Lab Results

Gel insole companies are lying to you

Lately, we’ve been seeing insole brands imitate the impact tests we made famous but using really fragile objects to test against, or actually faking it altogether in efforts to fool consumers. So we sent some of these insoles to a third party lab to measure the literal amount of peak force that passes through the insole into your body in an internationally accepted simulation of running.

Insoles tested:

Results:

Peak Force (Damaging shock energy that enters the body):

  • Z liner: 6599 newtons (worst)
  • Dr. Scholls:  5976 newtons (nearly as bad)
  • FP Insoles: 2500 newtons (far superior)

FP Insoles not only absorbed nearly twice as much peak force as the other insoles, they also deformed less during the moment impact, which makes them a more efficient surface for running.

Now imagine taking 10,000 steps per day, your body will absorb twice as much shock with gel insoles.

To confirm the results, we tested TWO Z liners $29.99 vs. one FP Insoles Kingfoam Elite Hi $32. The peak force of the impact passed right through the Z liners and broke the cinder block.

Nike doesn't come close

ASTM f1614 test measures how much energy is absorbed by Footwear.

By adding an FP Insole to a Nike or wearing an FP Footwear shoe, the shock energy absorption is increased to 90% and lasts the life of the shoe.

FULL LAB TEST

Imagine if Toyota ran an ad showing their Prius beating a Tesla in acceleration. Remind Insoles Inc did just that.

Foreward

It came to our attention that Remind Insoles Inc had released a video
demonstrating how their new impact series insoles outperformed and absorbed more shock than FP Insoles.

In the video they compared their $55 medic elite model to our $32 Kingfoam Elite Hi Profile model. (Why didn’t they at least compare insoles in the same price range? Well it turned out in the end that even our budget $24 insoles beat their $55 insoles.)

Upon seeing the video we knew this was a false claim, misleading at best, as we were very familiar with the material they were using so we ordered some insoles and debunked the video.

THE STUDY:

We sent various insoles to Intertek, the leading Footwear testing company to measure the kN (Kilonewtons) absorbed by the insoles at levels of Joules we determined to simulate the ground reactive forces generated by action sports.

Intertek dropped an anvil representing the heel of the foot onto the heel section of each insole while a force plate below measured the amount of kN transfered into the plate.

It is of note that 2-4 kN is generated while jogging/running and up to 13kN is generated while jumping in place.

Micky Papa's 4 month old insole:

To spice things up, we called Micky Papa and asked him for the insoles out of his shoes. He told us had been using them for 4 months. We made the following video then sent his insoles along with new remind insoles to Intertek.

 

RESULTS:

The lower the kN the more energy absorbed

SUMMARY OF RESULTS:

Get an indepth study of our lab report

FP INSOLES reduced the impact to a similar level as an average human jumping in place, while Remind Insoles Impact line were far inferior in absorbing the impact energy that causes injury. We had to reduce the joules from 37.5 to 25 in order to get the Remind Insole Medic $55 to perform like the used FP Insole did at 37.5 Joules.

It should also be worth noting that the Remind insoles will not maintain the
same level of impact energy absorption after multiple
impacts like the FP Insoles do.

As a reference, running generates 2-4 kN on average while jumping in place
can generate up to 13kN. 6kN is enough to snap a bone by falling directly on the arm, etc.

  • How many consumers bought Remind insoles due to the false/misleading video and claims?
  • Were consumers fooled into paying more for a product that performs less?
  • If consumers knew the actual amount of energy they absorbed would they have purchased them?