Maybe you don’t give to much importance to your gait. But, knowing your type of gait is essential for any runner, as it will help you avoid injuries.
If you suffer from blisters, you get injured very often or break your running shoes, you will surely require an insole or footwear appropriate for your type of gait.
For example, if you have a supinator gait, you usually wear sneakers from the outer edges, and you have blisters very often, which causes you to have to use insoles all the time.
Every runner has a unique and unrepeatable footprint, we can classify the types of footsteps into three broad groups: pronator, supinator, and neutral.
Below I will explain its characteristics.
Supinator
Supination is the opposite of pronation.
It is a very structured foot with reduced mobility, with an enlarged plantar vault and ankles out.
This alteration is rare, approximately 10% of the total runners are supinators, and it is often confused with excessive wear of the outer heel area. Supinators compress and wear their shoes all along the outer edges and not only in the heel area, but they are also usually runners who are injured a lot.
The Best Kept Secret to Avoid Injuries and Become a Better Runner
Neutral
It means that the ankles do not rotate either towards the inside of the foot or the outside when running.
The neutral foot is the one whose support begins on the outer part of the ankle then exerts discreet pronation by the midfoot and taking off the forefoot between the 1st and 2nd metatarsals.
Approximately 40% of the runners have a Neutral foot and are the ones with the least injuries or problems.
Pronator
It consists of a tilt of the foot towards the internal zone.
When we run, our ankles tend to turn inwards, it is very common, in fact, it is a natural cushioning.
The pronation is physiological and necessary effect with which the foot distributes the load it receives at each step to adapt to the irregularities of the terrain, if it were not for that pronation movement, the feet would be seriously injured.
When this pronation is increased above the physiological parameters, the runner is categorized as a pronator.
Between 50 and 60% of runners suffer from overpronation and also tend to have problems with tendon, knee, and blister injuries.
How to know your type of gait?
Do a small practical experiment. Moisten one foot on a small container full of water, and then take it out and put it on a blank sheet, so that you leave a recognizable footprint of your foot.
Just put one of them to get the print, it doesn’t have to be both. Once your foot is printed on the sheet, you will get the footprint that you must analyze that will be determined by the arch of the foot.
If it is a thick footprint, you are a pronator, if it is a footprint where a very pronounced arch appears, this way you will know your type of gait.
Conclusion
You must be clear about the type of gait you have to buy a shoe that works, whether you go with a specialist or look at your shoes to analyze wear.
From experience, it is worth investing in orthopedic insoles to avoid injuries and painful blisters, do not buy the shoes solely for their aesthetics, or just because they are expensive, you have to analyze which ones will work for you, usually, with the insole and a neutral shoe, you will feel great.
