Are Cushioned Shoes Bad for Speed Workouts?

Audio Transcript

Coach Tony: Hi everyone. Welcome to today’s episode. If you have a question you’d like one of our expert coaches to answer in an upcoming episode, you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily. We’d love to help you train smarter and faster. Please don’t hesitate to ask whatever has you curious.

Today, we have a great question from Dennis.

Dennis: I’ve appreciated the articles on Runners Connect related to shoes, energy return cushioning, etc. I’m still a bit confused on the effects cushioning has on speed specific workouts.

It would seem to me that more cushioning, which absorbs greater impact, could negatively affect faster workouts by robbing energy from the toe off, as opposed to a more firm “responsive” shoe that doesn’t absorb all that energy.

Am I on the right track of thinking or just over thinking?

Tony: Dennis, you are exactly on the right track of thinking and let me explain a few different things.

Let me give you an analogy, first, which I think might help. Let’s back up for a second. Any shoe is going to have the same level of cushioning. I think cushioned shoes is a misleading term.

They’re going to have the same level of shock absorption, probably the better term to use.

The theory with that is when you land, you want to store all that impact. You want your shoe to absorb as much impact so it doesn’t transfer through your leg.

When you have a track shoe, a racing shoe, racing flat, whether it can be used for cross country and everything else, there’s not much to it.

It’s a responsive shoe if you will. You’re not going to lose a lot of energy.

A lot of energy is not going to be absorbed by the shoe, rather transferred. Here’s the analogy I want to give you.

Think of a pole vault mat for those that know their track. When you launch off a pole vault and you land from upwards of 20 feet, you want to have a lot of shock absorption.

So, a pole vault mat is very soft and fluffy and when you land on that, you almost disappear. The mat absorbs you. That’s all about absorbing that energy.

Now contrast that with gymnastics and I like a floor routine.

Granted, a floor has springs underneath it to give some bounce, but over those springs is some padding; a mat. What you don’t want with that mat, is for it to absorb all that energy.

You want to transfer that energy.

The pole vault mat is thick, soft, and cushiony whereas the gymnastics mat is very thin and hard and it’s just giving a little bit of protection.

It’s all about transferring energy versus the pole vault mat, which is absorbing energy.

In that analogy, think of a traditional running shoe as something that’s just trying to absorb that energy.

You don’t get that all transferred through your body on a 20-mile run, versus the gymnastics or racing flat.

It is more just transferring that energy because you’re not doing a 20-mile run into racing flat. You can, but you’re typically not doing that.
That’s the best analogy that I can give.

If you’re serious about your track workouts or if you’re racing on the track, then you really should be getting yourself into a racing flat.

Whether it’s a spike or just a regular flat or even if you’re racing half marathon distance.

The more serious you are in really trying to find that edge, those types of shoes can be important.

First, you should be careful going into those types of shoes. A lot of people can’t just go from a regular training shoe into a racing shoe, because you can get yourself hurt.

Probably the biggest thing is Achilles tendonitis because the heel is so thin on those shoes, that you’re dropping that heel bone and you’re basically stretching the Achilles tendon.

When I had my running store, I always advise people if you’re switching into racing type of shoes: flats, bikes, things like that, don’t just jump into a big workout. You should gradually get used to them.

Allow that Achilles to slowly be stretched out and then you can start to safely get into those shoes and do your whole work out.

Even with that, you really don’t want to do a warm up or a cool down in racing shoes.

You want to minimize the time that you’re in a racing shoe. If you’re going to a track, you have spikes or flats for example, use your training shoes to warm up.

Put your racing shoes on, do your workout, and get right out of them.

Put your training shoes back on and do you pull down or whatever else you can do. I also want to make a point to you. It’s not critical that you need racing flats.

For most of us, we can do workouts with whether it’s on the track, even for racing cross-country and things like that.

For most of us, I think we can get away with using a regular training shoe. I don’t think it’s super critical that you get racing flats.

If you’re into the track, then you really should consider getting racing flats and spikes, interchangeable in a way.

I guess sidetrack for a second. The difference is spikes is literally a metal spike that you screw in to the shoe.

They wear down after a while and then you take them out, put new ones, and screw it back in.

All those flats that don’t have spikes in there whatsoever. If you’re on a track like a Mondo surface you want to have spikes and they’re just for better traction.

If you are serious about the track and that’s what you do, and you race on the track, then you should be in spikes.

Be careful getting into those and do what I said. Don’t warm up or cool down on them.

If you are training for a marathon, even 5K, I really don’t think you necessarily need spikes or racing flats. Again, it comes to what level and what your goals are, if you’re really trying to maximize things.

If you’re training say, for a half marathon or a marathon, and your coach has you doing workouts and repeats on the track, you’re perfectly fine in your training shoes.

What I would do is, if you live a mile or two from the track, you run down the track in your training shoes; it’s a warmup, do the workout in your training shoes, run back home and it’s a cool down.

Hopefully that answers your question and it’s an excellent question.

Again, I just come back to the example of the pole vault mat versus the gymnastics floor routine.

One is trying to absorb energy like your training shoes are trying to do, and the other like your racing shoes are just trying to transfer energy.

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