The Right Fit: How Your Shoes Impact Movement & Performance

Topic: The Right Fit: How Your Shoes Impact Movement & Performance
Guest Name: Sharon Kyner
Guest Credentials: Relationship Manager and Director of Marketing and Community Outreach at Fleet Feet Raleigh-Morrisville in Raleigh, North Carolina
Discussion Details: From choosing the right shoes to understanding how proper footwear impacts lower body health, injury prevention, and performance, we’re breaking down why what you wear on your feet matters. Together, we’re discussing: why choosing the right footwear matters for foot, ankle, knee, and hip health, how footwear can influence running mechanics, comfort, and performance, what to consider when selecting shoes for your individual needs and activities, the role of proper shoe fit and support in managing discomfort and reducing certain injury risks, how Fleet Feet helps customers find footwear that works for their unique needs

Benefits of Watching: We highlight the connection between quality footwear and healthy movement, and share practical tips to help you stay active and moving your best!

Address of Guest’s Business: 3027 Village Market Place, Morrisville, NC 27560

Heather: Hi everybody, welcome back for another episode of Aureum Spotlight Series. We’re super excited today to have Sharon here from Fleet Feet Raleigh Morrisville. Today we’re talking about something that affects just about everyone, and in fact, I would argue that everyone is affected by the shoes that they wear, whether you’re a runner, a walker, an athlete, or just simply someone on their feet for prolonged periods throughout the day.

At Aureum, we spend a lot of time in our patient evaluations and follow-up sessions watching how the body moves, how it absorbs force, and what factors can contribute to pain and injury. One of the things that we discuss with patients and always chat about, especially for a patient with a lower body injury, is what shoes they are wearing. Regardless of whether they’re a runner or a walker, if they’re spending time on their feet, we really want to know how they’re supporting themselves throughout the day and how that matches their individual needs.

Your feet are really your primary point of contact with the ground during walking and running. The shoes that you wear can influence how you interact with that surface, which makes footwear a very important part of the conversation about lower body health. That’s why we’re super excited today to have Sharon from Fleet Feet joining us.

Sharon and I have had an opportunity to work together in the past, and I’m really excited to bring her expertise into the conversation. So, Sharon, I’m just going to let you tell our community a little bit more about your role with Fleet Feet and your involvement in the local running community and active people community.

Sharon: Sure, sure.

So, as Heather said, I’m Sharon. I live in Raleigh with Fleet Feet Raleigh Morrisville. So, I’ve been with these folks for about 15 years now.

My primary role is just about everything that’s outside the store. Most of the selling interactions take place in the store. We’re fitting, but it’s my job to kind of bring those people in and maintain the relationship as well.

A number of ways of doing that is, first of all, with folks like Heather. So, our medical community is part of my job. I reach out all over the Triangle in regard to the medical community, seeing how we can benefit each other and support each other.

Secondly would be with the racing community. So, any races, all the way from nonprofits to even our City of Oaks Marathon that’s getting ready to take place in a couple of weeks, we sponsor that and help support those races.

I also create all the events we have at our four stores in the area, and that’s quite a few throughout the year. Also, I am the liaison for the corporate sector of the area.

A lot of these places have benefits for their employees, which include buying things just to keep healthy. So, we usually fall within that category too, with shoes and soles, and any other type of medical advice, we pass them on to Heather. But in that arena, we do that as well.

So, I think that’s pretty much what I do. Again, anything that takes place pretty much with relationships outside the store, I do fit in the store occasionally, but you’ll see me more outside.

Heather: Amazing.

Well, I think, you know, from my experience with chatting with people about what shoes they wear and the shoes they choose to purchase, they tend to—folks that haven’t had a relationship with a store like Fleet Feet before or any experience with understanding the quality of shoes—make their choices based a lot on what looks good, what’s popular and trending at the time, or what somebody else, like Joe Schmo on the sidewalk, has recommended to them.

But obviously, there are a lot more things to consider. Do you have, you know, what are some broad strokes on the common misconceptions or common mistakes people are relating to you guys in the store when they’re trying to buy their sneakers?

Sharon:Well, you probably just mentioned the top ones.

So, primarily, what we do see would be people who’ve read reviews. They’ve done their so-called research online, which I don’t blame them for doing. There are so many shoes out there that it’s overwhelming just to think what your choices might be, even in the store.

And we have just a small fraction of what people are going to see online. So, I do feel like the first thing is getting online and reading reviews, where they may not understand that some of these reviews are paid reviews just to make the shoe look good.

And then, secondly, the thing that we say a million times in the store is that no one’s feet are the same as anyone else’s.

So, any review that someone might give, whether negative or positive, may be completely irrelevant to you. Again, I don’t blame them for reading this. We’re trained to read reviews, but that’s probably the biggest one.

And then the second one would be what their friend wears, or this new person who’s a runner, and they deem them successful runners. They think, “Whatever they’re wearing should be what I’m wearing too.”

And we’re kind of back to the same thing. Unless you guys have the same feet, then it’s probably not completely significant.

So, it would be a good idea to let us look at your feet and make those comparisons. So, that would be it. And I understand that one as well.

You trust that person. If you don’t trust reviews online, certainly you can trust the person who’s your friend. So, we get that.

And then probably the next one you just mentioned too would be, it seems silly, but I think we’ve all done it: basing it on aesthetics. So, what the shoe looks like, what you judge it to look like on somebody else.

I mean, I think we’ve all heard in the store what they saw on someone at Burn Boot Camp, you know, or any of these places that do really well and do a good job of helping us keep healthy and get in shape. They think what those people wear must be what they should be wearing too.

And then I think the last one—I was making a list because you did ask me these questions—but making a list of what I probably hear the most would be choosing whatever’s the latest and greatest, because that’s going to be getting the most marketing right now.

What’s in front of us, as much as we think we’re making our own choices, is generally what we go into a store and potentially purchase or ask about purchasing.

I think those are probably the top four for me.

Heather: Yeah. I probably get the most questions about, to your point, whatever is in the most commercials or trending the most.

People ask me, “What do you think about this certain brand?” because they’re currently everywhere.

And I’m like, you know, I have to really educate them that the brand is not the most important thing. There are more factors to consider than what is on the commercials.

And that kind of leads into, when we as PTs are assessing someone with pain somewhere, really low back down, there could even be an argument that sometimes foot posture can play a higher role in shoulder and neck issues as well, depending on what the demands on the person are.

But for sure, for folks with plantar fasciitis, Achilles problems, knee, hip, and low back issues, we really are assessing exactly how they move and then talking to them about their footwear.

We try to talk to them every single time about that. But every shoe, as you are the expert on, has different characteristics, including cushioning, heel-to-toe drop, stiffness, flexibility, overall geometry, carbon-plated designs, and the new foam shoes. We can get into that in a minute.

But all those characteristics really do influence how forces are distributed to that person. And not every part of those characteristics is applicable to everybody.

People come in talking about heel-to-toe drop. They want a low toe drop or a low heel drop based on XYZ that they’ve heard or read.

I can counsel them a little bit. But at the end of the day, because the brands change their models and because all these new innovations keep coming out, it’s not realistic for us as PTs to really understand which exact shoe applies to every specific person when we’re trying to treat a broad range of patients.

So, the relationships with Fleet Feet, to me, are invaluable. We have a trusted partner who’s an expert we can send these patients to.

Because obviously, we want to send them to someone trusted, where they’re going to get recommended the correct shoe that’s going to contribute overall to their success with physical therapy and pain relief.

So, having Fleet Feet, especially around the corner from Aureum, is wonderful. I really value being able to send someone there and being able to give them some information to tell the person they work with at Fleet Feet about what they’re trying to look for.

But can you talk us through what’s good information for my patients, future clients of Fleet Feet, to provide the Fleet Feet expert they’re going to work with? And just walk us through a little bit of your fitting process on how you get to the point of recommending a certain shoe brand or model, or multiple options?

Sharon: Absolutely. Well, I will say back at you, we feel the same way about our medical partnerships.

We are not doctors, and we are careful to tell people that we are not doctors. The struggle you have with shoes is the same one we have with people wanting us to diagnose them with something on the spot.

And I just want you to know, and any medical professional who’s seeing this, that we do not do that at Fleet Feet. We do not pretend. We’re not pseudo-medical folks.

But having said that, obviously, we have to have a means by which to come up with a shoe. We do call it our fit process.

The first thing is obviously going to be just a conversation with somebody.

People come in with this entire dialogue before they’ve even reached us, probably kind of like when they come to you, of how they’re going to explain themselves to someone who’s never seen them before.

So, I try to—and all of us do—relax folks when they come in, because if they are in pain, that is all they’re focused on. They just want to get rid of that pain.

If it’s someone who’s just looking to improve their running or get into running, that’s a different story.

But generally, when we’re partnering with folks like you, it’s because they’ve come to us either after seeing you and are looking to supplement something you’ve said to them or the diagnosis, or they may be coming in instead of going to you first.

And we’re going to be the ones to say, “Hey, this is way above our pay grade. You need to go see Heather.”

But the first thing we do is that conversation, really trying to get a good understanding of them.

And then the next thing is just what we do with everyone else. We do have a 3D scanner in each of our stores.

I actually have one that I carry around. I took one to Heather’s office and used it there. It’s great to let her staff know exactly what we do.

So, when you’re talking to a patient—you could almost say customer, patient, client; they’re all the same—you can have some knowledge of what they’re going to come up against when they come into our store.

But it’s pretty easy. The 3D scanner takes about five seconds to give us 500 digital images of their feet from the ankle down.

Then that’s compiled into data that gives us a visual image we can share with them. So, it’s really easy to see what their feet look like.

Perhaps they’ve never even seen themselves in this way before.

And even conclusions start to come as we point things out, whether it’s the width of the toe box or one foot being a little longer than the other.

They can actually see if there’s some rotation in the ankle that they’ve perceived and felt, but now there’s some affirmation that what they thought is actually true.

So, it aids in our assessment as we go through that imaging.

Generally, we’re going to look at three major data points, and that’s the width of the toe box, the height of the instep, and the width of the heel, because those are the elements of the shoe that really need to fit well in order for the shoe to feel good.

So, after that, we’re going to bring out shoes based on how those match their dimensions.

And generally, we find—I would probably say 85 to 90 percent of the time—that whatever shoe looks most like their foot is the shoe they end up choosing.

Yes, whether it feels good or not, but generally it feels better because it fits better.

Then we watch them in that shoe as well, whether they’re walking or, if they’re a runner, we’re going to literally go outside the store and watch them run up and down the sidewalk in it.

It sounds like we’re coming up with the answer. They kind of feel like that sometimes, but really, if we get it down to three shoes, they’re able to do that.

And it would just be what feels comfortable to them. That’s the goal anyway.

Heather: Yeah, yeah. Well, I can definitely attest to that.

Having been a customer of Fleet Feet and having my foot scanned, I was very surprised at the shoes that they recommended to help with my foot pain.

But lo and behold, I got the shoe that they recommended, and as a PT, going through PT exercises and getting in the right shoes took my foot pain away almost instantaneously.

Sharon: Wow!

Heather: Yeah, I don’t know if it’s always the case. Don’t send out that message too often.

I will say I did do a fair amount of prehab before getting the different shoes, but for sure, it was just such a great shoe recommendation that I would never have chosen to purchase myself.

But I also like to tell my patients, too, that you might think you know what you need, and you could Google it all day long. But until you truly get the scan and the actual measurements, and not just guess what your shoe size is, you might not be on the money.

Having that expert-level evaluation with your 3D foot scanner and the expertise of the people who work in the stores is, like I said, invaluable.

I’ve been a direct beneficiary of Fleet Feet itself, so I’m happy to always send all my patients there.

Sharon: Well, I will have to say the reverse was true for me 15 years ago. I wasn’t an employee here yet, but I had just started running.

Because I have no arches, I was stomping around like a toddler and bruised all the bursae in both of my heels.

It wasn’t until I went to a PT and he let me know what was going on with my gait that he introduced me to Altra.

And thus, I’ve been running in that ever since.

So, I will have to say it’s a nice partnership in that sense. He may not have known about every shoe, and I didn’t know about any of them at the time.

But I think that’s why the partnership is important.

Heather:Yeah, absolutely.

So, that kind of leads into shoe wear. Even for folks who might have a little bit more knowledge or runners who have a brand they seem to stay loyal to, what do you talk to your runners about in terms of how much mileage they should put on their shoes?

But I think also, especially for running, there are actual data points for mileage. For your average person who might not be running, what’s a good lifespan for a shoe? Is there a difference between the two? How would you guide your customers on frequency of repurchase?

Sharon: Yeah, well, that’s a great question, and everybody asks it when they come to the store. Even I still have it sometimes because the products are changing so often that the age of a shoe is not what it was when I first started here.

I think a good generalization, because people aren’t always honest about how much they work out and how much they’re in a shoe, is that we can go by industry standards.

Generally, they’re going to say 400 to 450 running miles.

And then someone will say, “Well, I don’t run in it at all.” So, they think it should last forever.

Right. Just explaining the science of compression, I generally say to folks, just budget for two pairs of shoes a year.

Heather: Yeah. No, most people who are running regularly and competitively—we don’t have to tell them when their shoe is dead. They’ll start to feel it in their bodies because they’re running so regularly.

But a lot of folks just don’t have the body awareness.

Sharon: And I think giving them permission to pay attention to their bodies is important.

If you feel more tired than you did a month ago when you were doing the same mileage and the same route, pay attention to that.

Or I will say, just come into the store and try on a new pair. You don’t even need to buy them.

But if you’re confused about whether this feels worse or something is wrong with you, then you can just come in and say, “Hey, I just want to try on a pair for the heck of it and see if my shoe is dead.”

And that’s free.

Heather: Yeah, that’s awesome.

And what would you say, thinking about carbon footplates or the new foam in shoes, are these the main trendy innovations? Are these the main new things that have developed in running shoes recently? What are some of the new running shoe innovations you’ve seen?

Sharon: Well, I actually gave a presentation about that a few months ago. COVID was the real marker for that.

Whether or not COVID was the impetus, or whether that was just on the verge anyway, it’s hard to say.

But I will say Hoka was reaching its heights at that point.

They’ve been the real impetus for change in stack height, or how much product is literally underneath the foot in a shoe.

Hoka had been around for a while, but mostly online. Then, when they were purchased by a bigger company, there was money to make changes and invest in marketing, and the shoe became more widely available.

They had a lot of the brands kind of running scared with that market share.

Whether or not that was really good is irrelevant, but people were ready for change.

We’ve seen that everywhere in the world. When there’s a change, people turn toward it.

So, it was a good time for Hoka to come onto the market, and that stack height came around.

Then, because of the chemical changes in the rubber to allow for that much product underneath the foot, the rubber had to be lighter.

So, people started making chemical changes. The biggest one was saying, “We’re going to inject everything with nitrogen,” which changes the rubber cells.

So, we saw that happen.

And then, when shoes got higher stack heights and became softer and lighter, they also became more unstable. So, then came the introduction of plates.

We had that nylon plate just to test the market, then the carbon plate, which really gives that bounce that everybody loves.

Again, whether it’s good or bad, that spring made everybody feel like they were a deer springing around in a field, bouncing everywhere.

Most of us were taking a little time off our running times. But we saw what it was doing for those elite runners, and we’re always making some equations there.

They did it for them, so it’ll do it for us, regardless of my 60-year-old body.

I’m going to break some big records this week!

A 41-year-old just won the Melbourne Marathon, so, yeah, I mean, truly, it’s doing something.

Heather: Yeah, for sure. You know, for every action, there’s a reaction too.

So, this may come up later, but those are some of the major things you brought up: stack height, rubber changes, and plates.

Even the look of the shoe—people come up and lose their minds over the way the toe is angled up.

But again, that has to be there, right? Shoes are being engineered now.

I think just looking different perked up people’s eyes and ears, but that’s only been since 2020 or 2021.

It seems like a long time ago, but if you look at the shoes prior to that, it’s almost like caveman days.

There were such slight changes in rubber composition, even in the upper. During my first 10 years of work here, there were very few changes in the weaves.

Then it became just one piece, and it was like, “What? We’ve got to the moon? What?”

So, yeah, I would say that since 2020, there have been some really positive innovations that make us turn our heads and pay attention to running shoes.

Sharon: Yeah.

Heather: Amazing. Do y’all have any thoughts on how you counsel folks about lacing their running shoes? Is there a right or wrong way?

Sharon: Well, I mean, I think people are always asking.

You know, is there a right or wrong? I’m generally just saying, don’t cut off the nerve on top of your foot, because some people can’t handle it if that shoe isn’t cinched tightly.

But as soon as they start doing something athletic, they get it. When your toes start going to sleep, you start paying attention.

And with some brands, they’re not deep enough for folks. That’s part of the issue. They can put pressure on the nerve on top of the foot before they even tie the shoe.

But some people, and you’ve probably seen them too, Heather, have such a high instep that a lace-up shoe is almost impossible for them to wear.

So, we encourage different lacing techniques. I’ve really done some wacky lacing with people just to avoid that apex of the foot and the nerve on top of it.

I just encourage people that there’s no right or wrong, as long as you feel good in the shoe, you’re not flying out of it, you’re not feeling choked by it, and you’re performing well in it.

Of course, everybody knows about heel-lock lacing. If your heel is a little too narrow for the shoe, running shoes have that little extra eyelet back there for us to use a particular lacing technique.

People are amazed by that. A NASA invention! But it’s fun to see people light up and realize something so simple has made them happy.

Heather: Right. And I think after things like that, more people start to appreciate and realize the amount of engineering that goes into all these running shoes, and sometimes why the cost equates to the work that’s been put into them.

Sharon: For sure. I’ll put it on and feel the difference.

Even the greatest skeptic—and we’ve all seen them—will ask, “What’s so special about these?”

And you can’t really say that until you put them on.

Heather: Right.

Sharon: I mean, science is hard to describe in those arenas, but when you put them on, you’re like, “Oh, I get it. I see the difference between this and my pair,” even if it’s the same brand.

I’ve explained to people too that all the brands have entry-level shoes that aren’t meant to do what a more advanced shoe is doing.

So, there’s the price difference and the feel difference. Now you get what you pay for.

Heather: Yeah, yeah. That’s amazing.

Well, thank you so much for taking your time to speak with me. Is there anything that we should let everybody know about Fleet Feet that we haven’t mentioned, or have we hit all the high marks?

Sharon: I think I’ve talked enough about Fleet Feet, but I do that every day.

I do want people to know that we have a heart in this, that we train our people. Even if we have kids in here doing this who are 20 years old and really have no life experience, they usually have running experience, often more than a lot of us.

But we train them to interact with people on a level that’s deeper than just selling shoes.

And I do think we do well at that. That makes us different.

Heather: That’s amazing. Yeah, and I love Fleet Feet, and I’m glad you are around.

Thank you so much. We appreciate Fleet Feet’s expertise and your time, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Sharon: Thanks, Heather.

Heather: Thanks for having me.

Sharon: Thanks, Heather. Bye.