Choose The Best Women’s Running Shoes
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Until relatively recently, the common approach from sportswear companies towards women’s running shoes was the now sarcastic motto “shrink ‘em and pink ‘em”, as womens running shoes were no more than a mens shoe in feminine colours.Nowadays, sports company understood the huge market potential represented by female runners and they are starting approaching the design and engineering of running shoes for women in a different way.
It is a fact that womens are bio-mechanically very different from men and by focusing on those differences and addressing specific issues is now the main driver by those companies who consider female runners as an important chunk of their market. |
Why do womens running shoes need to be different from mens running shoes?
There are a few, significant differences between mens and womens when it comes to their running bio-mechanics. Let’s review a list of the most important and the solutions running companies are implementing to address them.
- Women have a wider Q-Angle.
The Q-Angle is the angle of incidence of the quadriceps muscle relative to the patella (see picture).Women have usually larger hips rather than men. This means a wider Q-Angle. As a consequence of the wider angle, women tend to pronate more than men. For this reason it is very important that while engineering a womens running shoe, the designers and developers take this into consideration and work on addressing this by having a different midsole/outsole on the womens version, a combination of shapes and materials that can offer women the extra support they need.
- Women’s Body Mass is Lower.
Statistically, women have approximately 15% less body mass than men with the same foot size. This means that when designers calculate how much bouncy the foam material in the midsole (for example) needs to be, they have to take into account the fact that for the same shoe size, the womens version should be lower and/or softer, as it would have to sustain 15% less of the impact.
For the same reason the flex grooves, which are the carved lines in the forefoot outsole that help during the toe-off, need to be more accentuated in the women shoe, as the lower body mass makes it more difficult to flex the foam material of the midsole and needs to be aided. - Women’s Feet Have a Different Shape.
Men have broader and longer feet than women of their stature. Results show that women’s feet have different shape characteristics than men’s, especially in the arch, the first toe, the lateral side and the ball of the foot. This should should be considered when designing sports shoes for women.
While the previous points had impacts on the way a shoe’s sole unit had to be built, this point is about the upper.
The last of a shoe is the shape around which the upper of the shoe is constructed. They are characteristic of each brand and are very crucial to the final fit of the shoe around the foot. Usually a women shoe is just a smaller version that the mens one, and the last used is the same.
Lasts are very expensive (the research to get the right one is) and using women specific lasts is a great commitment by a company towards their female running consumers.
We highlighted the three main differences between mens and womens running bio-mechanics and the characteristics that a proper women running shoe should have to accommodate them. Here below we are recommending a few shoes that we believe were built with an eye towards female runners.
As usual, let us know your opinion in the comments!
Choose The Best Women’s Running Shoes – Summer 2009
(If you don’t know the difference between cushioning and stability running shoes, you can find all the info in our article “3 types of running shoes for 3 types of feet“.)
- Cushioning Shoes
- Stability Shoes
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The stability shoes that you have listed structurally test in different parameters.Our structural testing puts the NB769 in the level of a neutral to light stability shoe, it tested to have a torsional control index of 42.4 inch pounds(midfoot stability) and a vertical compression index of 6.75 mm(cushion and rear foot stability).The Mizuno Nirvana tested to be on the high stability category it tested to have a torsional control index of 60.8 inch pounds providing substantially more midfoot stability than the NB 769.The Nirvana tested to have a vertical compression index of 5.59 mm providing a firmer midsole and subbsantially more rearfoot control than the NB769.
Answer from admin
Craig, thank you for your comment. We agree with you the Nirvana is a much more stable shoe than the NB 769. In this article we tried and explain which key elements to look for in a women running shoe and – at the end – we listed a few shoes that have been engineered according to one of more of these elements. Once you actually read the individual reviews, we also stress the high degree of stability of the Mizuno Nirvana 5.
Thank you again for your comment and hope to read more of them on our website!
Great article guys, enjoyed reading it. While you listed the key structural differences women exhibit in running, it’s good to also take the role of hormonal difference into account.
ASICS are unique in that they have worked closely with sports scientists on this aspect and have developed a special Gender Specific Space Trusstic in the midfoot (Nimbus 11) to allow for the changing elasticity of the soft tissue in the foot during the female menstrual cycle.
More info can be found here: http://bit.ly/47BKpQ. All ASICS top line female shoes for Spring next year will have this unique technology.
Keep up the great work on this site, I love it!
This is a good advise for running shoes…especially for women because we have different bone structure from men. I will keep i mind those advise to get much better running shoes for next time…
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