More Shoes, 30% Fewer Injuries

Can running in two or more pair of shoes in a week lower a runner’s risk of injury? According to the first study of its kind, it may. As reported by Scott Douglas, writing for Runners’ World, researchers in Luxembourg collected information on injury rates, running volume, shoe usage and other variables from 264 adult recreational runners. The study lasted for 22 weeks. During that time 87 of the runners suffered at least one running-related injury as a result of their running activity.

Those who wore a single pair of shoes for most of their running, as 116 of them did, ran 91% of their mileage in 1.3 pairs of shoes. The investigators classified the other 148 of the runners as multiple-shoe runners. Runners in this group tended to have a main shoe which they wore for 58% of their mileage, but also rotated shoes among an average number of 3.6 pairs.

So what difference did wearing multiple shoes make? The researchers found that the multiple-shoe runners had a 30% lower risk of injury than did the single-shoe wearers. The study was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science.

In their report the researchers offered some possible reasons for the outcome. They wrote, “The concomitant use of different pairs of running shoes will provide alternation in the running pattern and vary external and active forces on the lower legs during running activity. Whether the reduced [injury] risk can be ascribed to alternation of different shoe characteristics, such as midsole densities, structures or geometries cannot be determined from these results and warrants future research.”