08:51

Five-Fingered Flat Running Goodness

1 comments
When I returned from Bolivia in 2008, I wanted to run a 5k. I'd never run one before, but I enjoyed running short distances--mostly because a short distance was a large enough challenge for me. It was a struggle against myself. All summer I got my breathing down and eventually was able to run for about 40 minutes (electing to use time, rather than distance as my measure of performance). Eventually I began using Google maps to track how far I had run, just to make sure I was going about 3 miles.

When the race came in September, I was totally psyched. Running through the normally crowded streets of downtown Providence on a beautiful late summer day, surrounded by like-minded people gave me an incredible high. I broke-out of my group (which started at the back) and finished 2 groups up, with a time of about 32 minutes.

What I didn't realize at the time, but what became apparent many days later when I tried to run again, was that I had been slowly doing damage to an already weak ankle. Four days later when I tried to run I noticed the sharp pains immediately and was forced to stop. When I was able to see a physical therapist, he told me that the combination of flat feet, concrete, and generally pushing it harder than I should have in the race all contributed to this injury and he gave me a number of stretches to do, along with the recommendation of trying arch supports in my sneakers.

Since then, I've taken his advice and my ankles feel better than ever when I run. So I was very surprised to read that there is mounting scientific evidence that running should be performed barefoot and that thick-soled shoes may actually make injuries more likely.

In the Sport Science article "Barefoot Running," Michale Warburton's abstract says it all:

Running barefoot is associated with a substantially lower prevalence of acute injuries of the ankle and chronic injuries of the lower leg in developing countries, but well-designed studies of the effects of barefoot and shod running on injury are lacking. Laboratory studies show that the energy cost of running is reduced by about 4% when the feet are not shod. In spite of these apparent benefits, barefoot running is rare in competition, and there are no published controlled trials of the effects of running barefoot on simulated or real competitive performance.

Read the rest of this article here.

It makes perfect sense why people would buy-in to running shoes. Shoes have protected our feet for thousands of years. Why not use them while running? Running shoes would seem to be a natural evolution in foot protection--comfort and support. But like many inventions of humanity, what would seem to be an improvement on what nature gave us sometimes yields poor results.

Barefoot running has started to gain popularity, and can boasts some hardcore adherents. While I'm not prepared to run the sidewalks of San Diego without shoes, I am very interested in trying the Vibram FiveFingers. These shoes appear to deliver the protection of a shoe without the unnatural soles that have become ubiquitous in modern sporting footwear. And I personally think they look cool... and a bit like hobbit feet, which I must admit I said I wanted when Lord of the Ring was made on the big screen.

Now, I also don't believe in wasting, so I won't be throwing out my old running shoes just yet. But I hope I can test out those weird foot-gloves in the near-future.



Further reading:
Wired.com's barefoot running article
Runners World explores barefoot running
Keith-in-Training blogs about his Vibrams
Video of Parkour, sponsored by Vibram


1 comments:

CareyBee said...

I am oddly attracted to these even though I hate toe socks. I wonder if they would make the arches of my feet hurt less when I run.

24 July, 2009 12:41

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)