Science News Archive

Fancy Trainers make take you down the road to ruin

A new study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine compared the relative merits of nine pairs of trainers ranging in price from "economical" to "ludicrously expensive" and found no evidence that the size of the price tag makes any difference to comfort or "bone benefit".

Richard Clinghan and his colleagues at Dundee University used pressure-measuring equipment to monitor how well the trainers compensated for the loads applied to the bones and joints of the foot under gentle and vigorous exercise conditions, and asked wearers to subjectively rate their comfort. The volunteers in their study were not told the price of the footwear, and any branding was hidden with sticky tape. At the end of the study there was no clear relationship between price and comfort, and the authors conclude that cheap trainers offer at least as good, if not better, cushioning to the bones of the feet compared with more expensive flashier footwear.

14th Oct 2007