Fitness: training shoes

By Dr. Stefano Casali

The role of the equipment

It is certainly true that, if the pursuit of performance is the primary objective that athletes and technicians pursue, technological research in the field of sports equipment has also focused on the development of tools and garments that minimize the possibility of injuries to the musculoskeletal system; hence the importance for the coach to know the characteristics of the tools to be able to direct the athlete towards the choice that best suits his specific needs. Even in the world of sport, as in other fields, in the last two decades there has been a remarkable development of technologies at the athlete's service, aimed both at optimizing the performance in the race and making training more effective and profitable.

Consider the development and dissemination of tools such as the heart rate monitor for monitoring heart rate during training, the adoption of titanium and carbon fiber for the construction of bicycles, the production of clothing and footwear in lightweight and breathable materials but at the same time warm and waterproof like the gore-tex . or, again, the introduction of new protections in the suits of motorcycling riders that significantly reduce the risk of trauma in the event of accidents. From this certainly summary list, it is easy to see how it is impossible in short to be able to analyze what has been the evolution of sports equipment within each individual discipline taking into account the fact that, in most of them, the athlete trains and realizes its performance by means of specific tools. We therefore refer to a case-by-case examination to another occasion and refer to the search for a tool that is used by all athletes, a sort of "common denominator" that unites all athletes; except perhaps very few exceptions this is the training shoe.

Training shoes

For some athletes, footwear is the only tool to perform performance, such as in many athletics disciplines, and in this case there is a precise type for each specialty, but practically everyone uses the training shoe when preparing for appointments scheduled competitions. The combination of training shoes of the last three decades with the current ones clearly reveals how the shoe has evolved, both for the design and the materials used and for what concerns the design philosophy that is currently influenced by the biomechanical studies that took place. followed over the past few years. From a shoe with a rather simple design with an all-leather upper produced in the 60s, we moved on to the one with a synthetic leather upper and spoiler over the heel that was in vogue in the 70s, until we arrived in the following decade to build models with uppers in nylon, a material that has made it possible to obtain ever lighter models on which the first shock-absorbing systems begin to be adopted in the form of cylindrical units of different densities that can be inserted in the heel of the shoe.

The 90s sanction the almost universal development and adoption of shock-absorbing systems: air, gel, mesh, plastic inserts and other materials are positioned in the heel and in the front part of the shoe, and together with the stabilizing inserts and to the special materials used for the construction of soles, midsoles and uppers, they represent the most significant technical features currently adopted on training shoes. The choice of the right training shoe can help reduce the incidence of joint and muscle-tendon injuries in the athlete To answer this question, it is necessary to evaluate some aspects that he should consider when choosing a sports shoe and others, regarding the consumption of the same and more generally the plantar support, that the technician should know in order to then, in the event they arise problems that can limit the performance, suggest the consultation with a special ista.

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