Blue Jeans & Running Shoes

 

I love my blue jeans. Blue jeans and a t-shirt are my favorites. Alas, you don’t see me in that attire much. It just doesn’t fit with my lifestyle. Or at least not as much as I would hope it would.

At work, my uniform is khakis and a polo. Every day. (Can you say “boring?”) When I finished physical therapy school, the uniform was etched in stone. White jacket. Dark pants. Shirt with tie. To wear anything else was blasphemy.

Along the way, I abandoned the dress shoes for running shoes. Makes sense, if you think about it. Exercise and an active lifestyle are ingrained in physical therapy. Then I shed the tie and white jacket. To me, a more casual look is more compatible with the work we do of encouraging fitness and healthy choices.

When I visit Nashville for legislative purposes, it’s a suit and bow tie (a Tennessee bow tie, no less). Same for our big national physical therapy meetings. People there don’t recognize me without the bow tie.

So, where am I going with this? Have you checked out sports clothing these days? I guess it started with shoes. I believe that the shoe industry was the first to embrace technology.

There is a local fellow who is a retired UT Professor of Exercise Science, Dr. Ed Howley. At one time, Dr. Howley did research for Nike, at a time when their shoes were taking advantage of the science of running and running shoes.

When I was a teen athlete, there was one athletic shoe—canvas Converse All-Stars. You may not know it, but you’ve seen them around. Kids today have discovered those shoes and wear them all the time. They were as basic as you get and we referred to them as “tennis shoes” or “sneakers.”

About the time I was in high school, Adidas came out with running shoe that by today’s standards was pretty crude. Ronnie McNabb and I bought the first pair of those at the old Athletic House on Gay Street in Knoxville.

Along came Reebok’s aerobics shoes and some shoes made specifically for tennis, then the shoe industry seemed to explode. I remember when Michael Jordan’s basketball shoes came out. Everyone wanted them.

Now, there is a shoe for every sport and every subset of sports. For runners, you’ve got shoes for sprinting, hurdling, jumping, distance running, and everything in between. You’ve got different shoes for discus throwing, depending on which technique you use. Tennis shoes are made to be specific to the surface you’re playing on.

Somewhere along the way, hiking boots were these incredibly stiff shoes, built for rigorous trails. Those sometimes took years to break in. Now we have hiking boots based on running shoe technology that can take you most anywhere you want to go and be comfortable the minute you put them on.

When I first started rock climbing, we climbed in whatever was handy. Now there are shoes for whatever type of climbing you are doing. There seem to be shoes for everything. I can remember when, where, and who was wearing the first set of shoes made specifically for heavy weight lifting.

So how are we to know what shoe to wear? Do we need a different shoe for everything that we do?

No, not really. Most of us aren’t going to run a four minute mile so a good, basic running shoe is all we need. Maybe you need a shoe that works better for your foot or running style, but a good shoe store can help you with that. You can use that shoe every day, for every day activities.

You don’t need boots that allow you to climb Mt. Everest. I’ve seen plenty of people climb Mt. LeConte in running shoes which proves only that you just need a good pair of all-purpose hiking boots to hike almost everything around here. And I wear those to work from time to time.

My shoes supposedly made for tennis aren’t that much different than the running shoes I wear to work. You just need to look at what is comfortable and suited to your abilities.  And no prejudice intended, but if your shoe salesperson doesn’t look like they could do the activity you are buying for, maybe go someplace else.