Any podiatrists in the hiz-ouse?

[OptimumSlinky]

So I need a serious straight answer from somebody who knows what they are talking about rather than some douche in a running store.

I have weird feet. For all intents and purposes, they are flat (very little arch). But here is the weird thing. When I look at the wear on my old Army boots (the only shoes I still own old enough to have visible wear in the sole), most of the wear is on the OUTSIDE of the sole (ie, I'm striking with the outer edge, which I thought was the opposite of what someone who over pronates is supposed to do).

I've tried a variety of different running shoes of various types in my time. I had some Brooks in college (I think they were Glycerins) back before I knew anything about running (I used them for crew mostly), and then upon entering the Army I got a variety of motion control shoes, from the Brooks Beast to New Balance MR1101s. The Beasts were okay, but I honestly felt like a f-ing Clydesdale running in them they were so flat and heavy. The MR1101s genuinely destroyed my feet. I don't know if they were too narrow, but I ran 8-miles in them one day and came back with bloody, blistered arches. They supported my arch, but felt stiff and hard and like I said, they made my sh!t bleed and gave me a lot of pain.

I wrote NB about the MR1101s and they recommended I try the 993s, which I happened to have (I don't run in them but instead wear them casually with jeans and such). Now, the 993s are like the opposite extreme; very soft and cushioned (which I like, actually), with no medial post or anything.

Since then I've tried the Saucony Stabil CS (too narrow), the Adidas SuperNova Sequence (I like these A LOT actually) and the AdiStar Salvation (haven't run in these yet since I tore my ACL right before they arrived in the mail).

So seriously, I'm confused. Theoretically, I am supposed to be wearing a shoe with a ridiculous amount of support for my flexible, flat arch, but those seem to only succeed at making me feet go numb around mile 3 and/or giving my blisters on my arch. But cushioned shoes, while they feel great, allow my arch to collapse which is supposed to be bad. Should I be seeking something in the middle or are my feet just totally F'd?

 

[scott916]

Go to a specialty running store and get fitted.

 

[brikis98]

Disclaimer: I'm not a podiatrist or any sort of expert and can only speak from personal experience. However, my feet are likely as messed up as yours, if not more: I have absolutely no arch. Where there should be an arch, my foot actually juts out to the side a little bit when I step down on it. Apparently, the ligaments in there are too loose and my Achilles tendon is too tight. As a little kid, my feet used to hurt if I did lots of running or walking. All sorts of different types of shoes with various amounts of support didn't help. In fact, the more support, the more it tended to hurt. And yea, I'd always get blisters in the place where I was supposed to have an arch.

These days, I have absolutely no issues whatsoever and I suspect the reason is that I strengthened my feet through regular exercise/sports in footwear with minimal arch support. I suspect this forced the muscles in my feet to strengthen in order to support my body. I also did lots of ice skating and rollerblading - always in cheap skates that were as flat as possible on the bottom - and that definitely toughened my feet as well. Nowadays I run in Vibram Five Fingers which has strengthened my feet further.

IMO, arch supports and shoes with all sorts of fancy padding just act as crutches and prevent your feet from ever strengthening enough to properly hold your bodyweight. You don't need to go as far as running in Vibram's (although I do recommend trying a little bare foot running to see how it feels), but give some minimal shoes a try and see how you feel. It won't happen instantly - my feet were often sore and hurting after sports when I was younger - but if I can do it with my stupidly flat feet, I'd guess most other people can too.