The ASICS Foot ID Test

This past Friday I had the pleasure of visiting the ASICS headquarters in Spain. A few weeks before I had signed up for a running geek dream: the ASICS Foot ID, a 3D scan of my feet and a gait analysis that would give me a complete understanding of the characteristics of my feet and thus help me when it’s time for the next pair of running shoes (which will be road shoes).

The test is part of the ASICS Tech Tour happening right now in different countries in Europe (on top of my head, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). I don’t know if the tour is going to move to other continents (I’d bet it will) but if you’re not living in any of those countries, you still have an opportunity to try this out. The same process is already used in their Tokyo, London and New York stores to hep out customers to better suit their needs. Their New York flagship store (their first stand-alone ASICS retail outlet in the United States) was actually opened just in time for the ING NYC Marathon, so if you happen to walk by midtown Manhattan (51 West 42cd Street) it’s definitely worth the 20 minutes it takes to complete the process.

Based off in Barcelona, their building has a permanent “we’re moving in” feeling, with boxes full of products piled up everywhere. Once there, I was invited to go downstairs where they had the entire system ready for me. I had my fingers crossed as the previous week the machine unexpectedly died and we had to re-schedule.

A trained ASICS staff introduced me to the system. The Foot ID 3D scan utilizes a cross-section of lasers and cameras to measure all aspects of the foot including the arch, bony architecture of the upper, length, width, heel and ball girth. I took shoes and socks off and he put tiny little dots on a few key spots of my feet. I would then stand on a pad located on the scanner. Right foot first, 10 seconds, and left foot afterwards. The information from the scanner was turned into a 3D image on the monitor I had in front of me and all my data was automatically entered into a database and compared to thousands of tests previously run on European runners. I just had to wait for a minute and results came in. No big surprises though. I have pretty standard feet measures, with my left foot a millimeter (less than 0.04 inches) smaller than the right one. My instep heights are greater than the average, something confirmed by the soreness I have when shoelaces are too tight. An unexpected outcome of the scan was a slight over-pronation on my right foot. Though my gait is neutral the 3D model showed a heel slightly leaning towards the inside of the foot (heel in eversion).

Needles to say, this test is great to know more about your feet, but a gait analysis to study the foot motion during normal running is completely essential to determine your running needs. My slight over-pronation, for example, might be increased when running. In this respect, ASICS is preparing a new gait analysis test, available only in Japan for now.

With all that information I was provided by the staff member a recommendation on which shoes will work best for me. Given that I desperately need new road shoes, I was recommend two different models: the GT-2150 and the Gel-Nimbus 11. The first is completely neutral and the second is suited for slightly over-pronators. So, using the coupon I was given (together with a tee, a buff, and other ASICS stuff), I think I’ll soon get myself my first ASICS shoes.

We then chit-chat for a while on various running subjects (did you know that Nike was a former ASICS distributor before they made their own shoes?) before we walked into a show room with all the products which will hit stores in fall 2010. That’s the show room used by retailers to make their picks on which models they will be selling next year, among which there were up to twelve trail models.

All in all, a great experience that I recommend if you happen to live in one of the towns visited by the ASICS Foot ID Tour or close to one of their three retail stores.