Trends and hotspots in running shoe research: a bibliometric study from 2005 to 2024

Running shoes can protect the feet, enhance performance and lower the injury risk during running. While extensive research has been investigated on footwear design and innovation in running, the scientific guideline underlying running shoe research remain inadequately explored and established.

The aims of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of publications in running shoes for identifying research hotspots and future trends. The results from this study can provide valuable references for future studies and contribute to the scientific advancement of running shoe design.

Articles on running shoes were collected and screened from the Web of Science Core Collection database covering the years 2005-2024. After duplicate and irrelevant articles removed, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and R-biblioshiny were used to perform visualized analyses of authors, titles, journals, countries, institutions, keywords, research directions, and cited references. Co-citation maps were created to provide a clear representation of research hotspots and knowledge structures.

A total of 1,576 articles on running shoes were identified across 394 journals spanned 69 countries and 3,599 institutions, with peak publication volume found in 2022. The United States generated the highest number of publications, followed by China and the United Kingdom. The University of Calgary produced the highest publication output. Gu YD was the top author to produce the most publications, while Lieberman DE was identified as the most influential scholar in the field. The Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise have been the most prominent journals in this field. Trend keywords had centered on running injuries (e.g., "barefoot," "ground reaction force," and "injuries") and performance (e.g., "running economy," "performance," and "metabolic cost"), which have been clustered into eight distinct labels.

This is the first study to present bibliometric analysis on running shoes literature over the past 20 years, highlighting the key hotspots and future trends. Overall, the annual publications on running shoes has steadily increased. Current research have focused on the biomechanics and physiological indicators of runners whilst wearing running shoes to explore the associated injury risks and running performance, with particular emphasis on the impact of minimalist shoes.