Effect of Running Shoe Heel Drop During Treadmill Running

The shoe heel drop is defined as the heel-to-toe drop of the shoe and becomes one of the characteristics for choosing a pair of suitable running shoes. Higher heel drops which has more cushioning system is postulated to improve runner performance and to protect runners against high impact force. However, there is currently no evidence that different heel drop developed for the modern-day running shoes emerging on the market could improve running efficiency and injury prevention. In this study, a biomechanical analysis will be performed on non-trained leisure runner to investigate the association between shoe heel drop and the alteration of the lower extremity kinematic and kinetic parameters. 15 male healthy subjects were recruited to run on H/P Cosmos Instrumented Treadmill with three different conditions: (i) barefoot, heel drops of (ii) 4mm (D4) and (iii) 10mm (D10). Wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed to compare the differences across the shoe heel drop. The result revealed that compared to barefoot condition, step length, stride length and cadence significant greater in the footwear with heal conditions (p<0.05). There is no significant difference between conditions in the vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) and knee joint moments (p>0.05).