I went through three phases of shoes.<p>Phase 1 was a moderate shoe on the “more stability” side of things. I would get injured with regularity.<p>So then I went to a running shoe store and had them analyze my gait. They “prescribed” a very expensive “high stability” shoe. After a week in those I thought I had permanently damaged my knees. Switched back to moderate shoes.<p>Then I tried minimal shoes. At first I thought I was hurting my feet, but then I realized that they were just getting a workout for the first time.<p>I’ve been running in minimal shoes and have been injury free for quite a while now. So that’s my personal anecdote. Not sure I would ever go toward a super minimal shoe, but definitely will stay on shoes with a small heel and minimal arch
I am more or less a mid-foot striker mostly. My all-time favorite shoes were the ASICS Excalibur GTs, a line retired more than 30 years ago--of course I don't have the same feet now that I had then.<p>One thing I see all the time: women nearly always land well up on the foot, no matter how puffy their shoes are. This does not mean that women always have efficient strides--a lot of the force can go into loft rather than forward motion.
Peter Attia just had a fantastic podcast with the lady that runs this at Harvard. Personally for the longest time I was recommended high support shoes. I wore these but always hated them. Didn’t really know why until I started learning a lot more about the minimalist footwear movement and haven’t looked back since.<p>Now I’m really starting to wonder if this could explain why many of my friends can’t run because of bad knees.
I share similar history too, nowadays it's minimalist shoes or sandals (minimum heel raise), and hoka shoes for longer distances and cold weather, these also being minimal heel raise shoes.