Wearing boots to protect your ankles is a myth. I’ve heard this said many times and I want to add my thoughts to the fray. Can I first of all make a plea for the poor old myth which has been much maligned in more recent years. It is not really correct to use the word myth if you mean something is a lie or is wrong. Anyway, back to the discussion.

I think saying that boots are a myth is a myth – oh, sorry I meant to say wrong – for one thing the argument really defeats itself – bear with me and I will try to explain. It seems to me the argument that boots are a myth goes like this:

1. There is lots of research which proves that boots are no better than shoes for protecting your ankles
2. Shoes protect your ankles better than boots because you are more careful about how you walk in shoes
3. I’ve never turned my ankle in shoes so they must be better
4. The research and personal experience demonstrates that shoes are better than boots
5. Conclusion: boots do not protect your ankles better than shoes

Just in case you don’t read much further let me make it clear that I think this is wrong. Boots do help protect ankles.

Let us start with number 1. The research.

The claim is made that there is a stack of scientific research that tells us boots are no better than shoes but this is simply not true. There are one or two studies – as far as I can find – that suggest boots offer no help in protecting ankles. Just as there are also some studies that show boots do protect your ankles. However, the actual studies are generally inconclusive which means they don’t offer an answer either way – this means that we have to turn to other ways of finding the answer. An inconclusive study does not mean that a shoe is as good for protecting an ankle it means the study is inconclusive – e.g. there is no answer in the study – inconclusive means inconclusive. Of course, most folk only ever read the conclusion of the person doing the research and not the actual research itself. The truth is that there are no studies on hiking boots and walkers.

Then again I must ask if it would ever be possible to prove this either way anyway. A turned ankle is an accident and you can’t replicate an accident in enough detail to make a conclusion. The number of factors involved when someone has an accident – like turning your ankle – is mind boggling and it is beyond anyones capabilities to replicate it. After all we would have to ask a bunch of volunteers to have an accident and risk a serious ankle injury – how could you do that? And just the process of asking them would mean that the study would be tainted. There are some things that science just cannot help us with and this is one of the things.

I’m afraid we can’t appeal to the studies to resolve this question.

What about number 2

It seems to me that this is exactly where the argument defeats itself. Saying that ankles are better protected in shoes because when you take away the protection of the boot it makes you more careful is an admission that the boot does actually protect the ankle. Taking away the boot, it is claimed, means that your brain then adjusts to make sure you are more careful. But why would the brain make you more careful if the boot offered no protection? It is not good enough to say this is because your brain just perceives it is protective when it actually isn’t because once again you could never prove that. It could be that you have heard it said so many times that you have believed it but experience would tell your brain otherwise. If walking in boots had no protective effect then you would be just as likely to turn your ankle and so your brain would subconsciously make the adjustment anyway – subconscious brains it seems are often cleverer than normal thinking brains. This argument is more an argument for wearing boots on the hills than one against it.

There is then talk about boots weakening your ankles and I might concede that point if the walker only ever wore boots but surely most of us wear shoes/sandals the rest of the time.

Number 3 concerns anecdotal evidence

It is always hard to refute personal experience and I can’t deny what some people have claimed namely that they find they are better off in shoes than boots. However, my own experience is far from that. I have tried walking moorland and paths in shoes instead of boots and find quite the opposite in that I was much more prone to ankle turning and found the lack of foot protection and stiffness to be exhausting. Is my experience less valid than someone else’s? Or theirs than mine?

Of course there is great danger in personal experience. I might walk for years and only ever walk in good weather and conclude that my flimsy rain coat was just as good for the moors as a more expensive one only to find I finally go out in bad weather and on this one occasion when the heavens open I get into trouble and my life is threatened.

I might conclude that I can walk without a torch because I only ever walk in the day to find myself delayed by bad weather and lost on the moors.

I might conclude I don’t need to bother with a first aid kit or a shelter or emergency rations etc on the same basis. There is a lot of kit I carry each time for my own (and others) safety that I never make use of but I know there may one day be a time that I do.

Because someone wears shoes and it is their experience that they have never turned an ankle does not mean they never will.

I think it requires us to be smarter than our personal experience and think through the implications.

So I think the conclusion (4) is not made.

There are other factors we should also consider.

I want to add in the bio-mechanical studies. That is the studies made of the mechanics of walking and footwear designed around those studies. Most of these recommend some kind of ankle bracing to protect the ankle.

I also want to suggest that when someone injures an ankle they are put in a boot to protect the ankle.

I also want to point to the many netball and basketball players who wear ankle bracing and strapping because they need some kind of ankle protection.

No doubt the sceptics will want to say that this is not the same and I agree (though it didn’t seem to bother them when they appealed to the studies) but am simply making the point that something around the ankle is always the way we approach ankle protection and to suggest that not having something around your ankle is more protective is, to be honest, kind of silly.

I also want to turn to the past here. The walking boot developed after a lot of people tried all kinds of footwear out in the hills and concluded that boots were the best option. I, probably like you, have seen old pictures of hill walkers in shoes but we eventually concluded boots were the best option. Boots are more expensive and heavier so why go for them if you don’t need them. You don’t need a study to tell us that it is better to have lighter footwear (though some people seem to think we do) but in the past the protection of the foot was put above the lightness of the footwear. Today we can make lighter protective boots but there is still some requirement to carry something heavier in the interests of protection. I don’t subscribe to the idea that our ancestors were a bit thick and fell for every little thing anyone told them – most of our thinking today is based on philosophy and logic developed by these thick ancestors – there is actually an awful lot of wisdom in the past if we bother to look for it. I fear we are actually living in the dumbest time in history – that is a subject for another time perhaps. Anyway, our ancestors came to the conclusion that boots were the thing and to overturn this requires a great deal more than a few inconclusive studies.

Some have suggested that there is a conspiracy by boot manufacturers to keep us all using boots but others have pointed out that much of this discussion started, and the research emerged, when the popular shoe manufactures started selling trekking shoes and maybe we are victims of the shoe manufacturers marketing. I’m not someone who subscribes to conspiracy theories but you can easily make a case either way should you wish to.

In conclusion then

I think boots do offer some ankle protection. In this case what seems to make sense actually does. I also think it is irresponsible for anyone to suggest that this is a lie – at the very best you can only claim that in your opinion shoes are OK on the hills. Of course, a very soft boot is not going to help you and neither is a boot that is loosely laced. If you choose – as an experienced walker – to take the risk with your ankles and wear shoes that is entirely your own choice but it is very irresponsible to encourage young people and those starting the sport to do the same. It is also – in my opinion – irresponsible to go walking with a group of other people if you choose to take such risks. You are then putting the safety of others at risk – not just your own.

It is still true that the biggest cause of mountain rescue call out is lower leg injury (often a turned ankle). We should do everything we can to protect our ankles on the hills. We will not be able to protect them 100% but the best form of protection for an ankle is a boot.

photo credit: 061/365 – It Was Twenty Years Ago Today via photopin (license)