Air-circulating, shock-absorbing shoe structures

A resilient, shock-absorbing, heel element for a shoe comprising:

• a) a flat connecting layer lying in a plane at an outer surface of the heel element;
• b) a plurality of substantially dome-shaped, hollow protuberances of elastomeric material integral with the flat connecting layer at an opposite outer surface of the heel element and bounding internal air-containing voids extending away from one side of the plane, each protuberance having a transverse dimension;
• and
• c) a channel network formed in the flat connecting layer and extending among the protuberances for establishing an air flow among the voids, the network including a plurality of longitudinal channels linearly extending in mutual parallelism between successive ones of the protuberances along respective rows each extending along a longitudinal direction, and a plurality of transverse channels linearly extending in mutual parallelism between the longitudinal channels along respective columns each extending along a transverse direction which is generally perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, at least some of the longitudinal channels intersecting some of the transverse channels, the successive ones of the protuberances along a respective row being spaced apart by a spacing which is less than said transverse dimension of a respective protuberance to enable the air flow to flow freely among the voids.