Shoe Must Fit Your Foot--and Your Life

Shopping for new athletic shoes can be an exercise in exhaustion.

A runner may want a lightweight shoe for training runs. Will that be with a pump? A maxed-out air cushion? How about a carbon midsole that promises forward propulsion?

Should you splurge on an athletic shoe or stick with a $60 tried-and-true model?

Should you believe advertising campaigns? Considering that there are hundreds of models of athletic shoes out there, here are a few things you need to know before replacing your tattered shoes:

* Take a good look at your foot before you go to the store, suggests Tom Brunick, an athletic shoe expert at North Central College in Naperville, Ill. “Get a sense of what it looks like and what your problems are. Is your foot wide? Do you have bunions?”

* Look at your old shoes, he advises. “Do they wear out in the heels? In the toes? Does the upper break down fairly quickly?”

* Take your old shoes to the store and show them to the clerk, Brunick suggests. Clerks trained in fitting athletic shoes can help analyze the shoe problems and correct them with different shoe features.

“If your old shoes roll inward too much, you need a shoe with more support on the inside,” Brunick says. “If they roll outward too much, you need a shoe with more support on the outside.” If your shoes have popped-out toes, try a shoe a half size or more larger.

* Be sure to have your foot measured each time. Brunick finds most people buy athletic shoes a half size too small. Women who wear dress pumps may be especially likely to skimp. “Women get used to the feel of a dress pump,” Brunick says, “which are generally a tight fit, and then they perceive an athletic shoe (that fits well) as too big.”

* If you engage primarily in one sport, buy a shoe designed especially for that activity, suggests Joseph Jacko, an internist and sports medicine specialist at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas.

* Don’t be cheap. “Be willing to spend $40 or $50 for any decent type of athletic shoe,” Jacko says. Brunick advises consumers to spend $60 to $90.

* Stick with the name brands, Jacko says. “The quality is likely to be better.”

* “Try the shoe on in the store,” Jacko says, “and try it out. Jog in place in running shoes, for example.”

* Don’t buy athletic shoes first thing in the morning, Brunick advises. It’s better to wait until you have been up and around--maybe even after you have worked out.

* Athletic shoes that fit well should feel good from the moment you tie them on. But some of the more uniquely engineered styles may feel stiff at first and may require an adaptation period, Brunick has found.