[tim333]

Not an expert so take this with a pinch of salt but knee injuries seem more common with highly padded footware. With the barefoot type running we evolved for you have to adopt a low impact style. With spongy running shoes you can land anyhow without foot pain but then the shock gets your knees. I wouldn't personally go as far as bare foot or those five finger things but using less padded shoes may reduce the risk of knee issues.

[clarry]

I did a bit of spelunking around about this issue recently and found theories but no evidence to support having more or less padding. The only conclusive result I remember from a study was that barefoot runners experienced more injuries..

[tim333]

Yeah I googled around a bit and found not much evidence. I currently theorise a bit that you can run a little without padding to learn that running style but then go back to normal shoes and try to keep it up. Not quite sure myself.