Apr 14, 2009 6:48 pm US/Eastern
Shoes Can Make Big Difference On Marathon Day
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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The research lab at New Balance headquarters isn't open to the public, but they say their research is incorporated into the shoes they make.
WBZ
Think you beat up on your shoes? It's a good chance the researchers at the New Balance Sports Research Lab have you beat.
Trampas TenBroek stands before a machine that's fitted with a sort of prosthetic foot wearing a running shoe. The machine is pounding the heel of the shoe against a surface. The heel cushion is straining with every impact.
Says TenBroek, "You can see if we do something like this where we could replicate a marathon in 10-minutes."
They can also put the equivalent of 600-miles on a shoe overnight, or apply heat to a midsole to see how it behaves over time.
They also use human testers on a high tech treadmill.
"If it's a walking shoe we get walkers in. If it's a basketball shoe, we get basketball players in. We test our competitors, and if we're not better we try to find out why not," says TenBroek.
On this day, the test subject is yours truly.
Tenbroek is interested in my feet because I wear custom orthotics to prevent a recurrence of metatarsal stress fractures. Translation: I'm prone to stress fractures toward the front of my feet. It's just the way my foot is built. Orthotics allow me to run injury free.
TenBroek and his fellow researcher wire me up -- I wear special inserts in my shoes fitted with 100 individual sensors. These are attached to a big waist pack that velcros around me. There's also a huge Velcro wrap around my left upper leg. I feel like a tank.
Then we power up a tread mill and I start running. The treadmill itself is interesting -- I'm running on stiff aluminum slats, because they want the shoe to get the full impact, which, by the way is two to three times my body weight with each footstrike. Unlike the treadmill in your gym, they can attach different surfaces to this one -- mimicking an uneven trail, grass, you name it.
After a time, I've forgotten about my arsenal of gear, and it just feels like running on a treadmill.
The gee-whiz factor is behind me. On the computer -- every footstrike mapped for impact.
It shows how my orthotics spread the impact, keeping me injury free.
Nice to know they work.
Not everyone has access to a high-tech research lab like this one, but there are some simple things you can do to get good information. For example, check the wear patterns on the bottom of your running shoes.
That can help your local running store steer you to the right shoe.
Hopefully, you'll treat it more kindly than the machines in what new Balance researchers call the "smash lab."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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