3 ms·

> ankle support I'm hesitant to get into the full holy war here, but at a minimum you should be aware that this is a hotly debated topic: https://outdoors.stac

> ankle support I'm hesitant to get into the full holy war here, but at a minimum you should be aware that this is a hotly debated topic: https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/13910/is-ankle-support-a-myth https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/13910/is-ankle-... At any rate, I backpack and trail run high triple/low four digit miles per year in the pnw and am 1000% on the fuck boots train. At this point the vast majority of thru hikers advocate trail runners of some form, which isn't exactly new: Ray Jardine has been saying sneakers or barefoot since what, the 90s? Boots are nice for keeping crap off of your ankles in dense terrain, but the biomechanical ankle support thing is dubious.

Fricken 3y ago
Hey, the same Ray Jardine that changed rock climbing with his invention of the spring loaded camming device. What a guy, I had no idea his influence reached beyond the world of climbing.
leetrout 3y ago
I think biology has a lot to do with it. I pronate and seem to have weak ankles naturally and boots provide and immense amount of support on uneven terrain that I would not be able to get otherwise. I can see some level of athleticism overcoming this but I would expect a large portion of people to receive the same benefits (assuming they laced them all the way up, etc). For long distance and/or easy, clear trails I can see trail runners being great. I did all my hiking in college with sneakers of some sort and wanted boots quiet often in the mountains of east tn. But these were on clearly marked trails not necessarily clear trails. I did all my hiking in scouts with boots and my time in the fire service with boots (for obvious reasons) so perhaps I just developed a tolerance for boots.