site banner

Wellness Wednesday for March 15, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Curious what kind of shoe you’d recommend running in? I do strike on the forefoot but I think I put a lot of stress on the ankle.

My issue is that I tend to get tenderness and pain around the outer edge of my ankles around the bone after running regularly for a while. My weeks are usually 10-15 miles right now, but I can get up to 30-40 in the summer.

Shoot, I completely forgot to reply, Got a little tied up this week. Better late than never, lol, sorry for that. Anyway...

Especially for ball strike, shoes don't really matter. Most cushioning in any cushioned shoes is going to be under the heel, so for the forefoot strike any plain shoe should be fine. Really, what you want is to strengthen the reverse motion of the strike. This is something that Ben Patrick generally advocates for as a restorative process for joints. When our feet strike the way you or I do our ankles take a bunch of force, less than a heel runner but still pulling some Gs. Doing some strength training like elevated calf raises or band presses with your toes would probably help a bit.

Also getting wider toe space in your toes would likely help with stability and prevent ankle rolling, which might be exacerbating the ankle issue. Most any "barefoot" shoes would help, you want a wide toe compartment so your toes can splay out and start grabbing the ground a bit more. Do some research, I don't own any but have been looking at getting a pair at some point for lifting and trail running. That's my general advice, not a physician so take it with a grain of salt and maybe consult someone with PT knowledge. Hope you get the pain figured out, never fun to have that type of overuse discomfort. :)

Go to a running store that can analyze your running form, and they can recommend a shoe specifically for your running body mechanics. Some people strike with the outside of their feet, some hit the road with a more neutral form. Some are midfoot strikers, vs striking on the balls of your feet or your heel. Get a shoe that compliments your running style.

Also, when shopping for running shoes I've found that some shoes can fit well around my toes and on the sole of my foot, but felt a bit loose around my ankles. Learning how to tie a heel-lock with the shoe's laces has worked really well to correct this one particular problem I've found with shopping for the right shoe.