Part II: The Running Shoe Industry and Wide Toe Box Shoes

Recall from Part I of this series, I presented some of the parameters manufacturers consider when designing cycling shoes. I then went on to show how they have missed the mark when it comes to matching the natural shape of our feet and the consequences it has on our feet. In this article there is good news, some new footwear companies are designing shoes shaped like natural human feet. 

Amazingly, this problem with footwear has been known since 1905 [1], and until recently nothing has been done about it. I’m going to give credit to the book Born to Run [2], which I feel launched this topic into mainstream attention. Derived from the concepts in this book, several new shoe companies are specializing in anatomical form fitting footwear to improve shoe fit and comfort. A company I think is doing a great job with this is Altra Running. A primary design feature of their shoes is a wide toe box and therefore shaped like your natural foot, as shown in Figure 1. I do some running and I was immediately hooked on having a form fitting wide toe box shoe, the comfort and natural feel of my foot being allowed to function naturally was amazing, so much so that I bought their daily shoes and don’t wear anything else now.

Around the time Altra was changing shoe design in the running world, a complementary product came along called Correct Toes. This company sells a spacer to reshape toe spacing back to the way nature intended. Using Correct Toes should accelerate the restoration process faster than just wearing wide toe box shoes alone, as shown in Figure 2.

Besides, the deformation caused by cramming your foot into a narrow shoe, several other non-healthy things happen too:

• Decreased blood flow from pinched vessels 
• Pinched nerves 
• Narrower base for balance 
• Loss of muscle strength 
• Loss of flexibility 

Like most cyclists, I try to do everything I can to be healthy and optimize my fitness. I eat a balanced diet, watch my weight, lift weights in the winter, get 8 hours of sleep, and I have a toy box full of recovery gadgets. I’ve even used some of the more expensive options: a high-altitude tent, coaching programs, training camps, and Elevated Legs.

 With all the things we do as cyclists to optimize our training, why on earth do we cram our feet into terrible fitting shoes, and just accept the consequences? It is my hope that after reading this series of articles, you won’t accept the status quo anymore.

 Next, I’m going to summarize some of health effects or performance decreases that are likely caused by narrow cycling shoes.

• Can’t keep your feet warm in the winter? There are several reasons, but reduced blood flow contributes to cold feet. (This is a topic for a future article, there are several mechanical reasons extra socks and shoe covers barely help)
• Cycling is a sport that relies on being able to deliver oxygen to your body, certainly, the leg muscles are the most important, but I don’t want any part of my body starved for oxygen. 
• Numbness or “hot foot” are both due to pinched nerves, and reduced blood flow contributes also. 
• Perhaps most relevant to mountain bikers, a narrower toe box reduces stability. I could feel this difference while running, I know it would translate to cycling too. To illustrate this concept, think about an extreme example: image you are wearing ice skates that attach to the pedals, this would not give you any lateral stability. Back to narrow cycling shoes, if they reduce the width of your feet then you have lost stability. 

 The evidence looks clear, cramming our feet into a narrow toe box shoe is not ideal. So, what should we do? Switch to platform pedals and Altra running shoes? Thank goodness, no, it turns out there is some good news out there for cyclists!

 There is a shoe company that is paying attention! Bont Cycling is already making wide toe box shoes! If you follow them on facebook you might have seen their post in Figure 3.

Actually… you probably didn’t see their post as it only has 57 likes! How is that low of a number even possible? I think it is simple, no one realizes how important this topic is, and what a pair of cycling specific wide toe box shoes would do for them.

 I just discovered Bont Cycling designs their shoes with an anatomical wide toe box in February (when Figure 3 was posted on Facebook), I don’t own a pair of their shoes yet. If you do own a pair of Bont Cycling shoes, please comment below with your feedback, I would love to hear about your experience with them! Figure 4 shows the top view of some of their shoes, I’m not convinced they have as much room as my Altra running shoes do, but they do look like they have more room than any other cycling shoe does.

Next in Part III of this series, I am going to show the results of an experiment of how my feet have changed after wearing Altra shoes for 4 years. In this experiment, I have outlines of my feet from 2014, I use the same method to outline them today and compare the results.

 References 
 [1] P. Hoffmann, M.D., Cucuzzella, Mark, M.D., Kerrigan, Casey, M.D., Maffetone, Phil, PhD., McClanahan, Ray, PhD, , How Healthy are Your Feet?, NRC Media1905.
 [2] C. McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2009.

Part I - Cycling Shoe Design & Natural Foot Shape

As a Design Engineer one of my core beliefs is “form follows function.” This mantra is not new, it is credited to the American architect Louis Sullivan in 1896 [2].

 In this series of articles, I am going to illustrate this mantra and how it has been implemented in reverse in the shoe industry. I am passionate about this topic, I strongly believe in optimizing human health and fitness, and this is an area that is still in the dark ages, especially in regard to cycling footwear.

 In this first article, I am going to discuss how cycling shoes fail to achieve their most basic function: a comfortable interface with the human foot. I will support this claim by then introducing some basic evidence that has interrupted the natural development of our feet.

 First, consider some of the design requirements for a cycling shoe. This is not an all-inclusive list; my goal with this list is to highlight that even for something as seemingly simple as a shoe, there are many design criteria that need to be considered, and can be very complex.

•  Comfort: Today’s endurance road, mountain bike, and gravel events require all day comfort
• Power Transfer: The shoe needs to be stiff in the right places to efficiently transfer power to the pedals
• Secure Attachment: eliminate motion between the foot and sole
• Flexible I: The shoe also needs to be flexible for the relative changes in position of the human and the bike such as cornering, steep descents or accents, and maneuvering around or over obstacles 
• Flexible II: some level of hiking comfort may be needed when the accent is too steep or the minimum maintenance road is too muddy 
• Breath-ability: method to bring fresh air into the shoe and wick moisture out 
• Alignment: The sole or insole needs to properly align the foot to the pedal to avoid knee pain

There are some very innovative shoes designs that have very creative solutions for almost all of these design parameters. The example shown in Figure 1 is Giant’s Surge Pro shoe. Giant has developed what they call ExoBeam technology, I really like the concept of this technology, it is stiff fore/aft, yet allows proprioception of the ankle (or the heel can twist laterally), unfortunately, their basic shoe shape is really narrow, so narrow my foot won’t fit in the shoe at all, therefore I will never be able to learn if ExoBeam flex does what they claim. I am not picking on Giant, narrow shoes are extremely common in cycling footwear, and Giant is not the only brand I am unable to fit my foot into.

In the world of shoes, the mantra is fashion over function.
This fashion first mantra is the primary topic I am tackling in this series of articles. I will now present some basic evidence of this fashion first claim. No rocket science is needed here, simple basic logic will do it. First, I ask you to look at your bare feet. While looking at your feet consider the following:

•  Angle of your toes 
• Space between your toes 

Now, compare what your feet look like to the examples shown in Figure 2. Which shape of foot do you have? Figure 1A illustrates what your natural foot shape should look like and Figure 1B shows the deformation modern day shoes have molded your foot to look like.

Unless you are part of a primitive tribe that either doesn’t wear shoes, or wears sandals only, this was a trick question, your feet will look similar to 1B. One might now be thinking; wait a minute how do we know what a natural foot looks like? As proof that your feet should look like 1A, next, look at a baby’s foot shown in Figure 3, this is the natural shaped foot we are born with.

 If you are not convinced from the simple logic presented, here’s a link to some more scientific references from studies done in the past: https://www.correcttoes.com/foot-help/articles-studies/

So, if you now agree that our feet are deformed, then how is this happening? The answer is simple: narrow footwear. We all have been cramming our feet into narrow shoes our whole life. Every shoe you have ever owned was too narrow for you. Dress shoes are the worst, most have a pointed toe!

I would now like to circle back to Form Follows Function, this is a mantra I live by, and as a Design Engineer one of the ways I deliver robust and quality products to my customers, I inherently understand this as a Design Engineer. It doesn’t even make sense to design something to look good first and then do what ever has to be done to make it “functional.”

In summary, modern day footwear has a width smaller than the natural shape of a human foot. Due to cramming our feet into these narrow shoes, the natural shape of our foot has been deformed to look like the shoe shape.

Part II of this series will address advances that have been made in the running industry and how these same principles need to be applied to the cycling shoe industry, or wait, is there a company already doing it?

 References
 [1] Hoffmann, P., M.D., Cucuzzella, Mark, M.D., Kerrigan, Casey, M.D., Maffetone, Phil, PhD., McClanahan, Ray, PhD, , 1905, How Healthy are Your Feet?, NRC Media.
 [2] Sullivan, L. H., 1896, "The tall office building artistically considered," Lippincott's Magazine.

2019 A New Start

Thanks for stopping by. Life has been a flurry of activity the past 3.5 years, I went back to school and got a Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering. That adventure has now finished and what is waiting just beyond the horizon is exciting. Academia was an all consuming lifestyle. I didn't have time to post new blogs, now that I am finished, I will be starting to post again. The next 4 posts will be an article series I published on LinkedIn. This is a project I am passionate about. In writing this series, my objective is to be informative and contribute to changing public perception regarding footwear design. I am a proponent of wide-toe box shoes. Nearly every shoe available today is too narrow for the natural shape of the human foot. Wearing narrow footwear daily causes your foot to remodel to a narrow shape, this has been happening to first world humans since our parents placed shoes on our feet. Despite human technology and advances, we are not able to make shoes to enhance our natural foot. In most cases, we have made things worse. On a side note: please don't confuse my approach with barefoot running or the Vibram FiveFinger shoes, I like the concept of going barefoot, but it takes a significant amount of time and calculated progression to successfully recondition your feet and legs to do it, if it is even possible to reverse the remodeling caused by narrow footwear. I have watched friends struggle with injury and injury trying to run barefoot. I have also watched some be successful at it.