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Barefoot Road Running Bucks Runner Shoe Culture

Mar 22, 2010, 5:20 PM UTC

Running culture fetishizes shoes more so than any other in sports, save basketball. Venture into a specialty running store and you’ll likely have a customer rep scanning your stride for seemingly bizarre things like pronation and supination. These terms have to do with how your foot strikes the ground when you run and they factor heavily into selecting which type of running shoe best suits you.â†µâ†µIn fact, finding the right shoe is given such intense concern that one might think their foot would fall off if they tried to do a 5K in the wrong pair. Such shoe evangelists would then be shocked to learn that a burgeoning trend in running is going “barefoot”. That is, wearing an extremely thin-soled shoe that provides only protection against rocks and glass while simulating the experience of going bare.â†µ

â†µâ†µOf course, there are those who rhapsodize that barefoot running is the most pure and what nature intended and other such gushing statements. Still, whether or not that is true, people have been conditioned to use shoes for quite a while now, so doctors would caution even veteran runners to phase into the barefoot phenomenon gradually. â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥“Someone who has run their whole life in a sort of hind-foot manner and quickly changes to a forefoot manner, may quickly develop pain in the foot. The bio-mechanics are completely different,” [Orthopedic surgeon Dr. David P. Magit] said.â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Magit said runners with sneakers typically land on their heel, transition to the hindfoot, then to the midfoot and finally to the forefoot.â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥With barefoot running, he said that process is reversed and different muscles are used.â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“Instead of the force being transmitted to the heel bone, in the forefoot, force is being transmitted to the muscles of the leg. Runners can become much more fatigued a lot earlier in their running distances because those muscles are not built up and strong enough,” he said.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µIn a way, it’s almost as though someone tried to walk around on all fours for an extended period of time. That’s admittedly an extreme example, as evolution hasn’t removed the muscles that would be used for barefoot running. But modern society doesn’t give us as many opportunities to hone them, either.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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