Over Pronation and Supination - Getting the Right Shoe.

These terms are used all the time in running, and as people become regular runners and look to invest in decent shoes they start to look more closely at what they’re buying. In order to buy the right shoe for your feet you need to make sure you know if you are a pronator or supinator. In simple terms, over pronation is when the feet roll inward too much as your feet hit the ground. Supination or under pronation as it is sometimes called, is when your feet don’t roll inwards enough.

There are a couple of ways to check which group you tend towards. The easiest is just to check the wear on the soles of your running shoes. Pronators tend to wear out the inside of the soles of their shoes first. The shoes of a supinator will wear mostly down the outside edge.

The second way is to do the wet foot test. Wet your feet and walk over paving slabs. A neutral foot will leave the heel print connected to the fore of the foot buy a thin strip, perhaps half the width of the foot. If you’re an over pronator, this strip will be wider.

Significant deviance from a neutral position can lead to injury because it places stress on tendons, ligaments and joints. The lower thigh, knee and lower leg all rotate which becomes more exaggerated in over pronators.

So much technology goes into the production of running shoes these days that there is really no excuse from letting your gait effect your performance or cause injury. Many good running shops have treadmills and will check if you’re over pronating to make sure they can sell you a shoe with the support in the right places.