I run barefoot. Started 3 years ago. I run ultramarathons, and had developed bad runner’s knee and an knifelike intermittent pain in my arch and ouside ball of the foot.
I read about this guy, barefoot Ted who had similar problems, blamed the shoes and tried barefooting it with positive results.
If you put your arm in an immobilized cast it gets weaker. Why would we think immobilizing and cushioning the foot would help it?
So, I tried running on the treadmill in my socks. Quite painful at first, especially in the calves.
Took a long time to get used to it, and build up to even 2 miles.
The foot and knee pain disapeared. My feet shrank from 12.5s to 11.5s as my arches rose. My pinkie toes which had been rolling sideways perrmanently so I was running on the nail straightened out.
About a year and a half ago I bought some vibram fivefingers and do about half my training miles in those. The rest of the time I run in very minimalist “flats.”
Threw away my orthotics and expensive heavily padded running shoes. Turns out they were the cause of the problem.
Preposterous or not, I run “barefoot” about 25 miles a week and minimalist another 25. Have for almost 3 years, so there.
I seem to have lost the track of where this affects health care reform. Is Obama going to give us all sneakers, and make us run marathons? I fear this may conflict with my own intensive regimen of resting and napping.
I suppose its all right for them what likes it. Seems like motorcycyle riding to me, if its so damn much fun, how come they’re never smiling? The faces don’t reflect a bountiful joy at good health, but a stern duty performed, as though one’s first heart attack is but twenty yards behind, and gaining, gaining…
My instinct is to recommend exercise that is fun, that brings joy, there is no actual advantage in being tired. This is all a plot by masochists to convince themselves that theirs is the path of virtue. There is an unfortunate streak of Calvinism in human nature, that whispers to us that suffering is good, but it is not.
Live well, and if you live long, so much the better. But live well.
I think it says something good. The idea that we should pay money to debunk an argument where all of the others cites seem pretty suspect is kinda crazy.
But in fact he’s a Yale Professor, and an acknowledged expert in the interactions of complex systems. His book effected a major change in airline crew training. Probably I’m not representing a complex book completely in a couple of paragraphs.
You said that. You showed a source that you said demonstrated that the percentage of mechanical failures had not gone up when in acuality it increased by 8% in the last decade.
Similarly, the greater increase in technology to protect and cushion our feet is resulting in more injury.
Sometimes these things require more than just a quick internet browsing to arrive at a valid conclusion. If it sparks your interest read the books I’ve mentioned and decide for yourself.
Ok, you get it. Obviously a foot flexes more. Obviously a foot moves more. However the physical load bearing properties of the arch are consistent from stone bridge to foot. It’s just a matter of degree.
As I have pointed out before that “Leonardo Bridge” is not Leonardo’s design. It’s a footbridge. The interior arches aren’t so much structural as aesthetic. They are inspired by Leonardo’s design. To see Leonardo’s actual design you need to look at the painting that I showed on my link.
Are you referring to Laurence Gonzales? He once was an adjunct lecturer of writing at Northwestern. I don’t see anything in his biography about being a professor at Yale or an acknowledged expert in complex systems.
Which is holding up from underneath, which is pushing up. You’re making a distinction without a difference.
I don’t know about the inflexible surface part, but I agree with the footwear part.
My orthotics certainly weren’t low cost, nor were the shoes, nor were they effective. The shoes caused the problem. The orthotics excacerbated it. Because supporting an arch from underneath is stupid
The podiatrists do not know what they are talking about. My story is a very common one. I run ultramarathons, marathons, and log 2,000-3,000 miles running every year. I use my feet and knees and my ankles hard.
Attempting to solve a problem that was created by two much cushioning and support by adding more cushioning and support is nonsensical.
That’s is the problem. A natural running gait is not to land on the heel bone, as you describe. It is only possible to run that way with an extreme amount of cushioning. Try it barefoot sometime, and see what happens the first time you land on a stone. We evolved to land midsole, not heel. We evolved to land with flexed knees not extended.
The guy that started Nike figured if he could extend the natural stride an inch or two that would make people faster so in the early 70s he designed a shoe with a big cushioned heel which has been fucking people up for almost 40 years.
Your model is flat out wrong, because we did not evolve to land on our heels, and our feet and joints and cartilage are not equipped to handle the shock of doing so. No amount of support from underneath changes that. It just reinforces and increases the ongoing damage from the unnatural stride.
True, but I do run about 2500 miles a year on my feet, which gives me loads of practical experience concerning the hazards of badly designed footwear and orthotics.
I run barefoot on cement so I’m not so sure about the surface being the problem. badly designed shoes sure are a problem. The problem with the design is the cushioning and the support. Adding more of that is not likely to help.
There are three arches. The one shallow main arch, and the two steep lateral ones. Those three actually form a single arch which is unsupported. In that design there is nothing pushing up from underneath.
I apologize for not explaining it well, but look at it and see if you can see what I mean.
Oh, I think that you’re really doing swell in this thread without my help. I do think it’s legitimate to ask which of the various subjects in this thread the debate is supposed to focus on. Nikes? Health care reform? Arches? Remote tribes of superhealthy runners who die at 45? Airplane safety features? Your remarkable running habits and preferences?
In the other thread, uh, you called me out in your OP, genius. You may have reasonably predicted I’d respond there.
