Referring to one of Max’s previous posts referring to the danger of the wildly swinging pendulum that the fitness industry often gets swept along by may be a good place to start- I think I have become infatuated with the concept of barefoot or ‘minimalist’ running, and can feel my hair start to be swept back as I hold on against the pendulum’s momentum!
The anecdotal evidence from runners who claim to have cured themselves of chronic foot, ankle, lower leg, knee injuries from ditching their shoes is intriguing, but not conclusive.
There is a complete lack of evidence corroborating shoe manufacturers claims that more support and guidance under our feet will reduce injuries and improve performance. Actually wait- I don’t remember those claims being made by shoe companies at all. They often claim their new model is the lightest, or most advanced. But they don’t make claims more specific than that. So where does that message come from? That’s another blog, I have digressed.
The lack of scientific support to, um, support the use of, supportive (sorry) shoes is compelling in itself. The anecdotal evidence from runners who claim to have cured themselves of chronic foot, ankle, lower leg, knee, hip and back injuries from ditching their shoes is intriguing, but not conclusive. So I have decided to do the only thing I could. Conduct my own scientific study!
As with all scientific studies, its flaws must be communicated openly. There are a few. My sample size consists of one, me. There is no control group. There are no blind data gatherers, I am also the data gatherer. So I may not get published in Nature just yet, but its a start.
So the subject: 29y.o. very amateur runner, currently running about 40km per week with an aspiration of completing a 50km run in 15 weeks or so. No significant injuries, but does experience ‘jamming’ of the left talus when running in supportive shoes with orthotics.
My first test was comparing foot strike on a treadmill at 14kph in shoes and barefoot using the time honoured method of ‘listening’, a method preferred by horse trainers the world over.
The sound difference was immense. My heel strike gait in shoes made the sound it always made, barefoot was unbearabley loud and sharp, and quite distressing for other gym users at the time. As you can probably guess, my heel was still striking. Contrary to the theory, I did not automatically adjust my gait to ’protect’ my foot, I just ran the way I always had, or at least had since I started wearing shoes.
I was however, able to cognitively change my gait- softening the noise by pointing my foot more downward on foot strike and effectively foot-striking somewhere around the distal section of metatarsals 3-5. As I did this something encouraging happened.
I started to accelerate into the front guard rail of the treadmill. I was speeding up, and it was happening effortlessly. This alone warrants further inspection.
This did not all happen without consequence however. The following few days I experienced DOMS in my calves of biblical proportions. I had also almost ground the skin under my 3rd to 5th metatarsals almost away to the bone. That is not a surprise, that skin was probably as delicate as tissue paper due to the labour-less life it had led up until this point.
So switching to barefoot isn’t, its seems, a magic bullet. At least not for the participant of my study. But it is an intriguing concept, founded in compelling logic. I am now developing an shoe-barefoot adaptation strategy, that I will elucidate in future editions.
I suspect barefoot running on a treadmill defeats the purpose. Afterall, a treadmill denies the experience of constantly adapting to our environment. Maybe the bumps in an outdoor terrain and our continual adaptation to that environment allows the foot strike to be shared over a wider area? Joint stress and muscle load would, minimally at least, be shared and as variable as the terrain.
I’ve read at lot about barefoot running and planned on turning down the level of support with each of my future shoe purchases, the goal being barefoot (though with some of those really dorky toe sock barefoot wannabe shoes) and windswept, communing with nature and all that jazz. No longer running so I’ll watch this space carefully and live vicariously through you
Hi Annalisa, My original hypothesis was something like, would I start to naturally migrate towards a mid/forefoot strike to protect my naked heel from the severe GRF or would my hard-wired heel strike still dominate? I chose a treadmill to try to account for at least some variables (after all scientific integrity is clearly a priority for me!). I agree that perhaps if I was dodging gumnuts and uneven pavers I may have started to naturally raise up onto the balls of my feet.
The adaptation has been interesting so far- I have been ‘super-setting’ 1 minute of forefoot barefoot treadmill running with 1 minute of barefoot skipping, and also doing my normal whole body resistance circuits in bare feet. I ran the 32km Sea-to-Summit race yesterday in running shoes without my orthotics and my legs ad feet felt great. I also got small blisters under the distal end of my first metatarsals which was a first, with no other blisters to speak of. I usually end up with blisters over most of my foot arch. I found that interesting.