Research on Barefoot Running
Running is a great way to increase fitness and usually the only expense associated with it is a good pair of running shoes. However, lately there has been a lot of media attention being paid to the concept of running without shoes. Despite this attention it is only practiced by a very small minority of runners. There seems to be two groups of people who participate in it. There are those who use some barefoot drills as part of their training routine and there are those who use the whole concept of barefoot running as a philosophy.
It is this later group that make all sorts of extraordinary claims for alleged benefits of running without shoes. There are claims that it strengthens the muscles and expensive running shoes weaken muscles, but there is no evidence to support that. There are claims that there are less injuries in barefoot runners, but there is no evidence to support that. Barefoot runners tend to run more on the forefoot and avoid the heel impacts. The barefoot runners claims that the heel impacts are the cause of most running injuries, but there in not one running injury associated with higher heel impacts.
They also ignore the extra loads that go through the forefoot and Achilles tendon when forefoot striking. There are also claims that the modern running shoe is dangerous and causes a lot of the injuries in runners, but again there is no evidence showing that. There are claims that running shoes are a factor in osteoarthritis, but the evidence is that runners do not get more osteoarthritis than the general population.
There has been a number of research studies that have compared running without shoes to shod running and have also compared heel strike running to forefoot running. All the studies actually showed was that they were different. None of the studies actually showed that one was better than the other. The media and barefoot running community generally misinterpret these studies to state that barefoot running is better. There is probably nothing wrong with running barefoot provided it is done carefully, adapted to slowly and used as part of a balanced training program. Where the problems occur is in the understanding and interpretation of the research.
Podiatry Arena has the latest discussion on the research on barefoot running: Barefoot Running Debate and Barefoot Running
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Tags: running