If you are new to sports, particularly running, the ranges of girls running shoes available can often be baffling. The first thing you need to do is to consider your shoes as a necessary tool of the job. It doesn’t matter what color they are or what they look like – well not at the beginning anyway!
The female anatomy makes it more likely that there will be problems with the feet during the running stride, basically because the angle between a woman’s hips and knees is wider. This can cause unnecessary strain on both the knee and ankle joints. A lot of women find that they are flat footed and this can cause significant pain during and after running, with an increased possibility of fractures of the small bones in the feet. The opposite effect occurs where the feet have very high arches. This can also wreak havoc with the ankles and knees because the feet have a tendency to roll outwards during the stride.
In order to find out whether you need running shoes that will correct either flat feet or high arch problems, it is always sensible, at least the first time, to go to a proper running store. You might be asked to do a practice run on a treadmill, which they will film using a high speed camera. The staff will then be able to slow the film down and show you exactly how your feet move as you run, in particular whether they rotate too far inwards (a sign of a collapsing arch and flat feet), or outwards. The running terms they will probably use are “overpronation” for flat feet and “underpronation” for high arches.
You might be perfectly fine and suffer from none of these problems, in which case you can go ahead and buy a pair of neutral running shoes. But there are tons of pairs to choose from even if you are an overpronator or underpronator too.
For underpronators, you will need extra support and cushioning to protect your arches, and since the arches are higher than usual, the soles and midsoles will also need to be more flexible, so they will not hurt your feet. Some great examples to try out in store are the Asics GEL Nimbus and GEL Pulse, the Saucony Grid Launch, and the Nike LunarSwift+ designs. For New Balance womens sneakers especially for underpronation, you might also want to try on a pair of New Balance WR1123 or WR769.
The most important advice is to go to your local store the first time. Get a gait analysis done and find a good pair of trainers that work well for you – then stick with that model every time.
