(Published in the Owings Mills Times, 10/31/01)

by Stephanie Dray

Technical advances have made athletic footwear bouncier, more flexible and weather resistant. The 13 billion-dollar athletic footwear industry has so transformed the athletic shoe through technological innovations that choosing one can be a confounding adventure. A bewildering array faces the average consumer. If you don’t know whether or not you’re an overpronator or what goat traction is, you may be at a severe disadvantage. So how can you select the best shoe?

Understanding the anatomy of an athletic shoe is the first step. First, there’s the upper. That’s the fabric, leather, or plastic that covers the top of your foot. Next, there’s the outsole, which forms the outer and bottom sole of the shoe. And in-between is the midsole where most of the magic happens. But major athletic shoemakers have concentrated on improving all these parts of the shoe. For example, Reebok has developed weather resistant uppers. New Balance has developed The Walking Strike Path™, designed to follow the center or pressure path that occurs during the walking cycle gait in the midsole. And Nike has developed goat traction: a unique dual density rubber outsole engineered for supreme traction and stability.

Once you understood the anatomy of an athletic shoe, you’ll need to learn the biomechanics of your own foot. More than half of all people overpronate (their feet roll too far to the inside and push off the inside edge of the forefoot) or underpronate (their feet don’t roll in quickly enough, so each stride finishes on the outer edge of the foot). People with a low or flat arch usually overpronate, whereas those with a high arch tend to underpronate. To find out if your feet fall into either category, look at your most worn pair of shoes. If your shoes show wear on the outside heel and inside forefoot, you’re an overpronator. If you see wear on the outer edge of the heel and the little toe, you’re an underpronator. Underpronators need more flexibility in their shoes whereas overpronators need a firm heel counter (that’s the part that cups the heel) and more stability.

Next, you have to determine how much cushioning you’ll need. Shoes provide cushioning for a very simple reason: to protect the human body from the force of impact with the ground. These impact forces can be substantial. A jump shot on the basketball court exerts a force of up to 10 times the jumper’s body weight upon landing. If you’re an older exerciser, weigh over 150lbs for women or 180lbs for men or have a joint problem, extra cushioning is especially important.

Until 1978, shoes featured sponge rubber wedges to provide cushioning. These sponges were heavy, dense, and tended to compact over time and usage, resulting in reduced cushioning benefits as the shoe wore down. Nike was the first company to solve this problem when they decided to use a pressurized gas inside a tough, flexible urethane bag that compresses to absorb the force of impact, then immediately recovers its original shape and volume. Thus, Nike Air was born and Nike has dominated the athletic shoe industry ever since, controlling 35% of the market.

But Nike isn’t the only company using technology to benefit our feet. Reebok features DMX technology comprised of air cushioning in a single unit that moves the full length of the shoe, and delivers the cushioning and stability precisely where and when the athlete needs it. By tightly constricting the channel as air flows from heel to toe, the speed of the airflow is controlled to match the pace of an individual athlete. Moreover, Reebok has 3D Ultralite, which is a proprietary blend that they use for their outsoles so that their shoes are 10-20 percent lighter than those made with conventional construction. Yet, Reebok’s reputation isn’t stellar. Jimmy Algarin of the Athlete’s Foot in the Owings Mills Mall went so far as to say, “The Reebok Classic is just a bad shoe. It wears out quickly; it forms to your foot; it looks bad. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone and especially not to older people. If you want a comfortable shoe, check out New Balance.”

New Balance started out as an orthopedic company and perhaps that’s why they’ve maintained a focus on making a comfortable shoe that corrects for various foot problems without the hype of space-age promotional design. They don’t even come out with exciting names for New Balance shoes. New models simply have numbers. But all of the athletic shoe experts I spoke to agreed that if you weren’t interested in flash and wanted a good solid shoe, New Balance was the brand to look at.

New Balance has a shock attenuating, cushioning component that they call ABSORB®. They’ve also developed the Rollbar®Stability System that keeps the foot in a neutral plane so that you don’t over or under pronate. Their N-ergy S.C. System™ is a lightweight blowmolded cartridge engineered to provide maximum heel cushioning and medial and lateral stability while also providing superior energy return and maximum resistance to compression. India Murrain of the Owings Mills Mall Finish Line explained, “Nike has style, but New Balance is straight up what runners need.”

Until this year, innovations have all been variations on the same theme: lighter soles, new air bubbles, and improved cushions. This year, however, Nike has revolutionized the industry yet again with their new Shox technology. The air bubble is gone, replaced with cylinders of what appear to be coiled springs!

“The Shox freak everybody out,” says Jimmy Algarin told me. “Everyone wants to see how it feels. And you can feel the difference.” So I decided to put them to the test. My extremely scientific method was as follows: I walked around the mall until my feet were tired and sore, went into every athletic shoe store in the mall and harassed the staff into letting me try on all their newest, and then jumped up and down to test each pair for comfort.

When there wasn’t an available pair of women’s Shox in my size, the nice ladies from the Finish Line, Nikki Mitchell and India Murrain, patiently brought me a springy size eight men’s. (They assured me that men’s shoes are exactly identical to the woman’s version except in color and size.) Without a doubt, my flashy Nike Shox had the strangest feel of any shoe that has ever been on my foot. The coiled heel compressed and sprung as I walked. It literally put a bounce in my step. The uniqueness of the sensation alone was enough to make me fall for the shoe. But at $150 per pair, I had sticker shox!

Algarin assured me that the new technology was pricey, but not overpriced. “It takes a lot of money to develop an entirely new shoe. Nike got tired of the air bubble and they finally came up with something new to revolutionize footwear. And I tell you, Nike’s expensive. But Shox is the most innovative and technically sound shoe around. So Nike is still going to be your best shoe for the money, depending on your sport.”

Consumer’s obviously agree with Algarin, since Shox sneakers now vie with Air Jordan for top billing and there is evidence that retailers are having trouble keeping the shoes on their shelves. For 2001, the Shox sneaker is the No. 5 selling shoe in the country even though it’s the most expensive of that group.

Next, I moved on to the Nike Air Spectre. The Spectre is a space age shoe that comes in attractive metallic shades. Many sneakers now feature zippers, magnetic closures, or no closures at all. The Spectre slips on, but it took me several tries to stuff my foot into it while the ladies at the Finish Line looked on and laughed. The Spectre will both stay on your foot, and help you use up quite a few calories putting it on. The foundation of this running shoe is rigid with a visible air mattress in the heel and rounded cleats on the bottom. The shoe sells for about $60 and is a tempting buy.

After the Spectre, I took a peek at the Nike Air Flightposite III’s. These basketball shoes are the strangest of the bunch. The sides bulge out with an iridescent metallic pattern that deceives you about the shoe’s shape. But the Flightposite seems to be all flash. Every pair in the store had glue marks that made for a cheap and ugly appearance.

I also tried on Reebok, New Balance, Adidas, and Puma. But ultimately, Nike’s technical innovations and style has them all beat. Their focus on constant improvement and scientific research propelled Nike to the top of the market, and it looks as if it’s going to keep them there.