Barefoot and Minimalist Running: The Debate Continues - American Physical Therapy Association

Barefoot TJ

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Conclusion

Barefoot/minimalist running is a popular topic of discussion that is, in reality, not very prevalent among runners. There is little data to support its use as a training tool or treatment for injury. Continued study on the potential risks and benefits of this technique is necessary to determine its usefulness.

That's what we're all about!
More reason than ever to justify the existence of our group and forums.
 
Exactly. We need more...we need to do more.
 
Definitely, someone should study shoes more closely before they become so popular that everyone is using them for no particularly good reason.
Here! Here!
 
That "brochure" clearly dismisses barefoot running, and is a classic example of an opinion piece dressed up with just enough references and numbers thrown in to make it look scientific.
(Full disclosure - I'm a scientist and this is one of my pet peeves).
The facts and figures quoted could just as easily be used to support a pro-barefoot position.

For example, the brochure states:
Interestingly, since the change in shoe construction has changed dramatically over the past 40 years, the rate of injuries among runners has not. It would seem possible that this is due to 2 potential reasons 3:
  1. Shoes are not related to the injuries, or
  2. The features of shoes are addressing the wrong factors.
Their conclusion: These facts should not lead one to believe that no shoes are the answer.

My Conclusion: These facts should make it clear that shoes do nothing to help prevent injury.

And another:
The theory for how barefoot running will prevent injury are based on 2 primary findings:
  1. It reduces impact, and
  2. It reduces the load at the knee.
Both of the above claims presume changes in mechanics occur with barefoot running, that running without shoes should result in a midfoot or forefoot strike pattern, rather than a heel strike gait. However, only 40%-50% of individuals who run barefoot adopt a midfoot or forefoot strike pattern.

My conclusion: Barefoot running is beneficial if one takes the time to learn it properly. If you perform any athletic activity WRONG, you will get hurt. The whole point of barefoot running is to force you to change your stride. Those who don't risk injury. Duh. No barefoot runner ever claimed otherwise. Instead of focusing on the fact that people refuse to learn how to run PROPERLY, the brochure throws out a statistic that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with barefoot running - it describes how many people are too lazy/impatient/uninformed to learn to run properly.

If I read a study that said 40%-50% of people who do bench presses use improper form and some of them get injured, I wouldn't suggest that everyone stop doing bench presses. I would recommend that people learn to do them the right way.
 
My conclusion: Barefoot running is beneficial if one takes the time to learn it properly.

I would modify this slightly: "Barefoot running is beneficial if one takes the time to unlearn shod running properly."

Some of what Dr. Lieberman has shown is that those who grow up (i.e., in Kenya) running barefoot are much more likely to do it properly.
 
Another boner:
"Impact has been associated with stress related injuries to the tibia. By changing the strike pattern, the impact is potentially removed from the lower leg, but those impact forces are likely moved to the foot as a result. In fact, foot stress fractures have been related to increased loads.
While midfoot or forefoot striking reduces the impact forces at the knee, it concurrently increases the demand on the ankle muscles. If the logic is that reducing load in 1 structure will decrease injury, then increasing load in another structure should increase risk of injury. It is yet to be determined if either of these is true."

This person has no concept of whether loading can happen in a functionally correct manner. It's as if all loading is bad. But as Lieberman and others have shown, our legs and feet have in fact evolved to run well, to absorb impact and return energy through elastic recoil. Injuries to barefoot runners happen in transition, when the atrophied muscles, ligaments, tendons and bones that have evolved to absorb impact are not yet sufficiently strong. The knee, on the other hand, was never made to absorb the direct impact forces involved in heel striking while running. Just isn't so.

Another thing with these studies, since minimalist shoes and barefoot are often synonymous, one isn't even sure if they're talking about (habitual) barefoot runners when they say shit like "only 40%-50% of individuals who run barefoot adopt a midfoot or forefoot strike pattern." Could be some rinky dink study where they asked a bunch of recreational runners in college to put on toe shoes while running on a treadmill for 30 minutes.

Like Sid said, it's just useless drivel. People get published in minor online publications and sites by contradicting each other.
 
Another thing with these studies, since minimalist shoes and barefoot are often synonymous, one isn't even sure if they're talking about (habitual) barefoot runners when they say shit like "only 40%-50% of individuals who run barefoot adopt a midfoot or forefoot strike pattern." Could be some rinky dink study where they asked a bunch of recreational runners in college to put on toe shoes while running on a treadmill for 30 minutes.

By the way, Lieberman has a new study out, using the Tarahumara (of whom many are switching to regular running shoes). 30% of the huarache runners heel strike, while 75% of the running shoe runners did so.

From my blog:
Dr. Lieberman, I Presume?
 
So the running world changed their footwear or ditched it completely after McDougal turned us on to the Tarahumara, and now they have adopted advanced civilization's footwear.
Just yesterday I was reading about the native peoples of The Marquesas and how bad they made out once Western Civilization "discovered" them: (from Wikipedia)

Of all major island groups in the Pacific, the Marquesas suffered the greatest population decline from diseases brought by Western explorers. Imported diseases reduced the eighteenth century population of over 78,000 inhabitants, to about 20,000 by the middle of the nineteenth century, and to just over 4,000 by the beginning of the 1900s

Will we send podiatrists to Mexico next to prescribe orthotics to further weaken their fallen arches ? Or just have "wear running shoes for a day" campaigns to raise money and awareness for their plight.

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.....
We got eighty feet of the waterline....nicely makin' way!
 
Seemed a very lightweight article to me, a space filler rather than anything with any useful information in. Poorly written.
There was explosion in the numbers of people who run now compared with in the 1970's and the shoe companies that sprung up to exploit the popularity of that sport.
The people that ran in the early 70's did it to race and compete. Running was regarded as a sport done by loners and weirdos, there were no 'running' shoes,
I ran in plimsolls at school.
I didn't like team sports like football or cricket so I ran, I ran to get out of the school and to get out in the natural world where I could breath.
As I have mentioned before there is a link with modern running shoes and running and it was Gordon Pirie that pointed it out in his book. He tested the early running shoes by Adidas but then they dropped him as they didn't like the answers they were hearing and they went to mechanised testing that simulated running (not very well apparently). He said back in the 80's that the shoes being produced will cause people to run wrongly and injure themselves and he was correct.
He wasn't a barefoot runner but in ran in thin shoes and ran 200 miles per week in training, I would think that guy knows a bit more than the people who were designing running shoes that were more influenced by fashion than practicality.
Those crap running shoes by the mainstream running companies changed me into a heel striker and gave me shin pains for 30 years, thanks for nothing Nike, Brooks, Adidas, Asics.

Neil
 
I would modify this slightly: "Barefoot running is beneficial if one takes the time to unlearn shod running properly."

Some of what Dr. Lieberman has shown is that those who grow up (i.e., in Kenya) running barefoot are much more likely to do it properly.


AMEN! Look at barefoot little kids on a playground (those who are allowed to regularly). They all have nearly identical, graceful, elegant form. No one taught them.
 
Little kids also lift boxes and various things properly without straining their back. It's amazing how much stuff we forget how to do properly as we grow up.
 
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Little kids also lift boxes and various things properly without straining their back. It's amazing how much stuff we forget how to do properly as we grow up.


Sort of. What's odd is that I can't get my kids to squat. My daughter just tips over. She does NOT pick things up properly and always bends at the waist, no abs or glutes involved. She doesn't even seem to understand the concept of a squat. Weird.
 
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Sort of. What's odd is that I can't get my kids to squat. My daughter just tips over. She does NOT pick things up properly and always bends at the waist, no abs or glutes involved. She doesn't even seem to understand the concept of a squat. Weird.
Strange, I've seen videos of children lifting boxes and big toys properly. It was during a security course when I was working at the airport.
 
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I wonder at what age do kids change their instinctual style of movement to all of the "improper" ways?
Last summer my son walked over the gravel in our driveway effortlessly, this summer, at 3 years, 4 months of age, he complains that it hurts. And he's become much more attached to shoe-wearing (http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00427YNTG/ref=twister_B002WWT9RO) since then. Still runs with a natural gait though, shod or bare.
 
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I find it amusing when "researchers" attempt to write about stuff they know nothing about. I agree that it reads like a research paper written by a Freshmen at a State school who is majoring in Accounting.