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.
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