Running Barefoot – Big Question for Runners and Researchers
One of the hottest trends in running today involves baring your soles.
James Webber, a 27-year-old Western Michigan University student who grew up in Otsego and now lives on Lovell Street in Kalamazoo, is so sold on the concept that he has run barefoot every day for the past six years.
But local and national experts say there’s far more to it than simply taking off your shoes and heading outside.
A Harvard University study published in the January edition of Nature has made barefoot running the subject of much media attention in recent months.
What the Harvard study found is this: When we wear shoes, we run differently than when we don’t. With shoes, we tend to hit the ground first with our heels; barefoot, most people strike the ground with the front or mid-section of the foot.
This happens naturally since our bodies notice how much it hurts to have the heel — one big, unforgiving bone — come in contact with the pavement when we’re barefoot. Without the protection of shoes, we naturally tend to land farther forward on the foot, where many small bones spread out the impact and help us avoid pain.
Since the 1970s, runners have dealt with the discomfort that comes from heel landings by wearing ever-cushier, more-supportive and more-expensive running shoes. The shoes do a great job of preventing heel-first pain.
The downside: We keep running with heel-first impact, which transfers upward to the knees. Knee injuries are the bane of many a runner’s existence.
The Harvard researchers say they hope their study and further research will help prevent these repetitive-stress injuries.
Barefoot racers
Running in cushy shoes is a very new development when you consider all of human history, says Harvard study co-author Daniel E. Lieberman. “Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s,” he says in a report on the HarvardScience website. “For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning.”
It’s also long been recognized that some long-distance runners from the jungles and mountains of Africa and Mexico not only compete in but win races running barefoot.
“In the U.S., people are always looking for an edge,” said Carl Fried, a doctoral-trained physical therapist at K Valley Orthopedics and a runner himself. So, when Christopher McDougall’s book “Born to Run” came out in 2009, American attention was drawn to the notion of running without shoes, like the Mexican runners in the book.
“It was the flip side of the latest and greatest shoes,” Fried said. People thought, “Let’s go organic with the feet.”
While it’s true that the Africans and Mexicans described in the book run without complaint, there are some differences between them and the average U.S. runner.
“These are hardy people in deserts and jungles,” Fried said. “In the U.S. we’re a little pampered.”
There may not be running injuries reported among the tribal groups, but there also aren’t statisticians gathering injury data in those places, Fried said.
But Fried is quick to note that, while there is not yet any good clinical trial data showing that barefoot running or its cousin — wearing lightweight, minimalistic shoes — actually decreases knee injuries, anecdotal reports are plentiful, and many trials are in the works.
Top running injury
What is known for sure is that the No. 1 injury to U.S. runners is knee pain, with patella femoral syndrome in first place, followed by iliotibial band syndrome. Both of these conditions are natural consequences of the stress to the knee that comes from landing on the heel, Fried said.
When the heel hits the pavement, he said, it’s like hitting the foot with a mallet. On the other hand, striking the ground with the many small bones in the front of the foot is more like little ball bearings acting like tiny shock absorbers for the blow.
What’s important, Fried said, is not whether the runner wears no shoes, lightweight shoes or traditional shoes, it’s the technique that matters. Landing on the front of the foot rather than the heel is the better technique, he said.
Some people, Fried said, need to stick with more traditional shoes. If you have flat feet or high arches, you won’t do well with barefoot running or minimalistic shoes.
Likewise, people with diabetes should wear regular shoes to avoid the risk of abrasions and infections, and anyone who has had surgical repair of the feet or has bunions should wear shoes that offer more protection.
For everyone who runs, shoes can minimize worry about glass and other foreign bodies, not to mention Michigan winter temperatures, Fried said.
‘More with less’
Webber raves about barefoot running. Since he started running unshod in 2004, he hasn’t missed a single day of running, going barefoot most of the year and adding a pair of lightweight shoes when the temperature falls below 35 degrees. Webber has run three marathons, two of them totally unshod and one, in October, with lightweight shoes.
In 2009, he finished second overall in the Borgess Run for the Health of It 5K race running barefoot. His best times have all come when he has run barefoot.
Webber said the idea of running without shoes fits in with his interest in Zen Buddhism and minimalism. “Zen has taught me a lot about listening to my body and being able to do more with less,” he said.
Webber spent six months building up the callused feet and strengthened calf and foot muscles that now allow him to run barefoot on all surfaces, even the crushed limestone of the Kal-Haven Trail, although he says the cool, smooth sidewalks at WMU are more comfortable.
For Webber, much of the benefit of barefoot running is non-physical. “I believe in myself a lot more,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun, and it connects you with the Earth.”
In addition, running barefoot has made Webber more aware of the importance of not littering — because “I step on things.”
Webber, a senior majoring in exercise science and anthropology at WMU, said that he knows of only five other people in Michigan who run barefoot and that in races where he’s competed, he’s always been the only running without shoes.
Learning good form
Whether a runner wants to reach the state of total barefoot running or move from a traditional running shoe to a minimal shoe or just learn how to run more efficiently and more safely in the shoes he or she has always worn, it’s important to learn more about good form, the experts agree.
Bryce Buffenbarger, a running coach who works for Gazelle Sports, in downtown Kalamazoo, said you can learn to run with good technique in regular shoes.
Rob Lillie, an exercise physiologist and general manager of Gazelle Sports, said Gazelle conducts running clinics Wednesday evenings where runners view videotapes of themselves running with and without shoes. They learn techniques such as using a shorter stride to allow the body to use its two biggest types of muscles — the glutes and the hamstrings — rather than the relatively weak quadriceps.
Lillie said many shoe companies are jumping on the barefoot-running bandwagon and developing lightweight running shoes. Two of the most common are the Nike Free and the distinctive-looking rubber Five Fingers models from Vibram. Both are similar in cost to standard running shoes.
Fried, Webber, Lillie and Lieberman agree that the most important thing to remember if you are moving to a barefoot or lightweight-shoe running regimen is to start slowly. Our bodies have adjusted to years of running wrong, and muscles have long memories. It takes time to prevent injury and retrain the muscles.
“Running barefoot or in minimal shoes is fun but uses different muscles,” Lieberman says in the Harvard Science report. “If you’ve been a heel-striker all your life, you have to transition slowly to build strength in your calf and foot muscles.”
There are no easy guides to determine how to ease into a new running routine, Lillie said, since “everybody is different.”
He recommends that runners learn more about how they’re currently running by reviewing videotapes of their own performance and discussing with experts ways they can improve their technique.
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