0 vs 1200 miles
Wear pattern on shoes has long been held as a way to determine stride characteristics.
However the truth is that shoe wear pattern does little (or nothing) to actually tell you what your feet are actually doing, as they have a great deal of movement inside the shoe independent of the footwear.
Wear pattern also completely ignores how your feet are interacting with the ground in relation to your body positioning. This important factor may be more crucial than how your foot actually touches the ground.
Below is the initial post asking about Heel Wear Pattern, followed by my response and two others.
So my running shoes show a significant amount of wear on the outer heels of both shoes.
I run in Brooks Ghost 6s which are Neutral. It’s almost time for me to buy a new pair. Does this wear pattern indicate anything that I’m doing wrong and/or should I be looking into getting a different type of shoe? -AStack75
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No indication of anything wrong. If they’re comfortable and you’re happy with them, feel free to purchase the same or a similar pair. I’d recommend getting that new pair and slowly transitioning from the old to the new pair. Start off with your shortest run in the new pair and every week you could add one more run in the new shoes until the old ones are phased out, or you can wear them both for as long as that other pair is good for.
Depending on how long you’ve had the shoes and how significant the wear is, it could possibly hint that you’re heal striking a bit heavily. It’s most important to try to not land with a straight and outstretched leg in front of your body, but land with a flexed knee closer to under your center of mass, perhaps with a slightly less pronounced dorsiflexion of the ankle. But again, that’s just a “maybe” without actually seeing you run. -kjkranz
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The above is good advice.
Some people will tell you heel striking is bad. Don’t listen to them. What’s bad is landing with the knee extended and the foot out in front of you as kjkranz states.
If there’s a lot of wear on the heel, it’s also possible that you scuff or slide the foot as you land–I’ve seen people do that. But lateral heel wear is pretty normal even without a gait problem. There’s a reason many manufacturers put more durable rubber in that area. -Duck916—–
Yeah, that’s a typical wear pattern. And I like kjkranz recommendations on running form. -Nazaretti