Baring your sole
By David • Jul 22nd, 2009 • Category: Lead Story •
[Image courtesy: mikebaird] |
Original post by STEVE KILGALLON - Sunday Star Times
Thirty years ago, the modern running shoe was invented. Since then, running-related injuries have risen. And so a growing movement of runners are taking to the streets barefoot.
Perhaps no man has had more positive influence upon running than Arthur Lydiard. Yet you could, perversely, almost blame the Kiwi master-coach for the pernicious rise of the modern, high-technology running shoe even though Lydiard’s cadre of world-class runners trained only in canvas plimsolls.
American Bill Bowerman ran with Lydiard in the early 1970s, and returned home inspired to experiment with his wife’s waffle iron to create the first Nike running shoe. Lydiard was aghast; he thought such footwear would cause injuries and poor technique. And as with so many other things, Lydiard, it appears, was ahead of his time.
Since 2002, the 30th anniversary of the first Nike, and driven by statistics showing an alarming rise in running-related foot, ankle and knee injuries, a fringe community of runners have been rejecting shoes altogether and going barefoot.
Now it threatens to go mainstream, and the mad movement’s reluctant prophet is a very sane running writer, Chris MacDougall, whose story of conversion to barefoot theology makes inspiring reading. His manifesto appears in his new book, Born to Run, in which he writes: “Blaming the running injury epidemic on big, bad Nike seems too easy but that’s OK, because there’s a lot to throw at them”. He says the book sits 13th on the US bestseller lists.
Six months ago, sick of constant muscle soreness in my hips and adductors which stopped me running the big miles I wanted to, I began visiting a sports biomechanist called (ironically) Greg Pain.
Pain, who runs Auckland clinic BioSport, is a running heretic. He thinks 98% of people run wrongly and blames a Western culture which encourages us to take cars, buses and trains and sit at desks when we should be running and walking. He believes it causes us to become unbalanced, with overdeveloped thighs and hips which take on too much work and eventually lead to injury.
He reconstructed my unique running style, which resembled an old lady chasing a bus while carrying four bags of shopping. Now I run straight-backed, with shorter strides, tensing my core muscles, `firing’ my gluteals (bum muscles) and hamstrings to flick my heels behind me to get more kick. I’m faster, more efficient and injury-free.
A lot of what Pain and MacDougall say seems to fit. I threw Born to Run to Pain a fortnight ago. It was his Archimedes in the bathtub moment. “It’s a great book,” he says. “It challenges the way we wear shoes the way we do; even more so, it challenges our lifestyle.” Ten days later, we went barefoot running.
As we trot through central Auckland, Greg spots two blokes looking at us as “if we were idiots”. We pass a woman who gives me the disgusted glance you might cast at someone who allows their dog to foul the pavement and doesn’t pick it up. We may be New Zealand’s early-adopters: I suspect there aren’t many other blokes running around the city without shoes.
But they all laughed when Christopher Columbus said the world was round. This may be the future. It certainly seems to work. It’s amazing how your stride immediately, unconsciously, changes when you run barefoot. It becomes shorter, choppier and lighter: something Pain preaches because it cuts the stress on your feet.
In shoes, you almost always land on your heel, where the manufacturers place the most padding. Barefoot, you land on the natural cushion of your mid-foot. It’s not painful, but you do feel every footfall, and not every surface is created equal: I found the dark asphalt of the road itself the best. In the interests of science, we burst across a muddy park. It’s very tactile: like squeezing jelly between your fingers. I like it. So does Greg.
On the phone from the US, MacDougall explains. “The foot is the greatest disciplinarian. You can’t over-pronate, can’t over-train, can’t over-stride … if you do anything wrong, the foot will tell you `uh uh, don’t do that’. Shoes are like morphine: a sedative that deadens the pain.”
Because the foot tells you how to run, MacDougall says anyone can make the transition within three weeks. He offers a few tips, then adds: “I still feel definitely the student here, not the master; very grudgingly I will give people a couple of pointers. I didn’t feel qualified to at first, but I found it is so easy, there is little to teach.”
The science behind MacDougall’s claims is impressive, led by a Newcastle University (Australia) study which found no evidence-based research to show high-tech running shoes are in any way beneficial.
MacDougall’s thesis boils down to this: the best shoes are the worst (one report suggested you are 123% more likely to sustain injury in more expensive shoes, because they offer too much support); feet like impact (and “it’s preposterous to think that half an inch of rubber is going to make a difference” when 12 times your bodyweight pounds through them); and finally, that humans are designed to run shoeless, and shoes weaken you. He cites one doctor who describes them having the same wasting effect as plaster casts.
Pain says the common ankle, back and knee problems his clients arrive with support these theories and says the shoeless science makes “perfect sense”, although he’d only use barefoot running as a measured part of training.
Born to Run isn’t just an anti-Nike manifesto. It’s also a fantastic tale of a reclusive tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who embark on two-day trail-race adventures wearing home-made leather sandals. It’s the story of how MacDougall and a group of crack ultra-runners tracked them down to engage in an epic desert ultra-race. It’s how the experience changed them all, and how MacDougall learned from them exactly how to run. The Tarahumura, incidentally, are aware of their subsequent impact on the running community, but, says MacDougall, don’t care. “It’s irrelevant to them; like talking about Hollywood to the Amish.”
The most extreme of the book’s ultra-runners is ‘Barefoot’ Ted MacDonald. By email, he says he doesn’t think the movement will threaten the shoe giants. “Threaten, no. Allow 1000 blossoms to bloom, yes. I am not dogmatically barefoot, even though I think it is the best. I have no problem endorsing companies making minimal shoes and not telling me I’m broken by design.”
MacDougall, meanwhile, who ironically only began barefooting after the epic race (pushed into it by a broken toe) is now a devotee. Has it made him a better runner?
“I see it differently than I would’ve a few years ago. If I could do a 3:59:59, instead of a four-hour, marathon, that was better. Now I couldn’t give a shit about that 1sec. Better to me means I don’t ever get hurt, I enjoy it, and I never dread it.”
David is an instigator and barefoot runner since 2002.
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Excellent article. MacDougall’s book, in fact, is how I found your website. Hard to blame Lydiard since he was aghast at what Nike was doing. Hard to blame Bowerman since, as I understand it, he was just trying to make runners faster by increasing their stride. Who I blame is the medical industry that’s still proliferating the myth that barefoot running is evil. Thank god for people like Greg Pain and yourself.
@craig - You’re absolutely right about the med industry. The good news however is that more and more experts within the said industry are admitting (err, stating) the facts as of late. It’s like with everything else these days, the realization that: less is more, organic is best, nature’s design is healthiest, so forth and so on….
I’m with McDougall—I just want to run. I don’t care how fast. I used to run sub-2:00 800 meters, but at 45, after 20 years of achilles tendon pain, I just want to…run! And running barefoot has helped me so much. I ran 6 miles in London today, wearing cheap Target water shoes. I have done a good bit of urban barefooting, but the neighborhood for this London trip is just too…broken glassy.
cheers
I feel really bad, I’m running in a pair of brooks dyad shoes.
screw it, I’ll get as many miles I can get out of this one and then go for a more minimalist shoe.
[...] Yes, I’m becoming a barefoot/minimalist running convert July 30, 2009 Posted by lcookx in Articles, General. trackback Baring your sole [...]
I’ve been barefoot running most of the summer and barefoot hiking and walking for almost a year. The difference is amazing. When I tried running many years ago I could hardly get past a mile without felling horrible. The back pain was simply too much. Now I am 40 and running up to four miles at a time. For me that is something I would never have pictured myself doing a year ago.
For the curious, I run primarily on asphalt. I have run wooded trails, but because it is harder to see the terrain I wear simple water slippers without socks to give myself a little protection without sacrificing the flexibility and sensations I get from barefoot running.
It’s a totally different sport but how about basketball? What would you recommend people who play basketball wear?
hey does anyone want a laugh?
check this out.
http://running.competitor.com/videos/shoe-talk-somnio-running_4268
Total convert—-barefoot running, walking and hiking addict!
I feel great all over.
After reading McDougall’s book, my eyes opened wide open! I started studying tons of information and trying to get my hands around everything! I just purchased my first pair of minimalist shoes (or maybe not) - Nike Free - I love them!
I am starting very slow. Have just started walking around the block around them. Will start a short mile in them this week. My long runs of 6 miles plus in my Nike Frees will have to wait until my feet strengthen!
Thanks for blogs like this, it is very encouraging and I am very hopeful that I can run for years to come injury-free!
I am 29-years-old and I have been running since I was five. In the past two years, I’ve had the most debilitating injuries of my running life. It all started off with a seemingly minor problem (pain) in the tibialis posterior insertion point near the navicular bone (right foot). I spent a few thousand dollars on two different types of custom orthoses and a thousand or so dollars extra to find a shoe that was compatible with the orthoses and my foot.
And after all that time and money, I acquired six (I’m not kidding) additional foot injuries that I genuinely and intuitively believe were caused by the orthoses. So I returned to my podiatrist. Big mistake. She sold me expensive and unwieldy gel heel socks, heel lifts and, wait for it, recommended a different type of custom orthoses. Well, I’d had enough. I was running with shoes, orthoses, gel heel socks and bloody heel lifts. In other words, I was running around with 500g of foreign material on each foot!
But I tried it - I’m open-minded - and the (new) injuries just got worse. Severe pain in my heels (diagnosed as calcaneal bursitis), chronic pain in the dorsal part of my feet, shin splints, pain in my MP joints, frequently twisted ankle (inversion) and the unwelcome return of the initial tibialis posterior injury. But worst of all, I suffered an utter loss of motivation to run.
About six weeks ago I no longer had anything to lose. I bravely (stupidly?) threw away my orthoses and all the other (money-making) shit and began running barefooted. Instantly - once again, I’m not exaggerating - the pain subsided. I could feel it as I ran! It took a few weeks for the dorsal foot pain to subside (it’s still there a bit) but the other injuries just sort of evaporated. I’ve gone from barely being able to run three kilometers per day to going back to running between six and eight kilometers per day. Six kilometers might not sound like much, but the truth is I’m a sprinter by nature and I’ve only been racing in middle distance events for the last ten years.
So, I’ll be honest, I used to like buying a nice-smelling pair of Brooks or Nikes or Asics. It felt good. But I fear that it’s useless and highly counterproductive. I hope I feel the same about barefoot running when I’m 60-years-old. We’ll see.
@Paul, thanks for sharing your (painful) story. I went through a similar situation with my IT band back in 2002. Orthotics, massage, therapy… all BS. FInally after nearly a year of struggle I re(discovered) barefoot running. Nearly eight years laters and I’m injury free. Happy barefoot trails, David.
Great article! I teach a 90 minute class (in Portland, Oregon) on healthy footwear based on the same principles. Here’s my description of what to look for in shoes - if you aren’t ready to go completely barefoot:
Our feet were designed to be barefoot. The modern world isn’t always safe for bare feet, plus our feet are vulnerable from years of wearing shoes. We can have some of the advantages of barefoot walking by choosing footwear that makes sense with how our feet were designed.
These ideas may be very different from what you’ve heard from the shoe industry and from some podiatrists. Please consider these concepts, and experiment with gradually shifting your shoe wardrobe to include more shoes that fit this ideal. You don’t need to throw away any of your shoes, just put some of them in the back of your closet. Also, new shoe purchases need not be expensive. Just keep these principles in mind as you shop.
Qualities of a “Barefoot-Inspired” Shoe:
• Lightweight. A heavy shoe doesn’t allow natural foot and hip motion.
• Flexibility. The closer a walking shoe is to a moccasin or a slipper, the more likely that shoe’s design will allow the joints of the foot and ankle to move naturally and to adapt to the walking surface. Most walking shoes currently available are not flexible. Twist the shoe diagonally to check.
• Less medial arch support. Your arch was designed to support itself, like the Fremont Bridge. When the foot does its own work, it gets stronger.
• Stays on your foot. Gripping or lifting your toes creates malformed toes over years of wearing shoes that don’t stay on your feet, including some flip-flops, clogs, Crocs, and Birkenstocks. Choose a version with a heel strap, or with a design that stays on easily as you walk.
• Protection. This is the primary advantage of shoes over bare feet. Shoes can protect you from sharp objects, debris, rain and cold temperatures.
• Foot shaped. Avoid these three features that stray from natural foot shape:
1. Heel elevation. Soles should be completely flat. Most athletic shoes and sports sandals have a ¾ inch heel. A “negative” heel is also not ideal. Even a small heel contribute to tight calves and hamstrings, and increased heel strike.
2. Toespring. The ends of the toes should be flat and level with the ball of the foot. Athletic shoes commonly have a 15 degree toespring (only in the past decade). You may be able to undo the toe spring by bending the shoe in the other direction for a half hour.
3. Tapered toe boxes. The space at the ends of the toes should be wider than the ball of the foot. Remove the insole and stand on it to see if your toes go over the edge of the insole. Watch for a toe box that narrows too quickly and pulls in the tips of the toes. Same thing for sandal straps that cross the toes.
Commonly we hear of the need for “supportive” shoes. Shoes with more arch support, more padding, or a stiffer footbed may cause you to strike the ground harder, putting you at risk for knee osteoarthritis. The brain expects to feel the impact of your foot against the ground, so if your shoe interferes with that feedback, you will tend to slam your foot into the ground. Studies show increased shock into the knee when wearing motion-controlling sneakers or clogs, but less when barefoot or in flip-flops. Less supportive shoes allow your feet to respond to the ground.
“Now that I have ‘barefoot inspired’ shoes, how should I walk?”
Indigenous peoples who have been barefoot since childhood show us how to walk and run correctly. Allow your foot to stay on the ground longer, rolling through the toes, then swing your leg forward only to the point where it is just a little in front of your body. Contrast this to reaching the foot far in front of the body, striking the heel, and pulling the rest of the body forward. This new stride will be shorter but with a faster cadence. Each step will feel lighter, since it minimizes both the impact and the effort.
Please contact me at 503-230-0087, or see my website http://www.portlandrolfer.com for more information, including a link to a 13-page list of recommended shoe brands and styles with photos.
I didn’t know it, but I’ve been a barefooter all along. I always kicked off my shoes when I got home. And, I wore sandals when I could. It wasn’t until reading Born to Run that I realized I didn’t even need the sandals.
So, here I am at barefootrunner.com, starting my barefoot journey. I believe the theory behind it, from the atrophy argument, to the fact that arches are weakest when force is applied to the bottom.
My feet are as ticklish as Tickle-Me-Elmo, but I can handle heat and rocks fairly well. The other day I experimented with barefoot running on a trail along the American River in Sacramento, CA. I started out walking and realized quicker, lighter steps were less painful than slower, lumbering steps. So, I ran for about 200 yds.
It felt fine. The hot rocks began to blister my feet, but I took it slow to prevent full-on blisters. Also, I’ve had a strained peroneal tendon (runs from the mid-outer part of the foot to up along the ankle), which I got while running with shod feet. Not blaming the shoes, as I think other factors contributed. The point is, I was able to run barefoot a short distance without pain, even while my foot was actually injured.
Now, I’m just itching to get back out there and do some barefoot running, but I really want to let my tendon heal.
@Karin: thanks for the great feedback and comments!
@ Ruben: Congrats on making the transition to barefoot! Just remember to take your time, don’t push it too hard. Enjoy the experiences (the good and the not so good) and remember it’s all about lifelong injury-free prevention. Happy barefoot trails!
I have been running for over a decade and have been plagued with injuries from shin splints (mtss) to lower back pain to IT band issues. About a month ago I read Born to Run and since then I have been in the process of a complete paradigm shift. One by one the dominoes have been falling as my understanding and appreciation of running and running technique unfolds. I have been enjoying running more in the last month than ever in my life. And, injury free, albeit sore in new places.
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Still barefooting. In my 7th month now and feeling great. I have my own little blog. If you are interested, or are a barefoot runner in Middle Tennessee interested in comparing notes, here is my URL:
barefootwill.wordpress.com/
enjoy
will k
I’ve been a barefoot runner for going on 3 years now and it’s been awesome!!!!!!! Right now i have a bruised heel and it seems to take some time for it to go away. I’ve had to cut my running down to make sure it’s going away. Has anyone had this experience and have any suggestions?
Great story. I look forward to more information - good to know how important our feet are.
Thanks
Curtis Maybin
Hi, I thought I’d post a comment and inform you that your web site layout is really screwed up on the Firefox browser. Seems to work fine on Internet Explorer though. Anyways keep up the great work.
hi david. i’m in auckland what are some good places to look for minimal shoes for running in. i am headin down to dunedin soon so ones that may be fit for a slightly colder climate would also be good
@aspiring barefoot : my favorite minimal shoes for pavement running are either Feelmax or Soft Star Mocs; for trail running VFF’s work well - but they’re not perfect. I haven’t tried them yet, but Inov8 focuses on trail shoes as well.
What about people with fallen arches? Is barefoot running good for them or will their arches just fallen further?
@john palmer : I had fallen arches before starting barefoot running 9 years ago. By running without ’support’ it allowed me feet to strengthen and regain some of the arch. That being said, there is no such thing as an optimal arch - your body is the way it is and unless you have major issues it should suit YOU just fine. Stay healthy and walk/run barefoot whenever possible.
I was wondering if you would do a review on these….I recently saw a bunch of choices on these CW-X tights
http://www.eastbay.com/product/model:131321/sku:40879018/CW-X%20Insulator%20Pro%20Tight%20-%20Men%27s?supercat=home&cm=TnDdSPXCAllP&coremetricsDo=true
Running barefoot is the best thing that ever happened to my allegedly fallen-arched, over-pronating/ underprontating feet.
A classmate in law school introduced me to barefoot weight training barefoot several years ago and I made it part of my life. At the time I was in my early thirties and each of my legs had spent several weeks in full-length casts due to broken bones. When I started doing triathlons in the 90’s, I was diagnosed by various by “gait experts” at shoe stores with every impairment imaginable, including “fallen arches,” and I have worn every type & band of corrective shoe on the market.
The result? When I sprained my ankle running at age 31, I wore a brace for a month, and it hurt every time I ran for two years afterward - until i began training barefoot.
I started barefoot running in Canada in the middle of winter, running indoors in sock feet on a treadmill. My first outdoor run came about three months later in water-shoes, and i ditched them at the one-mile mark. We’re fortunate to have a paved running/walking/bike path in our city, and grass alongside it. Either one is comfortable, depending on the temperature.
If you have the opportunity, barefoot is the way to go.
I’ve received a lot of strange looks over the past couple of years and have met with abundant skepticism, but it looks like barefoot running is catching on. Our local newspaper carried a story on the topic and cited your blog earlier this week - this blog is fantastic, i wish I’d known about it sooner, I would have saved some time on learning by trial and error.
@Sean : Congrats and welcome! Thanks for the kind words. A little trial and error is okay too - enjoy the journey, experiment and have fun. Happy barefoot trails, David.