Footwear: Adding Drop?

I’ve done this on my Lone Peaks, using Superfeet, and it works, but I found that it raised my heel to the point that I was experiencing some slippage. This annoyed me enough that I bought a pair of non-zero drop shoes to add to my rotation.

I’ve torn cartilage in both of my knees but tendon/ligament injuries in both of my ankles have done more to sideline me than knee injuries ever have.

I think these issues are so individual and fact specific, I’d hesitate to recommend what worked for me to anyone else.  I also remember the days of the bro science religion of minimalist shoes being pushed as a universal truth that should be applied to all people.

With that gratuitous preamble out of the way, I always encourage people who are looking to change the drop of their shoe to proceed with caution.  I did so only after consulting a orthopedic surgeon and physical therapist, and later a podiatrist when I re-injured it (don’t wear Chucks to work on a day at work that requires sprinting across rocky terrain).

However you adjust your heel drop, up or down, my only recommendation is to proceed with caution, listen to your body, and back off when your body tells you to.

My initial injury came from wearing a zero drop shoe with no transition period at all, specifically, wearing flip flops on vacations for a week.  The PT said that they called this a cowboy disease in Montana where you have guys who ordinarily wear boots, suddenly change to wearing some sort of zero drop shoe on a long boating weekend at the lake.

The way I transitioned from La Sportiva Wildcats to Altra Lonepeaks took a few weeks.  I wore the Altras one day on week one, two days on week two, etc.  Regardless if you use some sort of insert, if you’re going to lower it at all, come up with a plan to adjust over time.

Best of luck.  Having known people who have ruptured their Achilles, and flirted with it myself, it’s best avoided.  I can speak from experience that wearing a boot for a month + sucks.

My podiatrist gave me a little heel lift thing and I put it in my Timps or my Hokas.

Thanks for the thoughts folks. That’s largely been my experience Ian, regarding the importance of transitioning…been there and back many times now. I’m actually hiking in Salomon Speedcross 5 at 12mm drop right now. Hoping to experiment with adding some lift to open up some other shoe options. I liked the Lone Peak for non-technical hiking and would be happy if I could add some drop.

My podiatrist (you can tell you’re becoming less young when you have a podiatrist) gave me a set of custom orthotics that make hiking much more enjoyable.  Like PaulW, I experience some heel slippage when going up very steep inclines, but the majority of my hiking seems to be on more moderately steep switchbacks so it hasn’t annoyed me enough to take them out.  I’ve carried my stock inserts (which don’t weigh much) on a couple of trips in case I needed to remove my orthotics, but I don’t think I’ll do that any more.

It would seem for a simple heel lift insert, perhaps those silicone (pliable for a little “give“) heel lifters, usually needed to reduce acute Achilles’ tendon issues, would work.

Besides the basic idea, just the simple geometry would slightly lift the heel while keeping the balls and toes relatively lower.