Hi,

I had a conversation last week that perhaps sounds familiar to you. Another parent asked me whether the type of studs their child uses actually makes any difference to the risk of injury or for their performance. It struck us both that there are a lot of claims regarding this, what shoe to buy, for what kind of surface, for various shapes of feet, that are really quite unsubstantiated (at least that is my experience, but I am probably biased here).

When I got back home I had to go through some of the research published in the area, as I wasn't too sure what it supported other than stud-shape (I'll get back to that).

What I found was... actually quite useful, much more so than I had thought. I'll dive quite deep into several areas below, touching on performance and injury risk on different surfaces.

But if you don't want to know every gritty detail, here is the TL;DR:

(for reference, the very aggressive studs have a 36% higher injury risk and the mildly aggressive studs have a 43% lower injury risk, compare with the non-aggressive studs)

Now for the more gritty details.

The type of playing surface matters for injury risk in general (worn out artificial pitches are a culprit here). And, what kind of stud design the shot has influences both injury risk and performance on the different kinds of surfaces.

Natural grass is loose, and the soil can act as a soft of "fuse" to give way when the pivoting forces get high enough. This allows the foot to slip, so that the foot moves, and not the ankle or the knee, which isn't really meant to be moved in those pivoting/rotational directions.

When paired with a mildly aggressive stud pattern, this is the sweet-spot in terms of performance and injury risk. A fully-bladed or chevroned stud design significantly increases the traction, which means your child likely will be faster in a full sprint from a stand-still. But, that significantly increased traction also means they are far more likely to become "stuck" in the ground, and that the studs actually hold the soil in place so it can't function as that "fuse". That's when the ligament injuries happen.

If your child instead has what is now considered "old-school", round studs, they can get good traction on some surfaces, but they are more likely to experience slight slipping which increases the risk of muscle strains (particularly hamstring strains). On the flip-side, they are far less likely to get stuck, so this stud-design is significantly less likely to be the cause of ankle- or knee ligament tears.

On artificial grass, particularly older, worn, surfaces, the story changes somewhat. Here, the "regular" studs (as exemplified in the image above) are no longer the best option. And that holds true both from a performance-, and an injury risk point of view.

The longer studs either don't get a big enough contact patch with the surface, thus causing much more slipping than necessary, or they get stuck. Because artificial grass doesn't give way, it doesn't have that in-built "fuse" like natural grass has, what gives is now the ankle or the knee, not the playing surface. And that can result in a devastating injury that for too many, means the end of their football career (speaking from experience myself...).

So if your child is playing on artificial grass surfaces, they really, really would benefit from having football shoes that have a stud pattern designed for that kind of surface. They generally have shorter, and much more numerous studs/contact points. That way, they not only perform better because they don't run around looking like they're ice-skating, but they also don't get stuck and tear their ACLs.

The number of studs have a big impact on performance and injury risk, as you probably gathered from above. But, as always, it depends on the situation they are used in. And fewer, or more studs, are not necessarily better.

Fewer (less than 11) cause higher pressure in the areas of the foot where they are placed.

And the same actually goes with more (13+ studs). When peppering the shoe with studs, they have to go where the foot isn't really adapted to have pressure put underneath it. And this mismatch in where the pressure is, and what the foot is naturally adapted to tolerate, is a big cause of this:

Metatarsal fractures. Specifically, 5th metatarsal fractures, which is the small bone on the very outside of the foot leading out to the smallest toe. When we look at the research data globally, football accounts for nearly 40% of all 5th metatarsal fractures in all sports, so it's not a tiny concern either.

Lucky for us, the injury risk and the comfort-level of the player is highly correlated. Meaning that if your child is comfortable in their shoes, and the studs are matched to the playing surface, you can be pretty certain that you have done all you can to give them the best possible platform to play on.

For girls specifically: There is one thing that specifically concerns female players, that you probably should take into account. Now, the above still holds true: 1. comfortable shoes before everything else and 2. matching the stud pattern to the surface. The issue is that when trying on shoes in a store, it's hard to get a good feel for the fit when doing hard cutting, decelerating or accelerating like in a real match. And for girls, this is doubly challenging because a lot, most in fact, of the shoes are designed with a boy's or a man's foot in mind. The problem is that a female heel and mid foot is slightly narrower, which can cause girls to "slide" around inside the shoe.

That becomes a problem further up the leg, because they have to "hold on" to their shoes more than boys. And it could (no certain data on this as of now) be at least one of the reasons for why girls are at such a higher risk (2-8x) of tearing their ACL.

So if you are in a position to be able to choose a female-designed shoe for your girl, please see if it fits better and is more comfortable than the "standard" shoe. And obviously, if the "standard" shoe is more comfortable, choose that one!

Heel pain: Sometimes, heel pain is caused by forces from the calf applied on the heel which over time have been greater than what the tendon, or the bone where the tendon is attached, can adapt to. This obviously should be diagnosed by a certified healthcare provider. But one thing you can do to help your child is to use either a soft heel-insert that raises the heel's position in relation to the shoe, or to have your child use shoes that (still are comfortable and matched to the playing surface) don't have a negative heel-drop (heel-drop is when the heel is lower than the toes, which can be great for some, but in this specific situation may not be beneficial in the short term).

I know this was a slightly longer email. Let me know what you think of the longer vs normally shorter format, and please let me know if you have any questions about football shoes that I haven't answered here! Just hit reply to this email.

Best,

Hans Martin

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