On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 14:29:37 GMT, The truth revealed <
[email protected]> wrote:
>Do I need to post that stuff from one of the founders of Nike AGAIN?
Screwit, here it is:
DANIEL McCABE | Steve Robbins is the researcher Nike loves to hate. The feeling is pretty much
mutual. Robbins, an adjunct professor in the McGill Centre for Studies in Aging, has published
studies indicating that high-priced running shoes account for 123 per cent more foot injuries than
cheaper sneakers. He also aims to persuade the elderly, who enjoy the comfort of sneakers, that
running shoes aren't the best choice of footwear for them.
His work has earned a fair amount of press attention and Nike doesn't much like the resulting
publicity. Robbins, in turn, doesn't think much of their tactics.
More on that later.
A recent paper by Robbins, published in The Journal of the American Geriatric Society, looked at the
question of seniors and sneakers.
Older people, who often have to contend with arthritic feet, appreciate shoes with thick, soft soles
made of highly compressible materials.
That's why sneakers feel comfy on older feet. What the elderly don't realize, says Robbins, is that
running shoes also render them far more unsteady on their feet.
This is all tied to what Robbins calls "foot position awareness." Soft-soled shoes cause "wobbling
as the material compresses -- you wobble from side to side as you put weight on the material. This
wobbling tends to make people lose their sense of the position of their foot in space." Our natural
balancing mechanisms are thrown for a loop as a consequence.
A better choice for seniors, argues Robbins, are shoes with thinner, harder soles.
"The thicker the shoe and the softer the material, the higher the degree of instability," notes
Robbins. Of sneakers, he adds, "The degree of instability that these shoes cause is truly
remarkable.
"For example, a running shoe impairs measures of stability by approximately 200 to 300 per cent as
compared to a hard leather shoe. That's a lot, considering that the difference between young and old
people in terms of their comparable foot stability is perhaps only 30 or 40 per cent.
"We associate poor balance with older people to begin with, but what they're wearing on their feet
makes a huge difference. Instability and falls are a major cause of harm in older people. Wearing
the proper shoe might not only prevent fractures, it could save lives."
But do seniors have to sacrifice comfort for stability? Maybe not, says Robbins.
He realizes that older people "have a high concern for comfort" so he has been searching for a way
to build a shoe that can be both cozy and secure.
He thinks he's found it.
"We discovered that the sense of comfort is basically a skin phenomenon. A softer material, even in
a relatively thin layer, diffuses localized pressures on the bottom of the foot and that's what
gives you a sense of higher comfort. "You don't need a thick layer. The critical layer that supplies
comfort is actually the layer that is in the closest proximity to the bottom of the foot. Most of
the comfort that comes from wearing a running shoe is derived from the layer that's within
millimeters of the skin surface."
The next step was to find a substance that could provide extra comfort in a safely thin layer. By
Robbins's estimate, he and his team tested hundreds of different materials before settling on a
winner -- a substance used as underpadding on tennis courts. Robbins describes the material as low
resiliency-- "that means when you compress it and then remove the weight, it stays compressed."
It feels fine on a foot. More importantly, "when we put this new material under the foot, balance
actually improved by about 20 per cent over a rigid surface.
"Now, this was the first time that anything interposing between a rigid surface and the skin of the
foot had actually improved balance. We noticed a statistically significant improvement in every age
group that we examined."
Robbins says "it's inevitable" that somebody will seize on his research results and start producing
thin-sole shoes with the material he's uncovered. But it probably won't be Nike or Reebok just yet.
"The problem is that the large shoe companies have invested heavily in products that impair balance.
The customer has been sold so much on the softness of the sole and its so-called absorbing impact
and how important it is. It's hard to retain any kind of market credibility by suddenly saying that
everything we've been telling you for the last 20 years is bad for your health.
"Some of them may even be worried from a legal perspective. Some of [the shoes] impair balance to
such a degree they might be concerned about liability."
Still, Robbins does notice thinner soles in some of the newer models of running shoes and believes
his studies have something to do with
it.
"I was shopping for basketball shoes for my daughter and I noticed that a whole series of shoes are
becoming extremely thin soled." Robbins was pleased by the discovery.
"This notion that you need thick, soft running shoes to lower the impact on your feet is a myth. The
impact can actually be greater than if you're just barefoot. When people wear [shoes that claim to
absorb impact], they act differently. They run differently." People become more reckless when they
think they're wearing a "super shoe."
Writing in The British Sports Medicine Journal, Robbins and his collaborators argued, "Expensive
footwear is subject to extremely deceptive advertising.
"They are advertised to improve protection over cheaper products by incorporating new features that
protect, and more advanced safety technology, yet epidemiological data indicate that users of more
expensive shoes are injured more frequently."
Research like that prompted the marketing director of Nike to send a letter to one journal Robbins
published in, claiming that Nike's own studies found Robbins's work faulty. The missive was copied
to the attention of one Principal Bernard Shapiro.
Robbins viewed that as a not-so-subtle attempt to intimidate him. As for Nike's charge that his
research is suspect, Robbins bristles. "My work is peer-reviewed and published in reputable
journals. What they do is pseudo-science. It's there to support their marketing efforts."
Says Robbins, "I don't think [our research] is responsible for Nike's shares falling dramatically
last year, but I don't think it helped them any either."
His contentious relationship with running shoe companies has made him wary of university/industry
collaborations.
"I think there is an inherent conflict. The secrecy and commercial concerns you find in industry
often don't allow for good scientific research. It's all the rage recently to have alliances with
industry in medical research. I honestly don't think this is in the public interest.
"Just imagine if my research had been funded by the running shoe industry. What would have happened
to the public dissemination of our results?"
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I was in the vicinity at the illegitimate birth of N*** (unmentionable 4-letter word). I was their
first paying customer. During the first couple of years of their existence, the parent company of
N*** sold "Tiger" shoes by the old Japanese company, Onitsuka. These Tigers were pretty good and I
still have a couple of them in my personal pile of 147 worn-out running shoes. When the time came
for the company to renew the contract, they told Onitsuka they wanted them to cheapen their
materials and assembly methods and hire workers for less money. This was to increase profits and
allow for more money to advertise the inferior product. Onitsuka refused to go along with this, as
they had some pride in their tradition of excellence. So, the parent company conjured up the N***
brand name. Manufacturing plants were set up that fit into the now infamous system of production
and promotion that has brought them so much criticism. At the beginning of their sales of the N***
brand, I made the mistake of using three of their different models. Each left me hobbled for weeks
after only a few uses. Why did it take me that long to figure things out? Since then, I wouldn't
have worn any of their junk if it meant going barefoot-----which I did for several years
thereafter on soft trails. If I wanted to defeat a military opponent, I would airdrop a million
pair of N*** shoes on their territory a month before invading.
Steve McDonald "N*** shoes for every Iraqui!"
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Bite that Freese!
