Category Archives: Biomechanics

Pronation Mythology

It gets really scary when you surf around the blogosphere and see how ‘pronation’ and ‘overpronation’ is being pontificated on by pseudo-experts and giving advice when they clearly have no idea what they are talking about. This is very common in the running community and is a flawed basis for the prescription of running shoes. There is so much of what is written about it that is pseudoscience, yet is accepted as fact by those who are not familiar with the whole body of evidence on the topic. There is a lot of cherry picking of flawed studies to make a point and and ignoring of what the more powerful meta-analyses and and systematic reviews are showing.

“Pronation’ and ‘overpronation’ in the running community are probably the most misused and misunderstood terms in relationship to injury and running show prescription. See: The nonsensical understanding of ‘overpronation’.

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The most recent example of this is the recent study that came with a press release that was widely picked up on running websites and forums about ‘busting the pronation myth‘ in which the authors claimed to have shown that pronation was not a risk factor for injury in runners. Those with agendas widely trumpeted that press release and running websites parroted from that press release. There was very little critical appraisal of the actual research that underpinned the press release.

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