I have based this on converse white leather the premise that, no matter what is being said about technical running footwear, there is no evidence that it really  aint broken, so we will tweak, but no need to fix. The minimalist movement works on the premise that by reducing heel height, i.e. the overall gradient, by maybe 6 mm, it induces a midfoot or even forefoot strike pattern. I have not been able to identify one single piece of credible evidence to support this.. so.. we will stick to our guns. Once more the ether is thick with unsupportable nonsense. pose, chi, toning, barefoot, minimalist& .

Again to Squadrone and Gallozzi, 2009. Running in zero drop Vibram Fivefingers compared to traditional shoes reduces oxygen consumption and reduces ground contact time (which has been shown to be associated with greater speed). Maybe it's not a perfect example, but the claim comme des garcons converse that there is NO evidence is false. We can turn this around and ask for peer reviewed, published evidence of a benefit to running in ASICS shoes. What is the benefit of a 12mm lifted heel? You'll typically hear about reduced Achilles problems, but has this been proven? Richards converse all stars et al., 2008 state that "& the overall impact on injury rates of running in a shoe with an elevated heel remains untested in clinical trials ."

Since we're in the business of asking for peer reviewed, published evidence, I'd ask what the evidence for using arch height to choose a shoe might be? I'd ask whether pronation has been reliably shown as a major cause of running injury that needs to be controlled by a shoe? I'd ask whether ASICS shoes or pronation control devices have been proven to prevent injuries?How about the series of studies off white converse by the military ( Knapik et al., 2009; Knapik et al., 2010b ) which showed that when assigning shoes based upon arch type, recruits (thousands of them were included in these studies) were just as well off being assigned a stability shoe by default as they were being put in the correct type of shoe for their arch type.

So much for that wet test ASICS!When criticizing minimalist advocates for lacking evidence, it seems that the lack of evidence is not so glaring as it is made to seem when you do dig into the literature. Without a doubt, there is some amount of contradiction, which is why this debate gets so heated these days. What's more, some of the evidence that is out there casts serious doubt on the very process that ASICS recommends when it comes to choosing one of their shoes  what could be more fundamental to what a shoe company needs to do than accurately advise its customers on how to choose a shoe?

Let's try this then (questions to follow the colon): 1) What is the average heel lift (defined as the height difference in millimeters converse cdg between the heel and the forefoot) of the top 5 (by quantity) Asics running shoes sold at retail (both online & in stores) in 2010? 2) How many of those top 5 shoes have peer reviewed studies showing their effectiveness at preventing injury or increasing performance? I swear, this whole thing is like a religion discussion where neither side budges because both sides feel they are right. Anyhoo, I don't have a peer reviewed medical journal article to back up what I'm about to write so SB may want to hi hit that little "x" in the top right corner.