Athletic Footwear And Orthoses In Sports Medicine

As the preface to this book tells us, its intent “is to provide a comprehensive resource on athletic footwear and orthoses for the entire sports medicine team, from all backgrounds and training. ” This goal is achieved. The book covers it all, from the complex science that underlies those underlayments found in the athletic shoes of many athletes, the orthosis, to the aim of, as the authors say at the beginning of Chapter 14, Prescribing Athletic Footwear and Orthoses, “maximizing athletic p- formance and minimizing injury through the use of an appropriate prescription for athletic footwear and orthoses. ” To the best of the editors’ knowledge, this is the ?rst book of its type. And the editors, Drs. Matthew Werd and Les Knight, have done an outstanding job in assembling a talented and knowledgeable group of authors for their effort. Speaking as someone who owns a variety of athletic shoes, running, pace wa- ing, cycling, and downhill skiing, and does not take a step in any of them without an orthosis between my foot and the shoe’s insole, I was fascinated to discover how much there is to know and learn about this subject. For example, we learn in some detail the history of the development of the modern running shoe, which devel- ment goes back to the time of the ancient Greeks.