Barefoot Running vs. Shoes:Lets discuss.

In My Humble Opinion
1

To start, I do not and have never sold running shoes nor have I ever worked for an athletic shoe manufacturer or distributor.
My experience is from being a runner from 1976-2004.
I do currently coach high school cross country/track.

Over the last couple of years. I’ve noticed a sharp rise in the advocacy of barefoot running in the belief that’s it’s better for the feet and that running injuries are caused by, not prevented by, the modern running shoe.

I am firmly of the belief that few runners can tolerate running barefoot and that most running injuries are caused by the wrong shoe or overtraining.
The arguments:
**
Barefoot running is natural. Man evolved running barefoot.**

Man evolved to run barefoot on natural surfaces, not concrete and asphalt.
We don’t know how much running was done, distance, speed or time. Possibly much of the distance was walked, not run.
We don’t know how the runners felt. Maybe it hurt more than we can know.

The modern running shoes weakens the foot and forces it into an unnatural stride. The modern running shoe causes injuries.

I believe one of the reasons so many can run is that running shoes do a fine job of protecting the foot. Injuries are mainly the result of poor/uninformed shoe choice or overwork.
I have known many runners who’s injuries cleared up when they were properly fitted.
Attention to proper running mechanics can result in an efficient stride.
I had no trouble running with a midfoot plant all of my career while wearing shoes.

There have been famous runners who were barefooters.

I can only think of two-Abebe Bikila winner of the Olympic marathon in 1960-barefoot over cobblestones. He repeated his win in 1964 wearing shoes.
Zola Budd-competed mainly in cross country and on the track. While she trained barefoot, no mention is made of the surface.

**Everyone should run barefoot.
**
Maybe some but it needs to be approached with great caution and the odds that a given runner is one of the lucky few is slim.
I tried barefoot running way back in college and lost part of a season due to the resulting injuries. Never ran more than 10 miles a week on grass barefoot and it resulted in hip and knee pain in my right leg.
I ran for 26 years at about 85-40 miles/week with few problems and certainly none that I could attribute to shoes, all were classic overuse injuries.

Further reading on the topic (a fair and balanced one) at the Science Of Sport. Barefoot Running.

2

Sounds like a cogent analysis Pat.

I’d even back it up a bit though and ask where on earth am I meant to go barefoot running? Running down the canal tow path, or round the local woods, in bare feet sounds like a recipe for disaster. Are the barefooters doing it just on the track?

Even if it’s the cats pyjamas it just doesn’t sound that practical.

3

While man survived many millenia without shoes, we also survived without the wheel, without cars and without flying and computers. If we are all going to go running barefoot then why dont we all move back into caves while we are at it?

Have you ever been to the part of the world where Abebe Bikila is from? As for Zola Budd, for all the hype, she never won any Olympic medals.

Let’s also not forget how pleasant it is to step in dogshit, glass, thorns, people’s spit, 200 degree asphalt, and god knows what else is on the ground, in bare feet. There’s a reason shoes were invented.

My theory on Barefoot Running Advocates is that there is a sick agenda behind it: they are weirdo foot fetishists who want to get their rocks off watching people run around with no shoes. I mean, why else would someone spend so much time writing entire books about such a meaningless subject?

They remind me of hemp activists: they claim they want to legalize hemp because of its value for clothing, when in reality, the hidden agenda is that they are pot fiends.

4

What does the data say?

5

If you mean in support of barefooting, there’s not a whole lot beyond anecdotal. It’s a relatively new development as far as being touted as the best way to run.

Check the link at the bottom of my OP. The articles present the pros and cons and latest research far better than I can.

6

I’m not ready to go for real bare foot, but I do enjoy running in Vibram Five Fingers. I’ve never had any problems running in shoes and once I learned to land fore foot/mid foot I’ve never had any problems running in my VFFs. And that comes pretty naturally and quick. I took up running in the VFFs to keep running fresh and try something different.

What do you make of the data that shows cushioned running shoe shod runners have a higher impact than barefoot runners?

Why not go barefoot for real? I don’t want to step on sharp sticks, glass, dog poop, whatever. Why do I run in VFFs? Because I can.

7

Oh God, I hate these “natural” and “evolutionary” arguments made by people who have no idea what they’re talking about.

Bare-hooved running is natural. Horses evolved running without horseshoes. However, we can improve on nature and make the animals more comfortable, less prone to founder, and better able to work. The same can be said for putting shoes on a running human.

When early modern humans were running, they were not doing so for health or recreation. They were in a brutal competition for survival. Evolutionary pressures wouldn’t have selected for comfort or long-term health. Can Bub run faster than Ugh? Yes. Did Bub get the meat while Ugh got eaten by a lion? Yup. Well, Bub gets to go back to the tribe and knock up the cave-ladies. Never mind that his knees will be shot by the time he’s thirty. He’s got a good fifteen years in there to make babies. By the time all of the long-term agonies of running on bare feet start to make themselves known he’ll have already passed on his genes.

8

Point taken, but I think part of the argument for barefoot running is that it’s more anatomically appropriate (not that it’s more comfortable).

The theory goes that shoes increase short-term comfort at the expense of long-term posture (and thus health). I’m not sure if that’s true. Evolution’s role in this argument is mainly that our bodies are adapted to run in a certain way, and shoes may or may not be changing that inappropriately.

Shoes serve two main purposes: Shielding feet from sharp pointy things and changing your stride. The former I don’t think I can go without, but the stride… well, what does the science say? I think the goal of semi-shoes like the FiveFingers is to offer protection without changing evolutionary-adapted stride. Is that a good idea? I don’t know.

FWIW, I LOVE my FiveFingers. Took me two or three weeks to get used to them, but now I don’t ever want to go back to shoes on the trail; the lightness and tactile feedback I get from them are nothing short of revolutionary (or perhaps neo-primitive?). Nonetheless, I still question whether they’re more efficient, healthier, or in any way better aside from my entirely subjective feelings of increased agility.

9

Tarahumara Indians do pretty amazing with those little sandals, but they’re a special case.

10

While I have no doubt they cover enormous distances, I think the speed has been greatly exaggerated.
The Wiki article claims up to 435 miles over 2 days which is 6:30/mile at high altitude and mountain terrain yet when they have entered ultramarathons they have not run that fast nor finished consistently well.

11

I dunno, they kicked ass at Leadville in 1993.

12

There were other races where they recorded DNFs or poor times.
They are very good ultra runners but not the supermen that was the image.

13

Okay, but come on - they run ultras in thin little sandals! :smiley: Sometimes they win! One of them set an 11 year course record! Purely anecdotal and proves nothing, but you’ve got to admit that’s kind of impressive in its own right. I wouldn’t let that be the deciding factor in whether I decided to run barefoot or not (which I do not, I’m strictly shoe), but it’s interesting, and it works for them.

14

I never said it was not impressive. Impresses the hell out of me.

I first heard about them back in the late 70s when I first started running and they were portrayed as supermen, beyond mere mortal ultrarunners.

15

I think that might be partially because they were ahead of the ultra curve. Back when I first heard of them in undergrad as an anthropology major, a marathon runner in class who had not yet heard of ultras flat out told the professor he refused to believe that anyone could run 100 miles or more at a time, and the ethnographer had to be mistaken or lying. As far as he was concerned, it was physically impossible to run that distance. :slight_smile:

16

Without knowing more about Juan Herrera, and taking nothing away from a blazing time, that’s a 25 year old man beating a 34 year old woman by 26 minutes over 18 hours, a 2% difference or about 15-16 seconds per mile faster. I wouldn’t call that an OMG difference.

I’m not particularly convinced about minimalist shoes (barefoot running typically doesn’t actually mean barefoot, it’s generally very light shoes/slippers/Vibrams) at this time. It’s interesting but I’m happy to let others experiment.

I just worked the North Face Endurance Challenge today and I checked in hundreds of runners in the 50M/50K/Marathon events, very few of them were wearing Vibrams or the like. None of the top finishers in the 50M and 50K were wearing them.

17

Unless you’re Zola Budd, keep your shoes on :slight_smile:

18

I’m not accusing anyone here of intentionally doing so, but this topic (in the greater sense; again, not just referring to this thread) is strawmanned all to holy fuck. First of all, “barefooting” was a bad label to slap onto minimalist running, because few if any actually advocate truly bare feet, and the Tarahumara, et al, do not run truly unshod. Sharp rocks/glass/spit/dog poop arguments should have been laid to rest a long time ago.

Second: “Everyone should run barefoot.” I have NEVER seen anyone push this statement, but I’ve seen an awful lot of people rage against it. I think that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. If you grew up wearing and especially running in modern running shoes, then your body probably adapted to them as it grew, and as long as everything is going well, you should probably continue wearing them.

The rest of the arguments are too subtle for me to go into detail on right now, but I will leave with this brief anecdote, which I’ve told here before: I could not run, as an adult, with running shoes. I spent hundreds of dollars on many different pairs, and even had my gait analyzed and got fitted for “the right pair” at an acclaimed running specialty store. I would run 1/4 mile and limp back home in excruciating pain. I worked with a podiatrist for months, got temporary orthotics (which did nothing to help), and was about to be fitted for permanent, $400 orthotics when I decided to give “barefooting” (minimalist running) a chance. I’ve been running pain-free since then, and loving it. It has changed my life.

The fanatics on both sides of this issue (like pretty much every issue) are wrong, but there is more data than Runner Pat is letting on to support the idea that minimalist running is good for you, and some overcushioned modern running shoes can be bad. It’s not hard to find this stuff, just google it if you’re interested; you’ll get more out of it that way than if I go quote mine some links that few if any of you will click on. And ask yourself: which side has billions and billions of dollars on the line, versus the other side that has a few books and magazine articles at stake? Why did my podiatrist get red in the face when I asked him about barefooting? Could it have anything to do with the fact that I decided against the $400 orthotics and haven’t seen him for 3 years now?

19

Cisco, I was not trying to hide anything. That’s why I linked to the series at The Science Of Sport, so everyone could read both sides of the issue.

I have run into advocates of actual barefoot, not minimalist, barefoot running and they do insist that any foot covering is bad and unnatural.

As for the money involved, I noticed that Vibrams cost as much as shoes and authors do want to sell books.

I am not a fanatic but I am quite conservative about new developments. I prefer to take a wait and see approach.

In my experience, I see far fewer injuries caused by shoes than solved by them.

I will say your experience strikes me as unusual though it may be more common than I know about.

20

I have not ran into these people. There is one older guy whose name I can’t remember, who has a small presence online . . . I read an article where Nike gave him a free pair of Frees to review and he talked a bunch of shit about them and said barefoot is the only way to go, blah blah blah. You may be thinking of him. I don’t think he has much of a following, and I don’t recall him insisting that everyone should run barefoot, though he might. Other than that, even Barefoot Ted (probably the most popular “totally barefoot” guy) wears huaraches, Fivefingers, etc. sometimes.

I own a pair of Vibram Fivefingers only because I got them as a gift. I actually think they are grossly overpriced and, although they’re cool, I would never spend that kind of money on them. And I still prefer running in my 6 dollar aquasocks. The VFFs are nice to walk around in, but they give me blisters when I run in them.

If you were a conservative before 1970 you’d be a minimalist. Running shoes haven’t been around very long.

Forums and magazine letter columns are flooded with stories similar to mine. I must insist that if you think my experience is unusual, you haven’t been reading up on this topic very much.