The Springblade from Adidas

adidas springblade

The Adidas Springblade athletic shoes are quite a different and strange running shoe. It has only been in the market for about a year to varying opinions. The main feature of the Springblade are, as the brand suggests, individual blades that produce a spring action for both cushioning and energy return to move the runner ahead while running. The footwear was developed over the 6 years and had been put through extensive evaluation for the resilience, comfort, and energy in order that the different versions would fit runners of all types. They just do not match all runners and weren’t actually designed for running long distance which is what some of the critics of the shoes have tried to use the shoe for. They are probably more suited to runs on the track or trails, with shorter runs on the road.

There are various types of the Springblade out there. You have the Adidas Springblade Drive that is created to be there all-rounder running shoe form this range. It offers the ESM-mesh technology which is supposed to help improve the breathability as well as comfort while at the same time staying very conforming to the form of the feet. The Drive is suggested to be the best option for those seeking a more all purpose cross-training shoe and simply want one shoe that addresses all of their requirements. The next shoe in the line-up is the Adidas Springblade Razor which is more firm than the Drive so that it supports the foot better in place. It is devised for runners using the track alot more for faster training as opposed to the road. The last shoe in the selection is just called the Springblade. It is considered the workhorse of the Adidas range. The shoe features a tech-fit upper construction that does trade-off some levels of breathability for further flexibility and comfort. An additional different feature of this range is when you order the footwear through the website, you can personalize it by incorporating personalized reaches.

The Accessory Navicular

The accessory navicular is a supplementary bit of bone on the inside of the foot just on top of the mid-foot in the vicinity of its highest part. The bone is included within the tibialis posterior tendon that attaches to the navicular bone towards the top of the mid-foot ( arch ). The additional bone can also be known as the os navicularum or os tibiale externum. This is genetic, so is existing since birth. There are a few different kinds of accessory navicular and the Geist classification is most typically used. This classification divides the accessory navicular into 3 varieties:

Type 1 accessory navicular bone:
This is the classical ‘os tibiale externum’ and make up 30% of the occurrences; it is a 2-3mm sesamoid bone embedded inside the distal area of the tendon with no link to the navicular tuberosity and could be separated from it by up to 5mm

Type 2 accessory navicular bone:
This type makes up 55% of the accessory navicular bones; it’s triangular or heart-shaped and connected to the navicular bone through cartilage. It may well eventually join to the navicular to form one bone.

Type 3 accessory navicular bone:
Prominent navicular tuberosity. This could have been a Type 2 that has fused to the navicular

The typical symptom associated with an accessory navicular is the enlargement on the inside side of the mid-foot ( arch ). Because of the additional bone there, this impacts how well the mid-foot muscles do the job and may lead to a painful foot. Inflexible type shoes, like ice skates, may also be very uncomfortable to use because of the enlarged pronounced bone.

The treatment is geared towards the signs and symptoms. When the flatfoot is an issue, then ice, immobilisation and also pain relief medication may be required to start with. Following that, physical therapy and foot orthotic inserts to aid the foot are used. When the soreness is a result of pressure from the type of shoes which needs to be used, then donut type padding is required to get pressure off the painful region or the shoes might need to be modified.

If these non-surgical therapies fail to reduce the symptoms of the accessory navicular or maybe the issue is an ongoing one, then surgery may be a suitable option. This requires removing the accessory bone and restoring the insertion of the posterior tendon so its function is improved.

Abebe Bikila

Abebe Bikila was a marathon runner from Ethiopia, winning dual Olympic gold medals: Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964. He died in 1973 at the age of forty one from troubles after having a car accident. There’s a arena in Addis Ababa named after him. Google recognized him with one of Google’s doodles on which would have been his 81st birthday on 7 August 2013.

Abebe Bikila

1960 Olympic Marathon in Rome:
Abebe was a last minute substitute in the Ethiopian squad for that Olympics. He had no athletic shoes to run in and Adidas, the official sponsor only had a few pairs left that didn’t fit him, and so he competed in the marathon without running shoes (he previously had been running without running shoes). He won the race in a time of 2hr 15min. After the marathon, responding to an inquiry as to why he ran without shoes, Bikila answered: “I wanted the whole world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism.

1964 Olympic Marathon in Tokyo:
Forty days before the Olympics he was operated on for an serious appendicitis and at one stage it was believed that he would probably struggle to take part. Abebe went on to win this marathon in a world record time of 2hr 12min, being the first runner to win two Olympic marathons. Bikila was using Puma athletic shoes in the race (which he also competed in to finish 5th in the 1963 Boston Marathon).

Abebe is an easy to mild heel striker with some midfoot strikes as well. Despite that, he is not overstriding and did break a world record. Bikila is oftentimes held up by the barefoot running community as a idol for running the marathon without running shoes (as well as other elite athletes). Critics of that like to point out that he did compete faster and break a world record when using running shoes.

As part of Abebe’s legacy, the minimal running shoe maker, Vibram FiveFingers have the Bikila model of their range branded after abebe. Early in 2015, the descendants of Abebe Bikila announced they were beginning a law suit against Vibram for registering the ‘Bikila’ name without authorization.

Enko Running Shoes

The new entrant into the running footwear market is an original shoe from Enko. These new athletic shoes from France were first publicized in late 2014 and produced through a crowd funding project at Indiegogo at the beginning of 2015.

This shoe features mechanical spring loaded pieces that are included in the midsole. This particular design provides the shoe with increased shock absorption as well as energy return. This is advertised to help increase comfort as well as performance. The springs are interchangeable and are calculated depending on the weight of the runner. Calculations supplied by the company claim that the gains provided by the shock absorbers in terms of mechanical energy is somewhere between 6% and 14% based on the pace of the runner.

It’s not at all obvious if the shoe will likely be widely adopted at this point, but some issues have been expressed about the structure and how it might impact the lower limb biomechanics.

Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis is probably the most prevalent condition that impacts the foot. As a result of how frequent it is, there are so many pretending to be “experts” about it on the net providing harmful recommendations on how to deal with this. The typical symptoms of plantar fasciitis are usually soreness under the rearfoot that is more painful when getting up from rest, especially first thing each morning.

Plantar fasciitis is a problem with the plantar fascia (which is a long structure which props up the mid-foot of the feet) when the cumulative load placed on the plantar fascia is higher than what the tissues can take. This means that there are only two important factors that cause plantar fasciitis: the collective force is too high or the tissues are too weak. The load is elevated by body weight, tight leg muscles, activity levels as well as biomechanical reasons. The tissues being too susceptible is due to nutritional issues along with genetic factors.

The reasonable strategy to improve from plantar fasciitis is usually to lessen the stress while increasing the capability of the tissues to accept the load. You reduce the stress by weight loss, using taping as well as foot supports, and stretching out the calf muscles. You increase the ability of the plantar fascia to accept the stress through making sure the dietary status is acceptable and perform progressing loading activities for the plantar fascia. You can’t do anything about the genetics. It really is that simple and there is no need for plantar fasciitis to be a really big issue that it is.

The issue with the cure for plantar fasciitis and all the tips being given on the web for this is that the natural history of plantar fasciitis is to get better without treatment sooner or later. Just check out the placebo groups in the many studies on different treatments for plantar fasciitis; they do improve. Eventually might be a long time and it is painful, so they nonetheless do need to be dealt with rather than wait until it improves. This means that, it doesn’t matter what therapy is used, a particular percent are sure to improve regardless resulting from that natural history. Because of this lousy solutions persist as they all do apparently assist a few, when in reality they didn’t assist any. People who seem to be correctly treated using that treatment are likely to advise that it is very helpful. This also means that the remedies that should be used are those that have been demonstrated to lead to superior results than just the natural history. Because of this we will not get deceived into believing a therapy will work when in fact it might not work any better in comparison to the natural history. We should be cautious taking any recommendations online for virtually any clinical problem.

The Abductory Twist

The abductory twist is an observation which is found during an observation of the walking. Just as the heel starts to unweight or raise up the ground there’s a fast sudden abduction or twist seen of the heel. This is a commonplace finding during a gait evaluation, but its clinical value is of some discussion.

There are a number of reasons for an abductory twist. The first is that because rearfoot is pronating (rolling medially at the rearfoot) this is attempting to internally rotate the leg. Simultaneously the other leg is in the swing period moving forward and is wanting to externally turn the lower limb. The lower limb is ‘battling’ with these two opposite motions. Friction between the floor and the heel holds the heel from moving. The instant weight starts to come off the heel, the external rotation force from above can now abduct the rearfoot and it does so easily. A second explanation is that there is a condition at the great toe joint in which it fails to enable dorsiflexion correctly. This might be a hallux rigidus, a functional hallux limitus or a issue with the windlass mechanism that affects movement at the great toe joint. As this dorsiflexion is difficult to start, the body abducts the heel to maneuver sideways around that joint. Another reason which is often only found in the physical therapy literature is that the problem is as a result of control of motion around the hip joint. In that literature this is described as a medial heel whip.

The cause of debate about the clinical significance of an abductory twist is that it is merely an observation observed when doing a gait assessment that is the result of another thing (for example, the loss of friction with the ground, an issue at the big toe or hallux joint or the hip joint). If it is a problem, then therapy is directed at what is triggering the abductory twist or medial heel whip rather than aimed at the abductory twist itself. The treatment choices to do away with it is going to be very diverse dependent on what is the preferred treatment decision for what’s causing it.