Running barefoot? 18 hours a day? And Native Americans outrunning horses?

Factual Questions
1

As a seasoned runner, I REFUSE to believe this. But one of my friend is trying to convince me to run without shoes since I have to put up with so many injuries.

http://www.runningbarefoot.org/Home.html

So, what’s the Straight Dope on this?

And, in the below chat transcript, who’s the idiot, him or me?
Friend: And knee injuries are developed after a while of running with shoes, yes.
Friend: Heel-first impact is awful.
[…]
Friend: Several guys on that site run 20KM marathons barefoot. And they’re always in better condition than the people with shoes.
Friend: and these are road marathons, too.
Me: well, first of all, humans weren’t made to run, period
Friend: Yes we were
Me: Not 2 hours a day silly :stuck_out_tongue:
Friend: Without cars, our ancestors had to run.
Friend: They were made to run 18 hours a day
Me: we were made to farm and to crouch in bushes chuking spears
Me: Run? from what?
Friend: Heck no, That’s so unnatural.
Friend: Everything. And just to get to places.
[…]
Friend: It’s the shoes and the cars that destroyed human ability to run.

And he went on to claim that Native Americans could outrun horses regularly in mocassions. So

2

Sorry, forgot to finish the last part. So, who’s right, him or me? And what’s the Straight Dope on all of those incredible claims?

3

Once upon a time (before I got old and fat) I used to be a long distance runner. We had a couple of barefoot runners on the track team, although they happened to be sprinters. They weren’t faster or slower than the other members of the track team.

Running barefoot isn’t necessarily better or worse than running with shoes, but you do run the risk of cutting your foot. I’ve never run anywhere where man made objects weren’t occasionally strewn on the ground.

Having a BAD pair of shoes, though, can really cause you some problems. I had to wear a certain brand of shoes, which they stopped making my senior year of high school. I ran the shoes I had until half of the sole came off, literally, in the middle of a cross country meet. I finished the race with half of my shoe going flop flop flop as I ran. Must have been rather comical. Anyway, I went out and reluctantly bought a different brand, and by the end of the season had completely ruined my knees.

If you are getting a lot of injuries, you should look into whether or not you need to change shoes. In a way your friend is right. You’ll run better with no shoes than with bad shoes.

As for humans being made to run, your friend is probably right there too. I’ve read a lot of articles and seen several TV shows that talked about our body build and how it seemed to have evolved for running long distances across the African plains. In short races humans don’t do so well, but in long distances humans do remarkably well compared to other animals.

Indians ran down horses the same way I run down my dogs when they get loose. My dogs (and horses) can run circles around me in a short sprint, but as I chase them, as long as I keep up an even pace, they will exhaust themselves sprinting away, stopping, running around, then sprinting away again. Sure, it takes a while, but eventually the human wins.

4

You may find this interesting:


(warning - PDF)

5

The Tarahumara of Mexico are known for their running abilities. I have heard that they, too, outrun their food.

This article:

ttp://www.mexonline.com/raramuri.htm

states:
“Running is what the Tarahumara may be most legendary for in the world. Relief and various organizations have entered Tarahumara runners into events such as the “Leadville 100-Mile” in Colorado. The runners have surprised many by running in their tire-soled sandals and winning some of the these long distance races.”

6

Abebe Bikila of Ethopia twice won the Olympic marathon running barefoot.

7

Thank you for the answers. Yes, I take my injuries as a sign that I need to wear better shoes, but generally I’ve never known a lifelong long distance runner who didn’t suffer from these injuries. My treadmill is also very poor when it comes to shock absorbing–I don’t have a problem running on my parents’ $3000 treadmill.

However, the whole setup still smells to me.

(1) Are our joints really able to handle long-distance training on pavement? I have no doubt that we’re fine with running on the savannahs of Africa barefoot, but training on pavement all day long?

(2) The paper cited mostly cited games and one unusual tribe, the Tamahura and ultimately did not present a very compelling biological or prehistorical argument that we were made to run all day long. There are plenty of long-lived societies that do not run–well, all people run, but not on a prolonged basis every single day. We need exercise, yes, but most of us generally have done it through farming.

(3) Following up on #3, we hunted the wooly mammoth and many other prehistorical animals to extinction. Wouldn’t that suggest that we were made to hunt, and later on, to farm?

I’m not trying to be argumentative, but this all sounds just so in-credible to me. So is the Tamahura the rule and not the exception?

8

I’ve heard of that too but I always figured that Ethiopia didn’t have pavements to train on but dirt roads or cross-country instead. One-time (or two times) on a hard road isn’t going to hurt you.

9
      • Humans aren’t really built for running at all, sorry. And they only get a little better by practicing at it a lot. The humans that run the best are the ones that are the thinnest-framed and tallest, and those qualities are regional more than they are racial or ethnic. And anyway, humans are predators and it’s the prey species that run the best: witness the Pronghorn deer. They weigh about as much as a smaller adult human, yet can easily “trot” at 20+ mph for several hours at a time and can sprint at 50+ mph for upwards ot twenty minutes. On a plain that is totally flat, a badly spooked Pronghorn will run basically all the way to the horizon– so far that you can no longer see it with the unaided eye. In the northern US plains states, no other animal on Earth can catch them.
        …
  • And by the by, your friend does realize that North American Indians took to horseback riding as soon as horses were introduced, doesn’t he? If they could run better on their own, why would they have bothered? Why would you choose to ride an animal that travelled slower than you could on your own?
    ~
10

DougC, thanks for the input on humans being built for running. Though, I’d have to say that even if Native Americans could outrun horses, they would still take to horseback for the same reason all those lunch hour people would rather idle in the McDonald’s drive thru for 20-30 minutes instead of going in, ordering, and going out all in 5 minutes. :slight_smile:

11

Actually, I’ve always heard that we’re among the finalists of the Earth’s species for protracted long-distance running, and furthermore, that one of our primary hunting adaptations is our propensity for “cursorial hunting”, i.e., running creatures down over time until they are too exhausted to run away, and then administering the coup de grace with our sharpened flintpointed spears.

In all honesty, the horse is one animal I’d really really hate to have to run down, but if there’s a creature that can do it, it’s us.

We aren’t fast but we’re persistent and our stride is about as close to effortless, energy-wise, as any creature can aspire to.

12

Well this is GQ so I’m going to ask for the references that say that humans aren’t built for running. Clearly we are built for running since all physically normal humans can run.

[quote]
And anyway, humans are predators and it’s the prey species that run the best{/quote]]

Best? Best in what way? Over what distances, at what speed and under what circumstances. A cheetah runs better than a pronghorn over short distances, a wolf is better over long distances.

Saying that prey sepcies are the best runners is simply menaingless and clearly untrue. Many predators are the fastest animal over some distances and many prey species will be beaten by the majority of predators over any distance. Occasionally a prey animal will be the fastest animal oover a narrowly defined range but no more often than predators.

I won’t even get ino the problem of differentiating between predator and prey.

And yet amazingly they still get caught and eaten.

Who said they travelled slower? Horses tavel far faster than people over all normal distances. Over ultra-long distances without being allowed to stop for food and under considerable stress a human will run down a horse. Over practial distances, ie less than 100 miles, a horse will always beat ahuman by a good time. Now why would a human want an animal that allows him to run up to 100 miles faster than he could on foot, carry large load and provide protection and manouverability in combat?

13

See Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book Farmer Boy for a story (whether true or not) about an Indian winning a horse race at the County Fair.

I know a girl who went through some kind of Native American initiation camp, where among other things, she said she had learned to see auras, and to run in a special way that made long-distance running easier.

14

A while ago, I asked a similar question in the middle of another thread about man’s ability to outrun a horse. Concensus was that a man in good physical condition can run down a horse, not because he can run faster, but because the man has more endurance, and the horse will begin to have problems with hydration and heat dissapation.

15

The Plains nations took to horseback because they weren’t stupid, not because horses are more efficient than humans, over time. Horses were an additional (handy) sorce of both wealth and food.

IANAhorse breeder, but I do know that one of the most frustrating limitations during the days of the horse and buggy was that the horse must rest frequently. It is the reason that cavalry and cowboys both had to have a “string” of horses so that they could change off to rest the one they’d been riding. Also, think about stagecoaches. They had “stages”, which were stations where the stagecoaches changed horses (same as in Europe). So long as you don’t push them too hard, horses can carry a person or (help) pull a load for a maximum of about four hours. This does not compare with the human capacity to run for more (sometimes much more) than twice that long.

And what several other posters have said, that humans are considered a cursorial species, is absolutely correct. No, not this “supersize” generation. :dubious: But when humans must do it to survive, they do - or the ones who survive do, anyway. But Ma Nature ain’t very sympathetic, so most of us would die (me among them, since arthritis set in), if we had to do such strenuous stuff to survive. But that’s what happened until communities became wealthy enough (in those areas where sufficient resources existed) to support the disabled.

<grump>And Mississippi appears to be trying to go back to “only the strong survive” days.</grump>

16

Tell me more aobout this special running technique.

17

Right. Horses are also handy for carrying loads and it’s simply easier to ride one long distances than walk/run it yourself, although you’d get there faster if you did.

18

There’s so much jumbled misinformation here, that I can’t address them one by one.

First off, almost ALL Kenyans start off their lives running barefoot. They run from home to school (usually an AVERAGE of 4 to 5 miles) Then run home for lunch, then run back to school, then run home and do chores, or if they live on a farm, do farm work. That’s an average of 20 miles a day, every school day. Barefoot.
Running barefoot has numerous benefits. I’ll give you the big 3 that the average American can get out of starting to run barefoot.
1>) it will strengthen the tendons and stabilizer muscles in the feet and ankles. The MAJOR benefit here is that you will never, ever sprain your ankle again. In high school I started running barefoot 1 mile a day (at the end of every 6 mile distance run) I did this for 3 years. To this day, I’ve turned my ankle over in a pot hole to the point that the bottom of my shoe scraped the inside of my leg and I just shook it off and kept running with no damage.
2) It gives you a Much more explosive toe off. IOW, when sprinting, the little flick that your trail leg, foot does is much more powerful. (this is hard to explain to non runners.)
3) It strengthens your calves immensely. I don’t feel like describing why strong calves help running.

One thing the guy in that article said was totally true… heel-toe is not only inefficient and hard on your joints… it’s unnatural. Whenever I would try to convert people to running on their toes, I would take them to a grass lawn or field, and make them run at a near sprint without their shoes. Much to their amazement, they would automatically be up an the balls of their feet. It’s how humans were built to run.

As a disclaimer, I really don’t think a lot of things in that article (which I only skimmed) were a good idea. First, if you’re going to run barefoot at all, ease into it. Like I said, I would only do a mile every other day. And this was on a grass field. Second, running barefoot on roads is a very unnecessary danger. The most obvious reason being glass. And third, he blames shoes, and running improperly, interchangeably. This is stupid. You can learn to run properly AND wear shoes.

As someone pointed out, this is GQ, so I will give my credentials. I have been competing for 13 years as a runner. I trained under a world record holder, and spent 5 years at running camps when I was younger. I’ve trained with some of the best in their fields. The Kenyan info comes from a coach who was allowed to spend 2 weeks with the Kenyan National Cross Country team. He came back to the states, and came to our running camp to tell us essentially why the Kenyans are superior to us in almost every aspect of running, including mentally.
There’s more, but this is a long enough post. Hope it helps

19

A guy I knew in New Mexico, Al Waquie, is a Pueblo Indian who has said that he can outrun a deer. Not speed-wise, but endurance-wise. Apparently he comes from a family of historic Pueblo messengers who used to travel distances - and hunt - this way. He used to win the Empire State Building race every year. There were a number of barefoot runners in the marathon here in Trinidad, and I’ve seen African runners training barefoot in New Mexico. For information on all those variables “barefoot” “18 hours a day” and “Native American,” do a search on Tarahumara Indians. And they do that kicking a wooden ball the whole way.

20

Unfortunately I didn’t ask for details… but from posts subsequent to mine, it looks like running on the balls of the feet might be part of it.