I heard the adds about people running barefoot. I’m sure there is some supporting study about it’s benefits. There may be benefits, I dont know. Have professional runners ever chosen to race in them? If they do race in these shoes, is it only in quirky races where that foot geer is required?
Folks actually running (and winning) marathons barefoot were the inspiration behind the shoes in the first place.
Zola Budd was probably the most well-known high-level barefoot runner; she was the world record-holder in the 5000m, though she may be best-known in the U.S. for being involved in a collision with Mary Decker in the 3000m in the 1984 Olympics.
Parenthetically, and by no means answering the question about professional-level runners: one of my best friends was unable to run for more than about 500m without knee pain. She switched to barefoot running (in which she has a very different stride), and can now run 15K with no pain at all. She’s tried a number of minimalist shoes (including Vibram Five-Fingers), but prefers being barefoot entirely.
I have seen multiple low level competitors in them (especially recently). I did a race yesterday and one of my teammates used a pair. He ran better than he had a few months ago, last time I saw him. When I ran cross-country in high school, we often got in trouble for running barefoot. Our coach swore that we would injure ourselves and not be able to compete, and we couldn’t compete barefoot by state athletic rules in a real competition, but we did it at practices a lot. Several of those guys went on to be college runners, and they continued running barefoot. One of them was my teammate yesterday - he ran barefoot with me in high school, did it when possible in college, and now uses Vibrams after he cut his foot running back in June and got a staph infection.
Brendon
I think the book was called “Born to run”. About a tribe where they run barefoot and my fiancee just finished reading it. It also has a man in it who runs marathons in it who follows this tribe and I think at the end there is a race to see who can win the tribe man who has no gear or the marathon runner with the top gear in the country. I’m looking forward to reading it. But if you go on Amazon there is a million books about running barefoot.
Just think back when you were a kid and you use to be able to walk on rocks and it didn't hurt because you did it all the time but you stopped. I think it is like that once you get use to and you wear your feet down you can. Or if you live in a country where you grew up running like that, living like that then there you go. It could be a fad or it could take off.I’ve also seen people wearing them on Top Shot and that American Ninja Warrior show. Competitors indeed, but perhaps not exactly the type you were referring to.
Of course, back then I weighed about 50 lbs. insteand of my current 160 or so.
Shoes were invented for a reason. It wasn’t like a caveman was sitting around one day and thought “Hmmm. My feet feel great. I can walk anywhere without getting cut, or cold, or stung, or twisting my ankle. I think I’ll invent something to wrap my feet in to ruin a perfect thing.”
So I guess the solution would be to* not* run on anything that can cut or puncture the bottom of your foot. It doesn’t seem like that would pose a problem for professional runners, avoiding streets filled with broken bottles. Or construction sites.
I run fine barefoot, although I typically run in a pair of Plimsoll-like shoes. When I first started jogging, I was fitted for a pair of expensive running shoes and despite giving them the benefit of the doubt for several sessions, I found them to be markedly inferior to running barefoot or in shoes with minimal support. My feet struck the running surface in a manner that was awkward. They were also heavier and required more effort. The might seem like a non-issue to some people, but for me, the weight really starts to become evident when you’ve been running for a few miles.
[quote=“Shark_Sandwich, post:6, topic:596779”]
I’ve also seen people wearing them on Top Shot and that American Ninja Warrior show. [ /QUOTE]I;m re-watching the last season of The Office–Will Ferrell wears them when he’s doing his workout in the “multi-purpose room”.
That’s right. Barefoot is fine for some surfaces. Mankind was able to expand elsewhere through the development of footwear.
Ahem. Abebe Bikila. Bruce Tulloh. Zola Budd already mentioned. Lesser known in the mainstream, but well known to runners: Anton Krupicka, an ultramarathoner.
There are a few semi-professional distance runners that run races in VFFs, but they aren’t that well known outside running. When I ran my first half last year in VFF Bikilas, I saw a handful of others also running the half and full marathons. So, yes, people do race barefoot and in minimalist footwear. In fact, before Nike came along in the 70s, all running shoes were minimalist.
The benefits, as noted in several previous threads, are primarily that minimalist and barefoot running encourages a midfoot strike which greatly reduces impact forces in the joints and allows the foot to absorb shock through natural pronation of the arches of the foot. Also, barefoot running allows proprioceptors in the foot to send information to the brain about the terrain encountered allowing the body to make slight adjustments in stride and contact to alleviate stresses and enhance balance and spring.
By the way - VFF = Vibram five fingers, those are the ‘toe shoes’ that are supposed to be like running barefoot while protecting your feet. (I don’t know if anyone else makes shoes that look that way)
As mentioned, the idea behind barefoot running is you land on the ball of your foot or the midfoot. There are other styles of shoes designed for running this way but obviously the Vibram five fingers are the easiest to notice. There could be plenty of competitors wearing other styles of ‘barefoot running’ (or minimalist) shoes that are not as outrageously styled and easy to notice at a glance. I have also heard that racing flats have very little padding and are close to a minimalist shoe.
Traditional running shoes are designed for landing on your heel so they have a large pad under your heel to reduce the impact. The problem is, due to padding, the heel is typically about 1/2" higher than the ball of your foot in traditional running shoes and this makes a forefoot strike more difficult.
I have seen quite a few competitors in Triathlons and 5k runs wearing VFF and I saw one guy running barefoot in my last 5k. I am not a fast runner by any means and I pass way more people in these shoes than get passed by them. And I beat barefoot guy by quite a bit. Of course these are amateur races.
I am a heavy heel striker and to me it feels right and natural. One claim made by the ‘natural running’ proponents is that if you run barefoot on grass your natural tendency will be to land on your midfoot. For me when I run barefoot on grass I heel strike just like I do with running shoes on. Does anyone know how people who run on soft surfaces barefoot generally land their feet? I am thinking about African tribesman or other people who have never run in shoes.
Kind of answered my own question but they talk about running on a hard surface. Would the typical human running before shoes where invented be running on a hard or soft surface? I don’t think much of the African savanna was paved 10,000 years ago 
but i guess there could be rock and hard packed surfaces that are close to running on pavement?
Even though heel striking feels natural to me I am considering trying a ‘natural running’ style.
To take the other side:
Abebe Bikila, while famous for winning the 1960 Olympic Marathon barefoot, also won in 1964 with a time 3 minutes faster while wearing shoes.
Zola Budd went barefoot while running on the track and cross country races but has stated she wore shoes when training on the road.
Bruce Tulloh, in the article linked above, sadi he wore shoes or not depending on the track.
When I started running in 1976, running shoes were quite minimalist compared to today’s and I had trouble until I got a pair that controlled my over-pronation. I ran for many years averaging 50-70 miles/week with no injuries beyond several sprained ankles while trail running and a single week bout with plantar fasciitis.
I don’t know why you think you need to go back 10,000 years to find examples of minimalist running shoes. “Traditional” running shoes as you know them are only about 40 years old. People have been running a lot longer than that. What were they wearing? If not barefoot, they were wearing a scrap of leather strapped to their feet. The Romans were paving roads way back in 500 B.C. with stone and broken tiles or stones mixed with cement and sand.
Native Americans, such as the Tarahumara, wear huaraches that have been modernized with a scrap of thin rubber replacing the leather soles. The Tarahumara run great distances through canyons of igneous rock formations. Just how soft do you think that is?
IMHO, it’s not the terrain that makes running barefoot difficult for some people, it’s the impact. Your foot is designed to absorb impact through it’s arches and bone structure. The calcaneous (heel) bone and its fat pad are designed to support weight, not absorb impact, so heel striking results in greater impact forces that are transferred to the ankle, knee, and hip joints.
The foot, much like hands, is also designed to send feedback to the brain with a number of proprioceptors that detect pressure and air movement that tells your brain where your body is relative to space. The proprioceptors in your feet work in tandem with the exteroceptors of your eyes to give you a more complete rendering of the terrain you are dealing with. Thick, cushioned shoes eliminate part of that picture. For example, you can see a rocky step in front of you and will adjust your motion and positioning to accommodate that step. As you take that step, the loose terrain shifts beneath your feet and propriceptors in your foot detects this movement and your body adjusts in response to maintain your balance and purchase with the terrain. When you brain doesn’t detect data from the feet, the body overcompensates for the lack of information of unknown variables to keep you upright which means the body will create greater downward forces to maintain stability on a soft, unstable surface.
The gist of this is that less cushion and a more stable landing platform translates to softer landings. Once you’ve reconditioned your body to this type of feedback, you end up running a lot lighter on your feet and your ankle, knee and hip joints no longer take a beating regardless of the type of terrain you run on. Personally, I prefer to avoid running in tall grass and sandy terrain for these reasons. Tall grass eliminates the visual feedback because it masks the uneven aspect of the ground, whereas sand is very unstable which overstresses ligaments. Give me a pair of FiveFingers and an asphalt road and I’ll run comfortably as long as my lungs will allow me.
Fila recently introduced the similar-looking Skele-Toes shoes.
Well, as I noted in the case of my friend, going barefoot / minimalist wasn’t a case of seeking more speed – it was a case of looking for a way that she could run at all without knee pain. From what I’ve read, a lot of the amateur runners who are going to minimalist running are doing so because they believe that traditional running shoes are causing them to run in such a way that they injure themselves.
If it works for you, then it’s natural and right for you, of course.
With all due respect, correlation does not equal causation. Can you say that Abebe Bikila was not in better shape in 1964, the course was not less demanding, the weather was not more favorable? Also, note that marathon records have been getting progressively faster throughout the last century with the greatest improvements happening well before modern trainers were developed in the 70s.
Abebe Bikila, Zola Budd and Bruce Tulloh are notable that they competed barefoot, which is exactly what the OP was asking. Nobody here is suggesting that barefoot is the only way to run, just that it does not prohibit competing at a professional level with at least some measure of success.
I picked 10,000 years because I wanted to pick a time when there where no man made roads or shoes. I am sure there are plenty of times early man had to run on hard surfaces but my question’s where simple - What type of surfuce would early man be running on most often? and How does someone who has never worn shoes typically land their feet when running on a soft surface?
I have heard several proponents of natural running claim it is faster.
I guess go find a national park in its natural state or another area that has been left undeveloped and that’s about what you’d expect to see 10,000 years ago: desert, chapparel, forest, etc.
The link you posted to Professor Liebermans website already answered that question. I didn’t feel it needed any expounding upon. They run the same way a baby runs: on their forefeet or midfoot.
It’s a claim but I’m not aware of any studies that truly back that up. The studies are showing natural running and its shorter strides and midfoot landing is more efficient. I suppose you could extrapolate speed from a more efficient stride, but there are so many factors, I don’t know if they can pinpoint any one factor that makes a runner faster. It’s a decent theory, though, I think.
Well, 10K years ago there certainly were no modern synthetic running shoes, but there certainly were manmade shoes.
Surprisingly, some recent research suggests that back then and even earlier, manmade footwear was already affecting foot development in humans:
Despite what the manufacturers of running shoes (both conventional and “minimalist”) might like you to believe, there isn’t really a sharp binary divide between “natural” and “artificial” footwear or footwear use. All types of footwear (and all types of barefoot pedestrian locomotion, for that matter) affect the feet and the pedestrian’s performance in some way(s) and to some extent. Good running is about finding the type of motion and type of footwear that work best for the individual in question.