Shoes with high cushioning, increase leg load?

When choosing shoes, there can be many people who choose those with a high cushioning feel. However, recent research suggests that high-cushioned shoes can increase impact on the knee and reduce the sense of balance. Wearing bare feet or minimally functional shoes helps maintain body strength.

Human evolutionary biologist Daniel E Liberman, a professor at Harvard University, published a paper in 2010 showing that running with cushioned sneakers makes it harder for a person to kick their daughters than running with a small foot. Later, as part of an experiment to confirm his hypothesis, he participated in the Boston Marathon every spring wearing bare feet and at least functional sneakers. As a result of continuing for several years, his soles of his feet were hardened, but he said he was able to feel the ground firmly as if he were in a thin state even though his sole skin had become hard.

He published a new paper this year in the journal Nature. Through this, it reveals the tactile sense necessary to protect the soles of the skin and legs. The hard parts of the skin, such as keratin, are made up of a protein called keratin. It transmits the force on the ground directly to the deep layers of the skin and prevents loss of tactile information. In fact, the research team measured the sensation of the soles of the feet by mechanical stimulation, and found that the sensations of those with thick dead skin cells and those without them were the same. In the investigation, 81 people from Kenya and 22 people from Boston who can go out without shoes and those who don’t, were collected and conducted an experiment.

If you wear high-cushioned shoes, the stiffness of the soles of the shoes slows down the speed at which they collide with the ground, creating convenience. However, the force itself is the same. If you wear shoes with a high cushioning feel than if you are barefoot, the energy reaching your knees is three times. The research team hypothesized that it could be hypothesized that high-cushioned shoes acted on the doubling of knee arthritis rates during World War II, when shoe technology advanced. Of course, further investigation is needed to confirm this relationship.

Of course, Professor Lieberman emphasizes that he is not against the existence of shoes. I’m not saying you shouldn’t wear shoes, it’s that you need to understand the impact of them.

The team also says that the sense of balance is also likely to be eliminated by a soft brush. Humans lose sensation in their legs with aging, but this can happen faster than if the feet had no opportunity to touch the ground. Related information can be found here .