Brooks, who makes popular running shoes, created a “carnival bus” and drove around the country with it visiting Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon expos and running stores to show off their products and to do gait analysis on runners.
This Autumn they stopped in at Maine Running Company where I got an opportunity to see what they were up to.
The bus is pretty neat; after parking, the roof lifts up and reveals an upper deck with a pair of treadmills hooked up to video cameras. They have the runner take off their shoes, and measure the angle from heel to achilles to mid-calf when your foot is at mid-stance.
The lower level had a relatively humorous “museum” that showed the “history” of the running shoe, as though they were ancient relics dug out of the ground and put on display.
I think that they had a few other attractions as well, but even after they were set up I didn’t see anybody promote or make use of them at our local stop.
Here’s a description of the process after I had my own gait analyzed:
Blaine: Hi! I’m here with Alex Feldman, from the Brooks Traveling Circus Bus. So we just did a gait analysis, and he’s going to explain how they do the gait analysis, what they’re looking for, and we’ll see what my feet look like.
Alex: All right! So what we’re watching here is what’s called the gait cycle, and we’re going to watch the 3 basic phases.
There’s contact, mid-stance, and then toe-off.
So we’re going to play it back here.
And what I’m going to do is I’m going to slow it down and pause it right at mid-stance when his foot is flat on the ground, and measure from his achilles down to the base of his heel, and then up through his mid-calf, and then we can better recommend a shoe for him.
All right… so about 177 there. Then we’ll take a look here.
176 there.
So what these numbers mean is anywhere between about 175 and 180 is where we’re typically going to recommend what’s considered a neutral shoe, and then anything below that we’d start getting into support and stability shoes.
So right about 175-176 definitely falls into that neutral category; so like that minimalism kind of stuff: The Green Silence or the T6 Racing Flats I think would be the best bet in the Brooks line.
But the difference between neutral and stability shoes, as you can see, neutral shoes are going to be all white through that mid-sole area, where a stability is going to have that extra great support piece. It’s just the difference in the densities in the foam, and what that’s designed to do is trigger the propriocepters in the feet and prevent the foot from rolling inwards so you have the ability to toe-off straight and evenly.
Now that the final Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon for the year is over (it was in Las Vegas this past weekend) I believe that the bus is done rolling around for the year, but they might start their tour again next year. If not, your local running shop is probably equipped to do a similar gait analysis for you if you’d like to have one done.
Looks like you are in luck…according to the comments on a Facebook photo (this one if you are friends with Alex Feldman, who did the explanation above) the bus is set to travel for another two years.
So, if you can get yourself to a Rock ‘n’ Roll event or to one of their other pitstops next year, you can have it done directly by Brooks.
Brooks, who makes popular running shoes, created a “carnival bus” and drove around the country with it visiting Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon expos and running stores to show off their products and to do gait analysis on runners.
I am SO doing one of these if I get a chance.
Any good running stores in your area?
Yeah, but they all know I’m not really going to buy any shoes…
Looks like you are in luck…according to the comments on a Facebook photo (this one if you are friends with Alex Feldman, who did the explanation above) the bus is set to travel for another two years.
So, if you can get yourself to a Rock ‘n’ Roll event or to one of their other pitstops next year, you can have it done directly by Brooks.
Fantastic! I think we at ProGait should get an open top gait analysis bus to take around the UK!