Your training is going well. You are injury free. The miles are ramping up nicely. Then without warning, disaster strikes – running blisters on balls of feet ambush you, or edge blisters or toe blisters. They can be extremely painful, affecting your ability to run as fast as you want, or potentially putting you out of action completely. So, what if you could avoid getting blisters in the first place? Read on to find out how to avoid blisters when running.
- How Shoe Size helps to avoid blisters when running
- How good Running Form helps to avoid blisters when running
- How Insoles can contribute to blisters when running
- How using the Lock Lace Method helps to avoid blisters when running
- How Debris can cause blisters when running
- How Poor Shoe Construction can cause blisters when running
- How good Socks help to avoid blisters when running
- How Socks being too tight can cause blisters when running
- How Pre-emptive Taping can help to avoid blisters when running
- How Staying Hydrated can help to avoid blisters when running
- How Lubing Up can help to avoid blisters when running
Blisters come from heat build up due to rubbing of the skin. Here are some strategies to prevent blisters when running by avoiding the heat and the rubbing:
How Shoe Size helps to avoid blisters when running
If you wear running shoes, then getting your running shoe size correct will help prevent blisters. If you are a beginner runner, a decent pair of shoes will make your training more fun. Make sure you get the right size by using a local running speciality store. Ideally you want your toes to be not quite touching the end of the shoe, with enough room to swell up when running. If there is not enough room, your toes will be scrunched up and rub on each other, leading to blisters. However, if your shoes are too big, you are also at risk because the foot may not be held snugly enough by the upper of the shoe, allowing the foot to move around excessively, inside the shoe, while the foot lands on the ground.
The amount of space you need at the end of the shoe varies depending on your shoe size – a smaller foot needs slightly less room to expand into than a large foot. Just under a full thumbnail is a general estimate – if you have smaller feet, you probably have smaller thumbs too! Once in the shoe, lift the heel off the floor, leaving the forefoot planted, as if you were running and you’ll notice the toes move forward into the toe-box slightly. Check the longest toe still has a little room to wiggle and is not touching the end.
If you have very wide feet and are trying to fit into a default width running shoe (“B” for women and “D” for men), you may find you get edge blisters while running, on the edge of the ball of your feet or the edge of the little toe. The foot is hanging over the outside of the shoe and rubbing on the ridge along the edge of the foam. Try a wider fit that some manufacturers offer. Getting these right will help to avoid blisters when running.
How good Running Form helps to avoid blisters when running
Maintaining a good running form will help you avoid blisters when running. Remember how blisters are formed from heat build up due to rubbing? If your running form is poor, you may find you suffer from blisters from “braking” or “scraping”. Braking is when your shoe stops when landing on the ground and the foot keeps going inside the shoe. Scraping is when your shoe is gripping the ground but the foot is pushing behind you with too much power at the end of the step, just before lifting the leg back off the ground.
To understand these two aspects of your running form, find a loose gravel pathway and run along it at a medium pace. Listen to the sound your shoes make on the gravel; feel the sensations too. Ideally, they should make a nice crunching sound, with minimal, or zero, slipping on the gravel. Then try the same at various faster paces and see if anything changes.
If you are Braking, you’ll feel and hear a slipping noise when you land. Often this sort of landing leads to running blisters on balls of feet, or the arch. To prevent it, try increasing your Cadence – a term used to mean the number of steps you take each minute. It is unrelated to speed – imagine running on the spot and you’ll realised that whether you are taking fast steps, or slow steps, you still aren’t moving. If you increase the number of steps you take each minute, whilst keeping your speed the same, you’ll notice your strides become shorter and the point where your shoes land on the ground move closer towards being underneath your body instead of out in front. This results in less Braking. Try the gravel path again to check the movement is gone.
If you are Scraping, you’ll feel and hear slipping noise just before your shoes lift back off the ground at the end of each step. Often this sort of running style leads to running blisters on the toes. To prevent it, you need to avoid pushing behind you too powerfully when you run. This is a difficult concept to grasp so I prefer instead to concentrate on lifting the feet off the ground from the knee, driving the knee up and forwards. You may need to lean very slightly forwards too, from the ankle (not the waist). The sooner you can get the feet back off the ground after the land, the less likely they are to suffer from Scraping blisters. Try the gravel path again to check the movement is gone. Getting these right will help more than just with blisters but also with your running in general, promoting good form.
How Insoles can contribute to blisters when running
Weirdly, new insoles can on rare occasions be the culprit. When you buy new shoes, the insoles are no longer moulded to the shape of your feet like the ones in your old shoes. They can push on the feet in places they aren’t expecting it. It seems inconceivable that such slim slivers of foam can lead to blisters, but many times I’ve seen people put their old insoles back into new shoes and blister issues are suddenly gone. If this solves it for you, the answer is to do short runs with the new insoles, letting them bed in without enough time to cause rubbing and swap to the old insoles temporarily for the longer runs. Or even cut out the arch shape from the insole completely to prevent the blister.
How using the Lock Lace Method helps to avoid blisters when running
Since blisters are caused by heat build up from rubbing, another way to avoid blisters when running is to use the Lock Lace method of lacing your your shoes, which minimises movement of the feet inside the shoes. Most running shoes have an extra, unused, eyelet above all the others that are used in factory-spec. Here’s a video of how to perform the Lock Lace:
How Debris can cause blisters when running
If you get debris inside your shoes, there’s a chance that hard bits will rub against your feet, unsurprisingly causing blisters. The tiniest piece of grit can cause a hot-spot after just ten minutes, so if you feel something, you are going to need to stop and sort it out, especially if there’s a lot left of the run. Sometimes you can even get tiny pieces of stuff caught in between upper layers in the shoes, so you’ll have to work it back towards any entrance it came in. Noticing something like this swiftly will help to avoid blisters when running. This is especially important when trying to avoid blisters during ultrarunning, where the races go on for many hours, giving even small bits of dirt time to become aggravating.
How Poor Shoe Construction can cause blisters when running
Occasionally, brand new shoes can suffer from defects. Perhaps there’s an excess of glue on a weld that has formed a hard blob or a poor stitch is causing a raised point. These will rub your feet and make themselves known. Take them back to the store – manufacturers will be happy sort these sorts of issues out so that you can enjoy the shoe as they were intended to be.
How good Socks help to avoid blisters when running
Decent running socks can help a lot with preventing blisters. There are three ways that they can help.
The first is to limit damp in the socks by allowing moisture to evaporate quickly. Normal cotton socks just hold on to moisture and get more damp while you sweat. Socks made from technical fibres wick the moisture away from your skin, allowing it to evaporate through the shoe. Damp socks do not slide over the skin easily and will rub.
The second is by being generally good at heat management, with thin upper layers to let the heat out whilst still having some cushion underneath for comfort.
The third is that if you get blisters between your toes, you can buy toe socks, with individual compartments for each toe. The layer between each toe will allow them to slide past each other without rubbing.
I’ve tried dual layer socks and they were good in winter, with the layers sliding past each other, allowing the layer contacting the skin to remain fixed in place relative to the skin. However, in the summer, I found the two layers collected heat and I got blisters when I wasn’t expecting it.
How Socks being too tight can cause blisters when running
It might seem bizarre, because socks are often touted as a solution to running blisters, but getting the right size and putting them on right will help avoid blisters when running. If you pull your socks on too tightly, when you put your shoes on, then the socks will become tighter still, possibly leading blisters on the tips of the toes. Leave a bit of play in the sock before donning your shoes. If you socks are too small and you can’t wiggle your toes properly, get bigger ones.
How Pre-emptive Taping can help to avoid blisters when running
If you know there is a spot where you always get a blister on long runs, try taping it with thin, very sticky tape, designed for skin, like KT Tape. Ultra runners will even perform this if they get a hotspot mid-race to prevent it turning into a blister. This tape will take the rubbing instead of the skin, but beware that if not properly applied, it can peel which will mean there’s a loose bit of something in your shoe, which is the opposite of what you need! And sticky edges will attract dirt, so careful in loose conditions that grit doesn’t build up.
How Staying Hydrated can help to avoid blisters when running
You should be doing this anyway, but if you are hydrated, your feet will swell up less while running, so you are less likely to get blisters. Hydration starts the day before a run, not during the run! Make sure you are drinking a normal amount of water daily so that you don’t get dehydrated during your runs.
How Lubing Up can help to avoid blisters when running
The longer duration your runs are, the more likely you are to suffer from blisters. Offset this risk by using applying a slippery, waterproof surface layer. There are various brands that perform this. I’ve used Body Glide. Note that Vaseline is not waterproof and will not last long in the rain or if you sweat a lot. Lube anywhere that you might expect to get a blister (or chaffing if it’s other parts of the body).
Hope that helps!
If this post has helped you and you have friends that run, then please share it with them in case they can avoid blisters when running too. If we forgot anything on the list, then let us know on Facebook so we can add it!
