The impact of carbon plated running shoes on Injury Rates and Uphill Running Performance
by Doug Stewart
It appears that research papers looking at carbon plated running shoes are being published at an exponential rate. Earlier this year I wrote about a paper exploring the impact of carbon plated shoes on running economy at slower speeds. Since then, two further papers into carbon plated run shoes have appeared in journals.
The first of these investigated injury rates and carbon plated shoes, while the second explored whether carbon plated shoes help when running uphill.
Injury rates provide an interesting area for research. Anecdotally, I have heard a lot of people claiming that “super shoes” lead to greater rates of bone stress injuries versus traditional running shoes. However, this is the first paper I have seen discussing bone stress injuries in runners using carbon plated shoes. This paper is not contrasting carbon plated and non-carbon plated shoes in relation to injuries, but rather has 5 case studies of runners with bone stress injuries in their feet that were using carbon plated shoes.
Given that bone stress injuries are often multifactorial, presenting these 5 case studies of injured runners does not mean the cause of the injury is directly linked to carbon plated shoes. However, the examples do cover runners who experienced pain in their feet after running in carbon plated shoes and the advice in the paper is likely applicable. The researchers highlight the importance of a gradual transition into using carbon plated shoes to reduce the chance of injury. Moreover, there is a suggestion that the carbon plated shoes, in part due to people running faster and generating more force in them, are in part responsible for the injuries. From a training perspective, therefore, it may make sense to use the carbon plated shoes for shorter slower runs initially, rather than speed sessions. This will help your feet and body in general to adjust to them.
The second paper explored the impact of carbon plated shoes on uphill running. In this research, 20 well trained male runners ran on a treadmill on the flat at 8kph and 16kph, and then uphill at 15% incline at 8kph. Overall, there was no benefit (no improvement in running economy) when running uphill in the carbon plated shoes. This differs from previous research that showed certain carbon plated shoes benefited runners on flat surfaces.
However, the academics do acknowledge that there were large variations in the results with this experiment. Benefits from carbon plated shoes could depend on the runner, although as an average across the group no particular improvement was recorded.
Given other research has discovered that the impact of which brand of shoes you wear varies by runner, then this again may have a part to play. Without testing multiple brands of shoes in multiple conditions (flat and uphill) with each athlete, it is unlikely that each athlete had the optimal set up for them personally. Overall, though, it appears that you will get less benefit on steeper climbs than when running on the flat if you wear carbon plated running shoes.
To conclude, then, a mixed bag: the consensus seems to be that you should gradually ease into using carbon plated running shoes if you choose to add them to your shoe rotation, to help avoid injury. As for climbing benefits, more specific and varied research is needed but, in general, these shoes haven’t yet been proven to provide a benefit over “regular” shoes when running at 15%.
References:
Perrin, T. P., Rossi, J., Kerhervé, H. A., & Millet, G. Y. (2023). Increasing Shoe Longitudinal Bending Stiffness Is Not Beneficial to Reduce Energy Cost During Graded Running. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 1(aop), 1-4.
Tenforde, A., Hoenig, T., Saxena, A., & Hollander, K. (2023). Bone Stress Injuries in Runners Using Carbon Fiber Plate Footwear. Sports Medicine, 1-7.