Those changes in running form could be expected to increase the risk of running injuries, if they lingered. But that study looked at only one run in each type of shoe. So, for a follow-up study, which was published last year in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers had runners again stride over force plates in neutral and fat shoes, but then also wear the maximalist pair for six weeks of training, before they repeated the testing. As before, the runners tended to impact the ground with greater force and pronate more in the maximal shoes during their first visit to the lab. But those changes in running style did not lessen during the six weeks. In effect, the runners did not adjust to the shoes. They continued to thwack the ground and roll at the ankles a bit more in the stacked-sole shoes than the neutral ones.

Finally, for the most recent, related experiment, which was published in January in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, several of the researchers asked a shoe company (New Balance) to custom-alter a pair of their neutral shoes, removing or adding foam, so that the same model could serve as a minimal, neutral and maximal shoe. These customized shoes would allow the scientists to focus exclusively on the role of cushioning in the runners’ form.

The researchers then rounded up a new group of 20 male and female recreational runners, gave them the custom shoes and repeated the force-plate measurements and motion capture. This time, few of the runners thudded as forcefully in the maximalist shoes, but they continued to pronate more than in the other models.

Taken as a whole, the three experiments suggest that extra cushioning does influence several aspects of how we run, says J.J. Hannigan, now an assistant professor of kinesiology at San Jose State University, who, with his postdoctoral adviser, Christine Pollard, and others at Oregon State, was an author of each of the studies.

In particular, the stacked soles of the maximalist shoes seem to subtly affect balance.

“If you extend a shoe’s height, it will tend to be more unstable,” Dr. Hannigan says, which is likely to increase ankle movement and pronation.

Likewise, he says, extra layers of foam could blunt road feel, which is our bodies’ sense of where the ground is. In that case, our muscles, brains and nervous systems might be less able to precisely coordinate and anticipate footfalls as we clop against the earth.

None of the three studies tracked actual injuries among the runners wearing the maximal or other shoes, though, so the authors cannot say if extra padding contributes to or reduces the chance of getting hurt. They also were not looking at running speed or how runners felt about the fat shoes, which are factors that can matter when choosing a shoe. Dr. Hannigan hopes to look into some of those issues in future studies.

For now, if you are interested in maximal shoes, “visit a running store and try them out before buying,” Dr. Hannigan says, and ease into training with them slowly.