How to Determine Your Arch Type
When you choose a running shoe, it is important to ensure that the brand adequately supports your feet. A poorly-made or weakly-designed shoe can lead to soreness and misery for casual joggers and aspiring marathon runners alike. Nowhere is the functionality of a shoe more important than in arch support. Bad arch support can hurt your feet and slow your pace, neither of which leads to success in running or cross country. Below, you can find a few steps to determine your arch size and find the shoe that fits you best.
First: Become familiar with the types of arches
In running circles, you find people with many different shapes of foot. All of them can run fast and achieve their fitness goals, as long as their equipment suits their unique body type. The three types of arches that shoemakers see (and subsequently design shoes to fit) are the normal arch, the high arch and the flat arch.
Second: Perform a footprint test
To see your arches, you first need to get outside yourself and take a step back. Whether you use wet sand at the beach or dirt in your backyard, create an impression of your foot. Now examine the impression. If your entire foot is visible, that means you have a flat arch. However, if only the outside edge of your foot is visible, you have a medium arch. Finally, if there is a small line dividing the outside edge of your foot in the impression, this means you have the least-common foot type, a high arch.
Third: Shop accordingly
Now that you know your foot type, you are equipped to seek out shoes that mold to your foot type and give you the support you need.