Department of Podiatry

Athletic Footwear

This session, that may be run by Kelly Pigeon (Podiatrist for New Balance) will go through a number of generic features in running shoes and other forms of athletic footwear. The list below is a partial summary of some of the 'showbag' material that Kelly handed out in terms of shoe features and construction.

Specifically:

upper materials (ie. synthetic vs. leather)

outersole materials (eg. carbon rubber, solid rubber and blown rubber)

outsole features (eg. heel cleft, forefoot flexibility grooves)

Heel counter desirable features

Midsole construction and features

Kelly also spoke of other factors that may influence shoe purchase, such as aesthetic look, cost and company name.

To increase your knowledge of the shoes and technologies available from a wide range of brands, check out the following websites:

	New Balance website (particularly the section that chooses the most appropriate running shoe from a list of checkboxes)		Puma website (Note the football boot section especially)
	Nike website (not a great deal to see, geared to the fashion-conscious consumer)		Saucony website (general catalogue and technology pages)
	Asics website (a pretty comprehensive listing of the shoes available and descriptions of the underlying technology)		Reebok website (nothing special, but worth a quick look)
	Curtin University website (great section on sports footwear)		Shoe weartest report for Dunlop 'Nugget' shoes

References

NB Technologies brochure: "Three parts of a shoe: outsole, upper, midsole"

Content Approved by: Head of Podiatry
Page maintained by: Podiatry Webmaster
Last Updated: March 10th, 2003