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Do We Need Running Shoes To Run?
prostoalex writes to tell us The Daily Mail has an interesting look at current research in the field of running and injuries related to running. Most of the evidence pointed at a lack of any need for running shoes. Some of the more interesting points: the more expensive the running shoes, the greater the probability of getting an injury; some of the planet's best and most intense runners run barefoot; Stanford running team, having access to the top-notch modern shoes sent in for free by manufacturers, after a few rounds of trial and error still chose to train with no shoes at all."
Evolution didn't have Nike in mind.
Back in High School I remember seeing a girl nearly lose a toe to a sharp rock, it cut so deep it went right to the bone. Blood everywhere, shouting, etc.. As long as there are pointy things on the ground, I can risk a broken ankle. Yes, the whole "personal story proves nothing", but what should we learn from if not experience.
How do you kill that which has no life?
Thousands of years of evolution is better than a pair of shoes... Crazy talk!
Then I noticed that it's an extract from a book and some attached material which almost certainly came from the publisher too, as part of the promo. Thereby bypassing the Daily Mail's staff entirely and "ensuring quality".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
people have said you can't run in ropers (cowboy boots), I've done it, almost as fast as in sneakers.
Hey! It doesn't count if you're rolling. ;-)
I am the lawn!
'Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet and had a much lower incidence of knee injuries.'
And football supposedly had a much lower incidence of injuries before the introduction of "pads" (which quickly became an offensive weapon allowing harder hits)
Of course, this could just be "numbers". Many of the running injuries treated today are repeat injuries. Prior to the invention of the running shoe was also pretty much prior to modern sports medicine, meaning a single injury would have prevented you from running again. Today's numbers may be higher than historical numbers due to the vast number of people who continue running after recovering from surgery to correct their problems.
John
... to see Olympic athletes run barefoot... better yet, bring back the original way of having the Olympics and have everyone go butt nekkid (of course we don't need to bring everything back of old where only men could compete).
The correct running technique - which can vary from runner to runner - is much more important than the type of shoes. Some running shoe brands claim that their shoes encourage and help do the right technique, but it really boils down to doing it by yourself.
The only point I see in running shoes is an certain amount of cushoning, since we tend to run on concrete quite a lot, allthough our type of pavements have only been around in recent history.
It's safe to say that most of the running shoes available are mostly snakeoil.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I'm 46 and I'm a casual runner. For years I had intermittent knee and hip pain during and after a 4-6 mile run. I finally broke down and spent more money ($90-$110) on good quality running shoes. The pain is gone. I can run 6 miles regularly with nothing but plain old muscle pain. I can tell when it is time to buy new shoes too. After a couple of hundred miles and the shoes lose their cushion, I can feel it when I run.
I've run at least three miles a day. I've run one marathon and I am currently training for another. I've had multiple long runs that have exceeded twenty miles. At one point, I was running at least forty miles a week. I can tell you from my experience is that shoes make a huge difference. Once my shoe starts to go, I'll start to get intense pain in my hips and knees. Changes the shoe, and the pain goes away. It's a form issue in my case which the shoe helps to correct. I'm guessing those people who run barefoot have really good form. Take away my shoes and put me on a flat area without any rocks, I figure I might be able to run a few miles before I'm forced to stop because of knee or hip pain. I'll keep my shoes, thankyouverymuch.
... when a new runner starts to experience pain, the quickest remedy to buy new shoes.
No joke
Why is this news? For a start, it's hardly "new" that running barefoot decreases injuries and is, as a rule, better for you than running with trainers on. Here's some research from 2001, for example. And getting your science news from the Daily Mail is pretty much the UK equivalent of getting your science news from US weekly. It's not known as the Daily Fail (or The Daily (hate) Mail) for nothing...
I'm glad you pointed that out, I thought I was going mad. For those colonials out there, the Daily Mail doesn't have the best reputation for rational reporting. I'm suprised they didn't manage to blame running injuries on foriegners TBH.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
From the summary:
Isn't it possible that the more you run, or the more you get into running, that it is more likely you are going to purchase the more expensive running shoes? So that would seem to correlate mileage and expensive shoes, and it is possible there is a relationship between increased mileage and increase injuries.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Something TFA doesn't mention is that most people buy running shoes off the shelf based on silly considerations like colour, brand loyalty, whatever.
I was recommended a local sports shop where they look at your foot, watch you run on a treadmill, and ask you what kind of running you do (road, trail, track; distance; etc.). That leads to a shortlist of appropriate shoes, then you try those out on the treadmill, and eventually (in theory) leave with shoes that are right for you.
If you over-pronate, and you buy shoes designed for under-pronators, that's likely to lead to injury.
I imagine most running injuries are caused by running in the first place.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Here's an anecdote... if we get another one then we have data :)
About half way through my first semester at uni, I was getting out of my car and my sneakers fell apart. I took them off, chucked them in the car, and went barefoot for the next 2 years or so (mostly - they don't let you into cinemas etc without shoes on :).
My feet got really tough, 40C days walking on hot tarmac didn't bother me (unless I stood still for too long). I never got stung by a bee, never had any major injuries. I would only notice small pieces of glass stuck in my foot by the noise they made on concrete when I stepped :)
I did quite a bit of walking too, 5km each way too and from uni when my car wasn't going, which was often.
Then the first joint on my big toe started hurting on one foot. A day or so later, the other big toe started hurting in the same way. It was like an ache that shot up each leg every time I took a step. I put some shoes on (workboots) and the pain went instantly. I didn't go barefoot for a few weeks, but the next time I tried both feet were aching within hours. Haven't gone barefoot since.
Now that was about 12 years ago so I may have some of the facts muddled up, but obviously going barefoot just wasn't for me. I didn't really do any running so it's not completely relevant to the topic, but I can't imagine that running would have been any kinder to my feet than walking.
Maybe shoes mimic the sort of ground that humans evolved around, vs the rock hard tarmac and concrete that I was doing most of my walking on?
Here's another good example of "correlation vs. causation." Extremely good runners have a very mechanically efficient stride and smooth foot action. Some of this is training, and some of it is related to how the feet and knees are aligned. Most people do not have perfect alignment. We will probably never become Olympic competitors or join the Stanford running team, but we can run for fun; I do the occasional road race, and I'm doing a triathlon next weekend.
Those of us who run for fun and who are not gifted with perfect alignment may overpronate or supinate our feet when we run. This action is less efficient, so we're less likely to be fast enough to join a college team. A small majority of people overpronate, somewhat less have a good neutral position, and a few people supinate. To look for overpronation, check out your old tennis shoes: if your shoes wear out first near the ball of the foot, chances are you're an overpronator. (If you have flat feet, you're also probably an overpronator. Try the "wet foot test": when you get out of the shower, step on a piece of paper and look at the prints you make.)
I'm a moderate overpronator, and shoes with a little extra cushion that compensate for my less-than-perfect foot position have kept my feet injury-free for five years.
Long time distance runner here. While running barefoot converts more of your energy into forward motion, shoes can protect us against those oh-so-prevalent sharp things on the ground. Granted if you run barefoot enough you will develop thicker skin, but (speaking from experience) I would still check the ground first before I ran barefoot on it. The last thing I need is to step on tiny shards of glass when training for a marathon. Ouch.
The article also spends little time discussing one big factor in the increase of running injuries: the surface on which most people run these days. Soft earth is infinitely more forgiving than asphalt, but due to its convenience asphalt/pavement is probably used the most. This leads to more running injuries as more and more runners are literally out in the streets, pounding their poor feet on a surface that doesn't give.
df -h
I've been a runner, someone who runs/jogs for the majority of my exercise, since I was a kid. I've always viewed shoes as a means of protection 1st and foremost.
Over the years I've had many different shoes that I've run in. And have always preferred running shoes that are light and broken in. The worst shoes that I ever run in are always the new ones that try to make my feet contort into ways that they aren't naturally.
Once a shoe gets to the point where they are more like my feet than like the way the shoe started as they work best.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
There has been some research (reg.req.) on the benefits of barefoot running. BUt, the article also mentions having to pull glass from your foot... I've tried running barefoot once, on the beach, but wouldn't dare doing it on my standard run through the city. Does anyone here have any experience with the ultra thin Five Fingers running shoes (basically protective gloves around your feet)? Sure, you look like a dick -- almost as bad as Crocs -- but they appear a great alternative.
I'm no runner, I'm more into downhill skiing. Equipment does play a huge role, from shoes to skis to how you set it up. Yet you would not put the same equipment on an inexperienced person just learning that an expert uses. First, the size of your skis. You couldn't turn my skis if you're new to the sport, they're just too long and too clumsy for you. An accident is almost inevitable. My shoes, you wouldn't want them, they kill you and take away any kind of feeling or movement you might still have. The way I set my binding would certainly mean a torn lingament to you when you hit the ground because it would not open.
I can only assume it is the same with running equipment. I guess, when I use the equipment of someone who has the muscles and sinews of an experienced runner, I'd sooner or later twist my ankle (because frankly, my ankle stability is close to nonexistant compared to the rest of my foot), and I'd probably end up with really bad knees because I wouldn't know how to run in those things sensibly to handle the shock, something that, again I assume, an experienced runner can easily handle.
There is ski equipment, good equipment actually, available to people who are new to the sport. They don't give you top speed or handling, but they are quite forgiving and they do "cushion" you a lot and keep you from being injured. I can only assume it could be the same for other sports, including running.
So my guess would be that, as someone new to running, you'd probably need equipment that helps you avoid injury rather than equipment that "makes you good". At least, well, that's what I'd want when I start with a sport. I certainly don't want a Formula 1 car to learn driving, the chances to kill myself are just a wee bit too high.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You're missing the next page where Daily Mail service returns to normal; an analysis of how running barefoot may affect your property value, how sponging benefit cheats are given your money to spend on fancy sport shoes, and a reconstruction of how lovely and dainty Diana's feet would have looked, had she not been forced to wear shoes by evil Charles.
From the article:
"Then there's the secretive Tarahumara tribe, the best long-distance runners in the world. These are a people who live in basic conditions in Mexico, often in caves without running water, and run with only strips of old tyre or leather thongs strapped to the bottom of their feet. They are virtually barefoot."
Virtually barefoot. Which is to say not barefoot at all. These 'best runners in the world' have decided that they need footwear.
Cheers,
Ian
Good for Stanford, run barefoot all you want. A good pair of shoes allows me to run with less pain in my Achilles tendon. Since no one else needs, them, I feel kind of special: A multi-billion dollar industry is targeted directly at me.
I say no, especially for me. I constantly had problems from walking and running until I read the book, "The Maffetone Method" by Phillip Maffetone. (Maffetone trains bicycle racers and super-long-distance runners. Stuart Mittleman, the holder of the record for the 1000-mile run, was one of his clients.) The two things I changed as a result of reading his book were:
1. I changed to low-cut Converse All Stars, and
2. I went on a low-carb diet. (I gained 40 lbs in four years on a low-fat diet. Maffetone hypothesized that some people were carbohydrate sensitive and suggested that trying a low-carb diet might work better for those people.)
The end result was that I lost 20 lbs in two years, and my legs and hips quit hurting almost immediately.
Check this link http://books.google.com/books?id=1ehUeFPfch0C&dq=Philip+Maffetone&printsec=frontcover&source=an&hl=en&ei=PMPtSa-HJKb0MvqC0AI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#PPA62,M1 for excerpts from his book, "Fix your Feet, and click on the "Picking the right shoe" entry in the TOC.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Yes and no.
Only a woman would write the bible to be that thick.
If God was a man, the bible would be a tri fold pamphlet with pictures of boobies on at least 30% of it to keep our attention..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
First of all, when our first child was around the age where she started learning to walk, a nurse told us we should not make her wear shoes, at least not regularly. If a kid has shoes on while learning to walk, that can cause serious imbalances in muscle/ligature/bone buildup, leading to damage in them. This was just something the nurse had reasoned out based on other experience about things that are natural.
Add to that the fact that industrial manufacturing can hardly adjust for individual differences. Even the best shoes, if industrially manufactured, are not made to measure. Expensive is just fashionable - but sloppily designed - as often as high quality.
Our muscles were designed to work, to move - however that design came about. From a certain point of view, a law of physics can be considered a design. Randomness also. Let's just try to learn as many as we can about them without inferring things that are not necessarily even related.
Every problem has a solution that is simple, easy and wrong. Selling our Liberty for a little Security is a much too de
Of course men are closer to God, he made women out of spare parts
I think it's more like the female chose her mate by who ever hit her over the head and dragged her back to his cave.
This method had failed me since the advent of pepper spray.
Trolling is a art,
If God was a man, the bible would be a tri fold pamphlet with pictures of boobies on at least 30% of it to keep our attention..
Have you ever read it? There's just enough sex and violence to keep you interested for most of it.
Well, possibly for people with normal/good feet.
But, those with flat feet, in need of arch support, could still benefit from good shoes...
Exactly, if you are an athlete runner you have to learn the proper biomechanical motions or you will rip yourself apart. Once you do, well, it's what your body was built for. But for those of us who run seldomly or who have previoulsy injured ankles or knees it's painfully obvious how a running shoe is a lot easier to run in. I don't need a study to tell me that I've done my own definitve study on myself.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The ID argument, as I've seen it, requires a designer that wasn't designed by another designer, but if that un-designed designer was natural, then there's no reason that we couldn't be un-designed by the same argument. Therefore, the designer must be supernatural.
You're very clever, young man, but it's no use -- it's turtles all the way down.
Let me start off by saying I was a runner in High school. Fast enough to make the Olympic sprint team for some countries but a little below average in Jamaica.
Not only did we find shoos necessary, we had to pick them according to the terrain.
Thick soft soles for running on Roads. Long spikes for running on grass, Shorter spikes for running on the rubber based surface at the Stadium.
Once you got to boys who ran at close to the same speed, wearing the wrong shoos or running barefoot would virtually guarantee defeat.
The reason is skidding. Basically: The soles of our feet were relatively smooth, so at each stride we would slide a little. The direction and scope of the slide varied with each stride and you expend so much effort just trying to remain upright your speed over the 100M drops by as much as a second.
With Long distance and running shoos and cross trainers (I am less of an expert here). Where the problems come in is probably a lack of understanding of what each shoe is designed for. While this is bad with running shoos it was most glaringly obvious with Basketball shoos. The high end (and price) shoos were made for use on a cushioned wooden surface, polished to a mirror finish. Guess what happens when you wear that onto a Rough asfoult court?
I'm just betting that expensive cross trainers "fail" for the same reason. I.e. People buy $200 shoos that are only good on a treadmill and try to go cross country.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
SETI is based on a scientific hypothesis: "Given the number of stars and planets in the universe, it is statistically likely that intelligent life has developed on planets other than Earth." SETI itself is merely attempting to gather data in support of this hypothesis. The hypothesis is provable (If aliens land on the planet tomorrow, it would be proven; if we find the functional equivalent of TV signals in our observation of interstellar waves it would be proven; if we land on Alpha Centari in 200 year and find primitive lizard men carrying crystal tipped spears it would be proven; etc), and SETI is one attempt to gather data which might prove it. No one at SETI is making an absolute declaration that "Intelligent life absolutely exists in the universe and even though we've never found any hard evidence, we've proved it." They have a theory, and they are gathering evidence in support of that theory.
In contrast, Intelligent Design advocates are taking a gap in knowledge and declaring it "proof" of some other knowledge. What they're saying is "Because we cannot figure out how 'x' happened, it must be proof that some outside force or being made it happen." First of all, this is an unprovable hypothesis. Even if a being showed up tomorrow and claimed to be God, and demonstrated phenomenal cosmic powers, there is no way to be sure that this being was or was not THE designer, as opposed to something that perhaps has enough power to have done it (I doubt there are any measurement units of Earth that could comprehend whether a being actually has "limitless power" or "apparently limitless power"). Secondly the methodology is flawed. The equivalent with SETI would be a researcher discovering an anomalous unexplained signal, and unilaterally declaring it proof of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence without first attempting to understand the origin of the signal, whether it has any intelligent pattern or looking at other theories.
Absence of an explanation for a phenomenon does not constitute proof of the explanation you're currently trying to sell. Just because primitive man didn't understand how gravity works, doesn't mean that they would have been correct to assume that there are giant suckerfish under the ground constantly inhaling to keep us all tied to the Earth. A divine being wandering about changing reality at his or her whim might constitute evidence for a supreme creator (though not definitive proof, it could be a different divine being for all we know), but a lack of explanation for certain phenomenon does not.
Having said all of that, I believe that there are beings and forces that exist outside of what we consider "nature". Since I can't defend those beliefs via repeatable experiments or hard evidence I don't present them as "science" or try to teach them in "science class". You can HAVE religious or other superstitious beliefs without insisting that those beliefs be taught as facts. If you want to believe that the world was created, or that there is a supreme intelligence guiding its development, by all means do. Just don't try to present those beliefs as if they were provable facts.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.