The Race to Build a Better Shoe : Biomechanists now know how to build a healthier shoe. So why aren't shoe companies making them?

Abstract

For years, shoes have been made around the same stock designs without an appreciation of the forces during walking and running that are related to lower extremity injury-including debilitating knee osteoarthritis. And while for the last 30-40 years especially, the typical cushioned athletic shoe has been heavily marketed as protecting the joints in the leg and the associated muscles and tendons, only recently have peer-reviewed studies demonstrated that such cushioning in fact increases the peak forces on the joints, most notably and concerning, the knee. Specifically, biomechanical studies show that most shoes, as currently made, increase forces about the knee that are associated with the development and progression of knee osteoarthritis. Fortunately, the same biomechanical studies that have demonstrated flaws in shoe design have shown us something else as well: how to build a better, healthier shoe. Now the challenge is for shoe companies to innovate new materials and manufacturing processes to actually make them.