fitbody Barefootin’Let Feet Go Naked and Natural by Jason Robillard M
any folks, like me, started barefoot running on a whim. In 2005, I was just an aspiring
runner searching for some method to escape chronic injuries involving plan- tar fasciitis, shin splints and back pain. I never expected to fall in love with this revolutionary approach to recreational running. Today, according to the AdWords
keyword tool, the term “barefoot run- ning” is searched on Google some 90,000 times a month by those seek- ing more information, including from websites like guru Ken Bob Saxton’s
TheRunningBarefoot.com and my own
BarefootRunningUniversity.com. Even the sports footwear industry has taken notice, with most manufacturers adding “minimalist shoes” to their lines that al- low individuals to run in a more natural manner.
Fresh Approach
This paradigm shift in the running world has created a new wave of research, focused on the principles of barefoot running. Dr. Daniel Lieberman, profes- sor of human evolutionary biology at
Harvard University, has published one of the most influential studies on the topic. In 2010, he and his colleagues discovered that there is no need for the overly cushioned running shoes that have domi- nated the market for a quarter century. Rather, he concluded, the na- ked human foot is more than capable of dissipat- ing the forces generated by running. A study pub-
lished last year in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by research- ers at the Allan Mc- Gavin Sports Medicine Centre, at The Universi- ty of British Columbia, in Vancouver, ques- tioned the entire shoe- fitting process. While monitoring women that were training for a half marathon, the authors
found that common motion-control shoes caused more pain than neutral shoes that do not control natural foot movement. They concluded that, “Our current approach of prescribing in-shoe pronation [the inward rolling of the foot] control systems on the basis of foot type is overly simplistic and poten- tially injurious.” Thus, the latest thinking is that wearing a modern, cushioned, motion- control running shoe is not necessarily the best solution for everyone. Trusting our own body may be a better answer.
34 Broward County, Florida
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