ArticleBMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation2025
A potential relationship between soccer shoes and pes cavus: a pilot study.
Article in BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Impact of Football Boot Design on Lower Limb Injury Risk: A Systematic Review.Sports medicine - open · 2026Pooled it
- Functional Design and Clinical Implications of Modern Soccer Footwear: A Comprehensive Narrative Review.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPreventive team testing showed an above-average number of pes cavus among soccer players. This raised the question of whether wearing relatively small soccer shoes - as it is often the case for soccer players - shoes might be responsible and cause a kind of foot compression and a muscular-induced pes cavus.
methodsThis cross-sectional study included 198 male youth and adult soccer players (age: 18.6±5.8 years, height: 176.3±14.8 cm, body mass: 69.9±11.5 kg). The delta between shoe and foot length was compared with arch index (AI) and normalised truncated navicular height (NTNH) and especially for those whose shoes were too small.
resultsThe data confirms that among soccer players, 34% had a pes cavus, only 15% were free of pes planus or pes cavus and 27% wore shoes that were too small. Contrary to the authors hypothesis, the NTNH revealed a general relationship with the delta between foot length and shoe length. Players with shoes that were too small had a significantly higher arch (AI = 0.24) than players with adequate shoe size (AI = 0.25), but on average, the arch was still in the range of a normal foot. No correlation was found between the magnitude of the delta and the AI value for the subgroup of players whose shoes that were too small.
conclusionsThe data confirm the increased prevalence of pes cavus among soccer players, but could not confirm the authors' hypothesis that this may be caused by wearing shoes that are too small.
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Registered trials
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