The midsole is the element that mainly provides amortization to the trail shoe.
The type of material used in the midsole and its thickness will give us more or less amortized shoes.
- The amortization of the trail running shoe and products
Almost all shoe manufacturers have their own material that can be more or less soft and more or less reactive. Let's understand this reactivity as the return or push that the shoes offer when landing.
A trail shoe that is too amortized and not very reactive will give us a soft sensation, a bit chewy , as if we were running on a kind of water mattress.
On the contrary, a low amortized trail shoe could be very hard and cause discomfort with the passage of kilometers.
One of the main factors that can determine payback is the running technique of the mountain runner.
A runner with a refined and efficient technique who lands mainly with the ball of the foot, close to the metatarsals, might prefer a less amortized scarp since these runners tend to be faster and the efforts and tensions of the race are well absorbed by the musculature.
However, runners with less efficient running technique tend to land on the back of the foot, that is, on the heel .
The fact of landing with the heel means that all the vibrations of the impact with the ground are transmitted directly to the bone structure and tendons of the body and are not well absorbed by the musculature. This continual heel landing has to be offset by more generous payback.
Another determining factor that has to do with the amortization of the shoe is the runner's own weight, generally, without going into the 1000 possible specific cases, the more the runner weighs, the more amortization will be needed.
Another fundamental factor when it comes to the midsole is the distance we are going to travel. The longer the distance, the more we will need amortization to absorb the thousands of impacts with the ground.
So, different types of materials will be more or less soft and offer more or less amortization.
In addition to the type of material used, another element that will determine the amortization capacity of the shoe is the amount of material, and say the thickness of the midsole.
Trail shoe midsole comparison
Attentive! because I am not talking about the drop or differential that we will see later.
A midsole with more material offers greater amortization. But watch out for the patch! because too much material has two negative effects.
The first negative effect is the weight of the shoe. Typically, the compound in the midsole contributes a lot to the weight of the shoe . So the more material we put in, the more the shoe could weigh.
The second negative point of a too high midsole is that it takes us away from the ground and the sensitivity of what we have under our feet is lost
This fact can make shoes with a lot of midsole a bit unstable when supporting the foot, especially on technical routes and can also influence our speed since if we are not well used we will be less precise in the support.
Being taller we will be less stable and basically it will be easier for an ankle to bend and cause a sprain.
Finding the ideal repayment level is very difficult. Moreover, it does not exist, as everything we will see in this article depends on ourselves.
A perfect amortization would be:
An amortization that provides comfort for any distance and weight of the runner, that makes the shoe reactive when we want to run fast, that is flexible, that allows you to feel the ground without protection problems for the footplate ... and that at the same time protect and stabilize the support.
Practically impossible
Here you have a generic summary referring to amortization
- The more the broker weighs, the more amortization will be required
- The longer the career, the more amortization will be required
- More amortization means more comfort
- More amortization means more weight of the shoe
- More amortization due to a high midsole implies greater instability
- More amortization due to a high sole implies more isolation from the ground, or what is the same more protection but less precision in the foot supports.
