wrong.

3. Elevated heels shortening calves creates injury. That's why elevated heels is relevant to all athletes.. No one is advocating not wearing footy boots.

1) You stated that you’d never see negative results published because all studies were funded by shoe companies - I proved evidence to the contrary rather than your attack at me previously where I was wrong because I used words too long and complex for you to wrap your head around and that I should just use common sense

2A) yes they do - I never disagreed that a change in ankle biomechanics would have alterations on calf structure
2B) prove I’m wrong

3) no they don’t

 

[GEEitLONG]

1) You stated that you’d never see negative results published because all studies were funded by shoe companies - I proved evidence to the contrary rather than your attack at me previously where I was wrong because I used words too long and complex for you to wrap your head around and that I should just use common sense

2A) yes they do - I never disagreed that a change in ankle biomechanics would have alterations on calf structure
2B) prove I’m wrong

3) no they don’t

Saved.

 

[And_ROOS]

Side note, got a pair of Asic football boots worth about $200 for around $25 from some buy swap sell, immaculate condition and fit perfectly.

No issues for me with calves, my issues have always been ankles and these boots have better ankle support.

 

[Aeglos]

Side note, got a pair of Asic football boots worth about $200 for around $25 from some buy swap sell, immaculate condition and fit perfectly.

No issues for me with calves, my issues have always been ankles and these boots have better ankle support.

I’ve actually used second hand boots the last couple of seasons.
Let some other sucker break them in for me.

 

[And_ROOS]

I’ve actually used second hand boots the last couple of seasons.
Let some other sucker break them in for me.

I used to do that, but I took 5 years off football and when I went back I bought some new nikes. Terrible, took ages to break in and fell apart.

Finished the season wearing some very old Predators and had someone take a photo of them and told me they would end up on a boot spotting website somewhere.

 

[Delair]

I'll restate my post from a while back. Anyone hating on the Asics heel going to state their tertiary qualification which makes their views authoritative on this topic?

 

[Aeglos]

I'll restate my post from a while back. Anyone hating on the Asics heel going to state their tertiary qualification which makes their views authoritative on this topic?

Not even just qualifications (I mean, chiros do 4-5 years of uni and a % turn into complete nutters).

I’m waiting for anyone to provide evidence outside of a hypothetical model (that would only work if we were robots) to indicate that a raised heel event remotely increases the incidence of any pathology.
And by that I mean an epidemiological/longitudinal study that goes something like “these 500 athletes wore a heeled shoe, these 500 wore a flat shoe. Every other variable was controlled and the raised heel were X times more likely to get injured over a 5 year period”
No such evidence exists and I doubt it ever will