Running is one of the best ways to shape your figure and increase your body's endurance. This sport is characterized by cardio loads, vertical impact loads and requires serious attitude. Therefore, having decided to take up running, you should understand how to choose the ones that are most suitable for a person. Wearing the wrong shoes can cause injury. Therefore, you need to choose your running shoes wisely.
Features of running shoes
For athletics sports, you should select a certain type of footwear. Many factors influence this. When choosing, you should determine in advance under what conditions they will be used. It matters what surface you choose to run on.
To understand how to choose running shoes, you should evaluate their weight. They should not act as weighting agents. The type of sole is of great importance for such shoes.
The right choice of running shoes also depends on different intensity and type of training. There are shoes for long distances, for short, high-speed training, for competitions, as well as for tourism and hiking. Even the weather for which sneakers are used matters when choosing.
Appearance and materials
The first thing you should pay attention to in a store is the appearance of the shoes. The combination of leather and textiles is considered ideal.
The leather will retain its shape, and the fabric promotes good ventilation and moisture absorption, and retains heat. The rigidity of the frame must be good to withstand deformation and preserve the running shoe. How to choose a good pair of shoes? You should look at the junction of the upper and sole. never stitched. It is glued. The joint itself must be neat and strong.
After bending the product, you should pay attention to the connection of the sole with the fabric. If traces of glue or areas of the sole that have come away from the fabric are visible, these sneakers should be left aside. They won't last even two runs.
The insole should be removable and made of breathable material. This will allow it to be washed and will promote normal moisture exchange.
Sole
When choosing running shoes from any manufacturer, be it Asics, Nike, Adidas or Reebok, you should pay attention to the type of sole.
There are many models of shoes with abrasion-resistant soles. It looks like car tires. When deciding how to choose running shoes for asphalt, you should pay attention to this type of sole. If you plan to run on snow, dirt, or wet surfaces, then you should give preference to “SUVs”. Their soles have special rubber lugs that provide good grip on the base. If there are spikes on the sole, you can run even in the fall on wet paths, on hard snow or ice. When choosing running shoes for asphalt, it is better to choose models without spikes.
For long distances and treadmills, sneakers called “marathons” are chosen. These are lightweight sports shoes. They have a thin sole, so these shoes are considered suitable for only one long run. If the sole is a little heavier, they can be used for several marathons. But they have proven themselves to be suitable for treadmills. How to choose the appropriate type of sole should also be determined by the purpose of the shoe.
Type of foot placement
To make running as comfortable and safe as possible, modern running shoes must take into account all the features of a person’s foot. This is a high-tech complex product. Pronation is the way a person's feet are positioned. It is taken into account when choosing sports shoes.
There are three types of pronation. If the lower leg is turned more inward, this foot position is called overpronation. If everything is quite the opposite, this type of pronation is called supination (underpronation). When the foot is placed straight, it is neutral pronation.
When choosing shoes, you should strive to achieve neutral pronation of the foot. Everyone's foot placement is different. To understand how to choose the right running shoes, you should pay attention to the position of your feet in a particular pair of shoes.
Depreciation
To soften the load on human joints, manufacturers of modern sneakers use special shock-absorbing materials. This helps avoid injury and improves running comfort.
Shock-absorbing materials absorb shock. The more weight an athlete has, the more cushioning the sneakers should have. Each manufacturer uses its own special technology for such materials.
For example, brands such as Asics and Brooks use various gels, Saucony and Salomon use foam varieties, and they have a plastic plate that has a wavy shape.
Good cushioning is also necessary for people with overpronated feet. This will protect you from injuries and increase the comfort of playing sports.
Shoe weight
Good sports shoes should be lightweight.
There is a standard that will tell you how to choose running shoes. Women's models should weigh no more than 200 g, and men's models should weigh up to 250 g each. The greater their weight, the greater the load on the ankle and knee joints. This increases the likelihood of injury.
Both women's and men's running shoes should be chosen based on the rule “the lighter, the better.” However, you should note that you should not purchase models for daily running. They are indeed much lighter than ordinary shoes, but their wear resistance will not please lovers of everyday physical activity at all.
In addition, in thin sneakers you will feel every defect in the running surface. Therefore, you should purchase models with medium-thick soles.
Article last updated: 12/31/2014
Our body consists of many muscle groups. In the training process they are divided into main and auxiliary. The main ones are the chest, back, shoulders, legs, arms and abs. Each of them contains a large number of auxiliary muscles, which are included in the work along with the large muscles.
Professional bodybuilders can afford to devote one day to training one main group in order to work it out and achieve maximum proportionality in order to show themselves in all their glory in competitions. As you understand, the pros train almost every day. For beginners or gym enthusiasts, daily training will not bring any benefit, since the body of an ordinary person will not have time to recover after training, which can lead to negative results. In addition, people who engage in bodybuilding at an amateur level have many everyday worries, such as work, study, etc. Because of this, a person is simply not able to fully devote himself to training. While the pros live from bodybuilding, this is their main income and because of this, athletes go to the gym as if they were going to work.
So you understand, professional bodybuilders resort to the use of pharmacological support in order to recover faster, improve anabolic processes in the body, etc. Therefore, they go to the gym every day, without harm to themselves.
In order to achieve the maximum effect from training, you need to divide the training of the main muscle groups into separate days. However, this raises the question - which muscles should be trained together and how to combine them? Today, the three-day split is the most common among beginners and experienced athletes. That is, you divide the training into three days, say Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is an ideal option to build muscle mass as quickly as possible and completely restore the muscle. A little later, when you are more experienced, you can break the training into four days, dedicating one day, for example, to training your arms or shoulders. For more information on how to properly create a training program, see here.
There are several options, based on which you can understand which muscles to train together. Here is one of the most common examples today:
Example No. 1
This is a fairly widely used option, in which everything is quite simple and logical. Look, we take the main muscle groups and break them down into three days: day 1 – chest; day 2 – back; day 3 – legs. After that, we add smaller muscles that are directly involved in training the main muscle, with the exception of the leg and shoulder combination. For example, take the same chest workout, which is based on repelling exercises. That is, take the same bench press or dumbbell press and so on. All of them involve pushing (squeezing) weight away from the chest, and as we know, the triceps are responsible for this function in the arm muscles. So he takes direct part in chest training.
The same goes for the back and biceps. If in chest training, we push (squeeze) the weight away from ourselves, then in back training, we pull the weight towards ourselves, and, as you know, not only the back muscles are responsible for this movement, but also the biceps, which helps to pull the weight and increase the amplitude movements.
As for the third day of training, the shoulders are not involved in leg training, but this is the only day that can be allocated for high-quality pumping of the deltoids. As you know, the deltoids consist of the front, middle and rear beams; if you want to pump up your shoulders, you need to train them together, in one day.
Thus, by combining training in this way, we tire out the secondary muscles quite well beforehand, and then work them out efficiently.
Example No. 2
The second option is less common, however, also has its fans. Many people believe that training the main muscle and the secondary one, which is directly involved in the movement, such as the chest and triceps, back and biceps, is at least stupid, since having first tired the secondary muscle (biceps or triceps), we will no longer be able to pump them properly . In principle, for some people this is quite relevant. Remember that everyone's body is different, and everyone may react differently to one or another type of training, so you can experiment and try both complexes to determine for yourself which one is right for you. In addition, the program still needs to be changed at least once every 1-2 months.
MUSCLE TRAININGANTAGONISTS
Many people believe that antagonist training is the most effective for building muscle mass, and this is true. Such training involves working out two antagonist muscles in one day. These are the muscles that are located parallel to each other, that is, back - chest, biceps - triceps, hamstrings - quadriceps. You can read more about training antagonist muscles here.
An example of such a training plan
Having trained according to this plan, I can say that this is a pretty good solution if you need to change the program, try something new. This complex is suitable for fairly experienced athletes, as it requires a lot of energy and strength to recover, but for a beginner it is better to train according to the first or second example.
Personally, I recommend training according to the plan presented below. He absorbed a little from the training of the antagonists and from the first standard plan. It can be used by experienced athletes with at least 1 year of experience.
Gym workout plan
FULL BODY WORKOUT
In this embodiment, you can combine all the muscles at the same time, only in a certain sequence. If you are a beginner athlete, you can use a workout that includes working all major muscle groups in one session. As you remember, at the beginning of the article we said that for beginning athletes the best option is to break the workout into splits, that is, train each major muscle group separately. As for a full-body workout, this is a fairly energy-intensive plan, but if you approach the process wisely, you can balance your activities.
Whole body training is needed in order to prepare a novice athlete, namely his muscles, for a further increase in loads, that is, to improve his overall physical fitness. The workout itself does not consist of twenty exercises, as you might think, it includes basic exercises, thanks to which we can pump up and use the main, secondary and various auxiliary muscle groups in the process. Training does not take much time if you train intensively, without half an hour of rest and hack work. You can find out more about full body training here
These days, sneakers aren't just for sports. These are shoes that are suitable for walking, traveling and even going to a museum. Manufacturers have created many varieties of sneakers, each of which is different from each other: some are comfortable for running, others for doing fitness, and others can be worn in everyday life. Fitness trainer Evgeniy Goryunov told how to choose the right sneakers for different purposes.
Running shoes
Running shoes should be half a size larger than regular shoes. Photo: pixabay.com
First of all, when choosing running shoes, you need to decide where your training will take place - on asphalt or on rough terrain. If you're going to be running on asphalt, you should consider running shoes with cushioning, and if you're going to be running on park trails, you need running shoes that have good grip and grip. The sole of such shoes has a special texture and cannot be used for running on asphalt.
Now you need to decide on the size. Please note: running shoes should be half a size larger than other shoes. “Running shoes should not fit tightly to the foot when worn,” explains the fitness trainer. - Let there remain a distance there, but no more than 5 millimeters. This will prevent the appearance of calluses, chafing and other unpleasant injuries.
It is better to try on sneakers in the afternoon, when you have already put some load on your feet and your feet will be slightly enlarged, as when running. If you put on your running shoes in the morning and they fit, your feet will swell slightly as you run and the shoes will feel tight.” And if there should be a little space left in the toe, then in the heel it’s the opposite: it should be tightly fixed. The surface of the foot should also not “walk”.
Finally, in order to get the most out of your exercise routine, it is very important to determine your pronation type - the way you position the outside of your foot when running. “Ideally, before buying sneakers, you need to undergo a GAIT analysis: the process of your exercise on the treadmill is filmed, and then a specialist evaluates how your foot stands up,” says Goryunov. “Depending on this, you need to choose shoes.” As a rule, in people with flat feet, when running, the leg “falls” inward. Therefore, to level it out, you will need sneakers with an elastic sole on the inside and a rigid heel fixation. If you do not suffer from flat feet, any sneakers with good cushioning will do: then your joints will be safe.
Fitness sneakers
Fitness sneakers must cover the ankle. Photo: pixabay.com
When choosing sneakers for fitness, first of all, pay attention to the appearance of the shoe: it should completely cover and secure the ankle - open sneakers are not suitable for going to the gym. High shoes will protect you from sprains.
For fitness, it is better to choose sneakers with thick soles. Let the toe of the shoe be slightly wider than the heel. “Such sneakers will provide good stability and reduce the risk of injury during training,” says the expert. “This is due to the fact that in these shoes you will have more complete contact with the floor.” Also, for greater stability, sneakers with laces are preferable. Thanks to the lacing, the shoes will fit snugly to the foot, and this is very important in fitness.
Do not consider warm sneakers for working out in the gym. Shoes must “breathe” and be light - otherwise a greenhouse effect may occur, and during the training process you will experience extreme discomfort, which can subsequently develop into health problems.
Sneakers for every day
Gel pads in sneakers will prevent your feet from getting tired. Photo: pixabay.com
To make sneakers the most comfortable and practical shoes for walking, first, carefully examine the sole. The best option is a low but dense platform and a corrugated sole that will protect against slipping. When choosing, pay special attention to the instep support, thanks to which the load on the foot will be distributed evenly, and even with long walking your legs will not get tired. “I would recommend a modern type of arch support - a gel layer or gel pads,” notes the fitness trainer. “This is a soft but reliable material that will protect your feet.”
The sneakers themselves should be made of natural material that will allow air to pass through well. For example, sports shoes made of thin leather will take the shape of your feet after a couple of walks, and walking in such sneakers will be as comfortable as possible.
Finally, the last important factor to check is the crease line of the shoe. Squeeze your sneakers slightly or try them on and stand on your tiptoes. If the fold line is in the middle, it is better not to take the shoes: in such sneakers you will feel constant tension. This is fraught with problems with joints and spine. Remember: the fold line should be located exclusively in the first part of the shoe, in the toe area.
Evgeniy points out that even practical and comfortable shoes will quickly become unusable if you don’t take care of them. Any sneakers - for running, fitness or daily walks - should never be machine washed. You need to carefully clean your shoes from dust and dirt, using a soft sponge and water with the addition of soap or shampoo. Do not dry your sneakers on the radiator: the shoes will lose their elasticity! Let them dry at room temperature, after removing the insoles. If you follow all these rules, your sneakers will last you a very long time.
In order for sports to bring not only benefits, but also pleasure, you need to provide yourself with the most comfortable clothing during training. Special attention should be paid to choosing high-quality sports shoes, that is, sneakers. Sports brands have always divided their shoes into categories, creating sneakers for running, jumping and other active activities. Shoes from different categories differed in their cut, style and even appearance. Which sneakers are ideal for fitness?
What should be
To understand what kind of fitness shoes should be, you need to know what this sport is. Sudden movements at a fast pace, jumps and lunges, squats and bends - all this you will have to endure in the fitness room. And the effectiveness of your workouts depends on what shoes you complement your sports look with. What characteristics should high-quality fitness shoes have?
1. Sole with good shock absorption. The presence of air cushions will minimize the load on the feet and joints during active movements and will allow you to perform exercises without fatigue for much longer.
2. High-quality material. It should be breathable, durable and at the same time elastic, so as not to hamper movements and not rub your feet during exercise.
3. Light weight. Since fitness involves jumping and other active movements, the heavy weight of shoes can significantly affect the effectiveness and duration of training, and not for the better.
4. Sufficiently hard sole. The fact is that a soft sole will not allow you to maintain balance during training, which cannot be said about a hard one.
Remember that not only the effectiveness of training, but also safety depends on the correct selection of shoes.
How to choose
In order to minimize the risk of injury during training, it is necessary to pay the greatest attention to the ergonomics of sneakers, as well as the characteristics of the fabrics from which they are made. There are several characteristics that indicate the maximum safety of sneakers:
1. Sole material. Famous brands create shoe soles from special foam, because it is this foam, unlike common rubber, that provides maximum stability when moving and good shock absorption.
2. Sole thickness. Many sports manufacturers prefer to complement their shoes with thin soles, and there are several reasons for this. Thus, shoes with thin soles become as light as possible and at the same time stable, but the main thing here is not to overdo it. The optimal sole thickness is 1.5 - 2 cm. It is better if the sneaker has a slight elevation in the heel area.
3. Last and boot. Among the numerous models offered by modern manufacturers, it is better to choose for fitness those models of sneakers that come with additional buckles to secure the boot. This will ensure a perfect fit of the model on your leg.
4. Material. It is better if it is only natural and provides sufficient softness with moderate elasticity.
It’s interesting that when choosing sneakers, experts advise paying attention not only to the characteristics of the models themselves, but also to the manufacturer.
Which ones are better
Sneakers from famous sports brands such as Reebok, Nike, Puma, Adidas were considered the best at all times. During the production process, these brands take into account not only the design features of shoe models, but also decorative ones, thus combining excellent quality, unsurpassed safety and stylish design. The most interesting thing is that manufacturers think through each individual model of sneakers to the smallest detail, taking into account that each of them can be intended for its own purposes.
Fitness sneakers
This term hides a lot of nuances, because in fact there are a lot of types of fitness. The only type of fitness that does not require sneakers is yoga, Pilates and stretching. To practice these types of fitness in the gym, just wear regular socks. For other types of fitness, you will still need sneakers.
For training
The best shoes for working out in the gym are simple sneakers with thin soles that provide good shock absorption. And it doesn’t matter how this shock absorption will be provided - with the help of studs, an air cushion or some other element on the sole.
The same sneakers are ideal for strength fitness, which involves lunges and other sudden movements during training. But as for running and walking, which are also part of fitness, it is better to choose sneakers with a rounded toe and a lot of spikes on the sole.
Dance
For fitness that involves dancing, a special type of sneakers is specially designed - jazz shoes. These shoes are always made from fabrics or artificial materials, which ensures a perfect fit on the foot. Movement in such shoes is not constrained due to the fact that the heel is not connected to the sole, but each of its elements is reinforced with a special insert that ensures stability during rotation.
But for step and aerobics, sneakers with a high last that securely secure the boot are ideal. Fixation is ensured by Velcro buckles, with which any model of sneakers can be adjusted to fit.
How to choose the right one
When choosing a model of fitness sneakers, you should immediately decide whether it will be used for one type or several at once. In the second case, it is better to immediately choose a universal model of sneakers. It should combine several important characteristics, say, have a rounded toe and spikes or a heel and buckles. It’s interesting that in addition to dividing shoes into categories depending on the type of fitness, there is also a division into other subgroups.
Women's
When creating sneakers designed for the fair sex, manufacturers always pay special attention to their external characteristics. The trend now is for sneakers in pastel colors, as well as those that combine several shades at once - bright and classic. The most fashionable combinations are pink and white, as well as purple and light green. Special attention should be paid to the lacing, because this season it has acquired a brighter color than in the previous one.
Children's
Sneakers for children are always made from high-quality natural materials that eliminate the possibility of any allergic reactions. The insole in such shoes is always removable, and the toe is quite elastic in texture. But special attention, as in the previous version, is paid to decorative features. Bright colors, cartoonish decor and numerous rivets are present in almost every model.
Comfortable
The most comfortable among modern sneaker models are considered to be those that are made of elastic materials and have sufficient stability, and most importantly, adhesion to the surface. The sneakers are always given additional comfort by elastic buckles, which allow you to secure your foot well in the desired position without feeling any discomfort.