barefoot running

Run Run Away » nike running shoes » barefoot running

Question:

I agree about feeling light and quick. I started running barefoot back in May. The first problems I had were really sore calves and blisters that WALKING barefoot did not cause. After I got past that things have been great. I think my form is better barefoot because I experience less back pain the day after a barefoot run. I began similary – finishing a regular run barefoot one or twice a week. Lately, I just set aside an entire run or two per week and do the entire run barefoot. I was running on a track with a good surface. Since moving recently, however, I’ll have to find someplace that won’t eat up my soles. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -About once a week, I try to run about 4 to 5 miles and finish the run at the track. Then I take off the running shoes and run 100 meter strides on the infield. I highly recommend this to anyone just interested in adding some variety to their runs. I always feel very light and quick after doing this workout. Anyway, good luck. Brent Brent Cromley mBED Software http://www.mbed.com The Future of Multimedia

Response:

I run barefoot about 2X a week–on the beach. The sand isn’t hard here in south Florida like it is in north Florida, so I get a different workout than I do road running. (Actually, the few occasions I have run on that harder sand I concluded that running shoes were in order it was so hard.) Two years ago I was walking three miles most every day on the beach. never dreamt I’d ever be able to run it. Running on the road built me up. Me, addicted to running! Jodie Davis

Response:

I used to enjoy doing barefoot runs on the beach. However, after one longer than usual run (about 1 hour) I developed huge blood filled blisters on the bottom of both of my big toes and couldn’t run for several months since they were so painful. I have tried doing short distances on the beach since then, but I have found that after a certain amount of time, about a half hour, the blisters begin to return. Do you have any advice about how to build up a tolerance to this?

Response:

A guess: Blisters are caused by friction. So the question is what causes the friction on your big toes. I would hazard a guess that you have a tendency to claw with your toes. If your body weight isn’t forward enough you get resistance from your body weight ans you move forward. Stand in the sand and let your toes dig in the sand you you should get a feeling of what is happening in your longer runs. If you are landing on the back of the heel of your foot while running barefoot, then your overstride will cause a deceleration with each step. To overcome that stopping movement, you may be digging in with your toes and causing the friction on the big toes as you dig in to get your center of gravity forward enough for the next step which is an overstride…and on and on. Go slow and imagine you have no toes as you roll off the front of the heel toward the ball. Personally, I run ball/heel as if marchin in place. Then I lean from the ankle a degree or two and as my body falls forward gracefully when I put my foot down it lands under my center of gravity but about two or four inches in front of the previous step…e.g. balancing a broom handle and letting it lean a degree or two and then moving in the same direction it is falling. Let us know what you come up with that helps. — In health and on the run, Ozzie Gontang Maintainer-rec.running FAQ Director, San Diego Marathon Clinic, est. 1975

Response:

Well… I’ve been thinking about running this way for a while. I know that there are runners out there that do it religiously (and aren’t kenyans) and I am curious about the positives and negatives of barefeet on the run. Any feedback would be appreciated.

I do a bit of barefoot running every two weeks or so. Why? I was sold on Ozzie Gontang’s idea that if you run all the time with cushion soled running shoes you’ll never develop a lightfooted, flowing gait; the shoes are letting you run in less than optimum manner. The benefits from an improved gait will be greater efficiency (- faster times) and less injury. Can’t be proven scientifically of course, but in the meantime it just feels good to get your shoes off and run as nature intended. The next point is where to run barefoot? For myself, I go to a tartan running track. I put in a few 400’s and some 80m strideouts (gentle sprints). The hardest thing is to slow down from the strideouts, it’s painful to slow down quickly!!! Beware of grassy parks, beaches, etc, too many broken bottles and rusty nails for my liking. Miles

Response:

Well, I practised it for curiosity also sometimes, mostly on a track. I find, it gives a completely new feeling of running, however, not to say worse or better. The drawbacks were for me : if I had done fast intervalls barefoot, I constantly had blood in the urine (brown color). This might become better, if you get used to it. If you run on the street or in the dirt you have to wear some kind of shoes to protect your feet, I used so called gymnastic shoes, they have a rubber sole some mm thick wolfk — … always look on the bright side of life … (Monty Python) GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Germany, Projekt CHAMP Tel: (0331)2817928

Response:

Some of that barefoot running research from my archives Ozzie Path: electriciti.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!nntp.earthlink.net!usenet Newsgroups: misc.fitness.aerobic Organization: Gillian Systems Lines: 64 NNTP-Posting-Host: cust39.max2.san-francisco.ca.ms.uu.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1155 Steven E. Robbins and Gerard J. Gouw. "Athletic footwear: unsafe due to perceptual illusions," Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 23(2), 1991, pp. 217-224. Modern athletic footwear provides remarkable plantar comfort when walking, running, or jumping. However, when injurious plantar loads elicit negligible perceived plantar discomfort, a perceptual illusion is created whereby perceived impact is lower than actual impact, which results in inadequate impact-moderating behavior and consequent injury. … Wearers of expensive running shoes that are promoted as having additional features that protect (e.g., more cushioning, "pronation correction") are injured significantly more frequently than runners employing inexpensive shoes (costing less that US $40)… … In addition, in barefoot populations running-related injuries are rare, which indicates that humans adapted to barefoot running run with lower impact than the unadapted group referred to above. This also suggests that the lower extremity is inherently durable and is made susceptible to injury by footwear use. Based on the above data, not withstanding unsupported claims by footwear manufacturers of improved protection with their products, it seems appropriate to consider expensive athletic footwear from major manufacturers (and perhaps less expensive shoes) as unsafe. … This is strengthened by reports indicating that, when habitually barefoot humans walk (and probably when they run), they have greater knee flexion, which has been shown to reduce shock. … Barefoot activity when practical (no need for thermal insulation; no risk of crush injuries; social acceptability) deserves consideration since plantar sensory mediated protective adaptations seem optimized for this condition. Although this may run counter to notions prevalent in economically advanced countries recounting dangers of barefoot activity and necessity of footwear even when barefoot activity is feasible, supporting data are lacking, and many have concluded that footwear design is guided by fashion rather than health considerations. … In summary, people who perform activities involving high impact while wearing footwear currently promoted as offering protection in this environment are at high risk for injury. Unlike the natural state (barefoot and natural surfaces), where impact is sensed and, through impact-moderating behavior, is maintained at a safe level, an inadequate understanding of the physiology of human impact control has resulted in footwear which makes chronic overloading inevitable by providing plantar comfort to the wearer even when enormous vertical impact is experienced. This extract and other related articles are available at http://www.barefooters.org/medicine/index.html — Mike Berrow – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Brooks Johnson, track coach for Stanford (don’t know if he’s still there) and I think the US Olympic team at one time, use to have his runners run barefoot on grass because he believed it strengthened their feet. I’ve often wanted to run barefoot, but can’t find much reliable info on it. Is it safe? What surfaces are good? Does running barefoot require different technique? Any comments are most welcome. I’ve read a couple of articles that tout barefoot sprinting for speed training. I’ll have to dig through the old Runner’s World stack for exact cites. It’s interesting that this thread pops up here fairly often. You may be able to find some of the old articles through dejanews. The last time it came up, there was talk of barefoot running improving form. I gave it a lot of thought and decided that I was going to try it. Trying to be careful, I read as much as I could find and talked to a couple of knowledgeable people before deciding whether or not it was safe enough to try. Then one evening I went to run at the neighborhood junior high school and there were two kids there running barefoot on the track, and a couple more playing tennis barefoot on the concrete tennis courts. That’s when it occurred to me that it wasn’t too many years ago that I ran barefoot all over the place on all sorts of surfaces without ever giving it any thought. I can honestly say that running barefoot on the sidewalk during a Texas summer will help anyone set a PB — Look with Netscape I have a Signature! C-C-C-C-C AB "Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read."

– In health and on the run, Ozzie Gontang Maintainer-rec.running FAQ Director, San Diego Marathon Clinic, est. 1975

Response:

A friend of mine in Germany recently found and translated this article on barefoot running. Enjoy! — Mike Berrow In the German running magazine Spiridon (6/96), I found an article by Manfred Steffny on barefoot running. It mentions some famous barefoot runners, describes the advantages of running barefoot and possibilities for normally shod runners (beach, grass), as well as ways of training/massaging your feet as a part of daily training. It’s interesting because it says that no shoes are equivalent to bare feet, especially on uneven/soft ground. And this in a magazine which otherwise consists of long-winded tests of running shoes, reports from competitions and discussion of health problems of long-distance runners. — [Photo: Four young persons running barefoot along the water's edge on a beach. Caption: Barefoot running on the beach makes exhilarated and is healthy.] BENEFICIAL BAREFOOT RUNNING by Manfred Steffny They were laughed at and admired, the barefoot runners, sometimes in front, sometimes behind: Olympic winners, health freaks and beginners. What can we learn from them? Dieter Baumann said once after a height training in Kenya, one of the greatest advantages of the Kenyans as runners is that they were running and walking barefoot on the warm loess ground of the African highlands, something that couldn’t be repeated like this in our latitudes. There wasregret in his voice when Baumann talked about this, not for the poor Africans, but for the poor Europeans who grew up since baby age with laced shoes. The more the foot could develop, the more its muscles, ligaments and tendons could develop, the more active and agile is the arch of the foot. However, fallen arches and club-feet are typical after wearing of tight, pointed shoes. There’s almost no central European with two toes pointing straightly forward, but they bend to the side with exaggerated bunion development and inclination to the "Hallux valgus", where the big toe can even move under the second toe and the bunion hurts. There’s hardly any shoe that fits those people, and the feet must be operated. The arches of other people sink, the shoe prevents an active movement, a natural permanent gymnastics by the ground from below is missing. Like this, flat feet can develop. If these people run, they need a high damping; like this they can run, but the state of their feet doesn’t improve. The thick sole serves literally as a prothesis. The Barefoot Masters The barefoot runners, on the other side, rarely had problems; the biggest if they converted from barefoot running to running in sports shoes. They weren’t only Africans, the British Bruce Tulloh became champion of Europe on 5000 m in 1962 without shoes too. Bikila Abebe was winner of the Olympic Games in 1960 in the marathon run, and handled even the Via Appica Antica with its old cobblestone pavement in bare feet. Zola Budd, the South African who was active for Great Britain during some time, established a world record over 5000 m barefoot and was cross world champion without shoes. At cross championships, there are often Africans, especially juniors, without shoes, on the polymer track this is more rarely, but we saw in Goeteborg at the world championship in 1995 barefooters over 10000 m and in the 3000 m steeplechase. A world class man like Joseph Machuka hardly got along with running shoes at the Cologne evening sport festival. Years ago, Indian women took part in international marathon races barefoot. Of course, running barefoot is most difficult on the road, because the ground doesn’t swing with you and the advantage of the gripping toe can’t be used. With every step done barefoot, all 32 muscles and 26 bones of the foot are moved. This is not the case in shoes, because the toes are constricted and can’t move freely and the heel can’t roll because the weight on it is reduced by a wedge or heel on the shoe. The big toe and the pad normally stand deeper and dig into loose floor, but in normal shoes they are fixated at the same height as the other toes. The little toe becomes a useless stub and loses its leading function when changing from supinating to pronating (rolling from outside to inside). Almost every civilized human fears about its soles when barefoot, and when you see how awkwardly bathing people walk through a few metres of gravel, you know how far we are away from nature. When walking/running barefoot, after a short time a callous develops, which protects from pointed little stones too. The strong development of fatty tissue under the skin of the sole provides further damping. Every time the foot hits the floor, circulation is stimulated. What we try to achieve through foot gymnastics today, natural people do with every step. Literally step by step, we central Europeans can learn barefoot walking/running again. It strengthens the power of our feet better than anything else and has a positive influence on running style. At NIKE, the shoe designers have been annoyed for years that when running barefoot, the trend to overpronation (tilting to the inside) was lower than with the most crafty shoe models. Also, due to the lower weight, the consumption of oxygen was lower at barefoot runners on the running belt. This lead to the development of American Indian-style mocassins by the Nike people (Sock Racer, Huarrache), which however always were less popular than the air cushion warships. Just like the natural running is a bit tricky. Orthopedically, the early Torsion models with double guiding by adidas were really fantastic, but many runners who were only used to stable "double deckers" didn’t get along with them. Shoes with zero plateau, as they were built by Puma and Bruetting, found not much resonance. [Photo of Zola Budd (barefoot) and Ingrid Kristiansen (with shoes) running next to each other on grassy/muddy ground. Caption: Zola Budd won over the Norwegian Ingrid Kristiansen at the cross world championships 1985 in Lissabon.] [Photo of two black runners, blurry background of excited audience. Caption: Two barefoot runners from Kenya.] How To Begin Barefoot starts with barefoot walking. And that is best started on grass or sand. In the beginning, five minutes per days are enough, then it can be extended and changed to a running pace. Here it is advisable to be cautious again, less by the not yet existing protection by too thin skin on the sole but by the unusually deep stance when running. It can be dangerous for the Achilles tendon. But foremostly, the untrained [Schollenmuskulatur - no idea what muscles that are] will suffer hardening, which radiates out to the Achilles tendon. So don’t run barefoot for 40 minutes on the first day of a beach holiday! In the beginning, you wouldn’t feel anything unpleasant, but on the next day, the hammer comes. There are some people who can hardly move at all then. Here too, you should start with ten minutes of light jogging on hard sand or grass. The best gymnastic effect is given in the wet sand at the edge of the water. These barefoot runs can be extended by five minutes per day, until you can run barefoot about an hour. This is enough, you won’t likely find a longer route, unless you run endless rounds on a grass field. When running barefoot, you will immediately notice how the toes splay out. For natural people, of course the toes are the widest part of the foot, but this has always disturbed the shoe makers of all countries. They insisted on seeking the hold for the shoes and the ending of the shaft where the toes want to move. Only Eugen Bruetting produced a toe-free running shoe in the 70s. Best On The Beach Foot-deep running in sea or lake works best on the water edge of a well-cared sand beach, where you don’t need to look for hidden stones and glass. Quickly, a Kneipp cure is absolved. The feet are greatly supplied with blood. An after-effect by pleasant tingling can still be felt long after the run. Later you are able to do 30 to 60 minutes of training on sand trails or grass, if such possibilities exist. This can also be a criterium for choosing your holiday location! On polymer tracks (if they aren’t too hot) and on cinder tracks you can run barefoot amazingly well, once you are used to it. The time loss on the polymer track, where you run with short spikes, is small, on the cinder track however about one second per round. The greatest danger in competition is someone stepping on your feet with a spiked shoe. This is by the way another reason why barefoot runners from Africa prefer to take the lead! Running barefoot in the forest is possible too. However I suggest a relatively small round that you run before with shoes, then you can remove stones and glass from the trail and can remember where the prominent roots are. Best you run in high summer on a trail in pine forest, when the thrown-off needles have become soft. Bad however is running on the street, which can only be done by few central Europeans. If you do it, it’s best on a flat bicycle lane. Whenever you run barefoot naturally, it’s good to apply a sticking plaster to the most vulnerable spots. The aces do it like this too. [Photo of Zola Budd's legs, with plasters on three of her toes. Caption: The foot of Zola Budd - only protected by a plaster.] Become Faster-Stepping! Who runs barefoot often, enormously strengthens the power of the feet, which can be converted to new personal records by faster steps. The competition runners will notice that they developped new muscles, which will hemp them mostly in changing terrain or on the track at sprint interludes. Mostly, the running style improves too. Who runs barefoot, runs more upright and doesn’t give way in the hip that often. In winter, running in snow can only be suggested to normal people together with a sauna. In every case, running barefoot in snow has an extraordinary positive … read more »

Response:

I’ve often wanted to run barefoot, but can’t find much reliable info on it. Is it safe? What surfaces are good? Does running barefoot require different technique? Any comments are most welcome.

Year ago, I tried it on the sand at the beach, and in a local park during my lunch break from work. I was cured, permanently, when I stepped on a bee two days in a row — one foot at the beach on Sunday, and the other on the grass at noon on Monday. — Al Hromjak

Response:

I’ve often wanted to run barefoot, but can’t find much reliable info on it. Is it safe? What surfaces are good? Does running barefoot require different technique? Any comments are most welcome.

I’ve read a couple of articles that tout barefoot sprinting for speed training. I’ll have to dig through the old Runner’s World stack for exact cites. It’s interesting that this thread pops up here fairly often. You may be able to find some of the old articles through dejanews. The last time it came up, there was talk of barefoot running improving form. I gave it a lot of thought and decided that I was going to try it. Trying to be careful, I read as much as I could find and talked to a couple of knowledgeable people before deciding whether or not it was safe enough to try. Then one evening I went to run at the neighborhood junior high school and there were two kids there running barefoot on the track, and a couple more playing tennis barefoot on the concrete tennis courts. That’s when it occurred to me that it wasn’t too many years ago that I ran barefoot all over the place on all sorts of surfaces without ever giving it any thought. I can honestly say that running barefoot on the sidewalk during a Texas summer will help anyone set a PB

Response:

Brooks Johnson, track coach for Stanford (don’t know if he’s still there) and I think the US Olympic team at one time, use to have his runners run barefoot on grass because he believed it strengthened their feet. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’ve often wanted to run barefoot, but can’t find much reliable info on it. Is it safe? What surfaces are good? Does running barefoot require different technique? Any comments are most welcome. I’ve read a couple of articles that tout barefoot sprinting for speed training. I’ll have to dig through the old Runner’s World stack for exact cites. It’s interesting that this thread pops up here fairly often. You may be able to find some of the old articles through dejanews. The last time it came up, there was talk of barefoot running improving form. I gave it a lot of thought and decided that I was going to try it. Trying to be careful, I read as much as I could find and talked to a couple of knowledgeable people before deciding whether or not it was safe enough to try. Then one evening I went to run at the neighborhood junior high school and there were two kids there running barefoot on the track, and a couple more playing tennis barefoot on the concrete tennis courts. That’s when it occurred to me that it wasn’t too many years ago that I ran barefoot all over the place on all sorts of surfaces without ever giving it any thought. I can honestly say that running barefoot on the sidewalk during a Texas summer will help anyone set a PB

– Look with Netscape I have a Signature! C-C-C-C-C AB "Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read."

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’ve often wanted to run barefoot, but can’t find much reliable info on it. Is it safe? What surfaces are good? Does running barefoot require different technique? Any comments are most welcome. I’ve been putting in regular barefoot sessions this year following the advice of our FAQ maintainer, Ozzie Gontang. I use a running track and find the rubberised surface gives enough protection. Build up slowly. I generally do a few laps plus a few 100m strideouts. The only discomfort I find is when trying to stop!!! Your feet tend to slap into the ground. I believe this will gradually help me to develop a more efficient running form. If I’m wrong, no matter, there is no downside. Miles

We used to run 100m striders on the soccer field after long runs. It felt good, but in retrospect, I wonder if all the crap they spray on lawns can cause a problem? My understanding is that we absorb things through the soles of our feet pretty efficiently.

Response:

I’ve often wanted to run barefoot, but can’t find much reliable info on it. Is it safe? What surfaces are good? Does running barefoot require different technique? Any comments are most welcome.

Response:

I’ve often wanted to run barefoot, but can’t find much reliable info on it. Is it safe? What surfaces are good? Does running barefoot require different technique? Any comments are most welcome.

I’ve been putting in regular barefoot sessions this year following the advice of our FAQ maintainer, Ozzie Gontang. I use a running track and find the rubberised surface gives enough protection. Build up slowly. I generally do a few laps plus a few 100m strideouts. The only discomfort I find is when trying to stop!!! Your feet tend to slap into the ground. I believe this will gradually help me to develop a more efficient running form. If I’m wrong, no matter, there is no downside. Miles

Response:

Some years ago I ran a 10K; about halfway through I was startled when I looked down and saw a pair of bare feet belonging to a woman runner. I remember thinking "God, I hope there’s no broken glass around." But the one thing I recall (vividly) is her shirt — on the back it said "I may not be fast, but I’m ahead of you." So much for expensive shoes. =steve – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -I try to run barefoot on a fairly well maintained athletic field at least twice a week. One its enjoyable, two, its a nice change of pace – I’m not running for speed and usually only go two or three miles. Some other runners observing this have suggested this isn’t good for the feet. Before changing jobs I used to run barefoot on the beach almost every morning for a couple of years with no problems. Any thoughts or other experiences? -d

Response:

I often run barefoot on grass, dirt, and sand, and occasionally pavement. It toughens the feet to prevent blisters, which can be a major problems in ultras. I prefer racing barefoot whenever possible because I can run faster than with shoes. My longest barefoot run was a 50 km race on the beach.

Response:

I try to run barefoot on a fairly well maintained athletic field at least

<snip Sure feels good, doesn’t it? I like it, too, but I’m like you: a few miles here and there, nothing serious. I don’t think I’d want to run sixty or seventy miles a week barefoot, but then I don’t think I’d want to run that much under ANY circumstances, unless I was being chased…

Response:

I try to run barefoot on a fairly well maintained athletic field at least twice a week. One its enjoyable, two, its a nice change of pace – I’m not running for speed and usually only go two or three miles. Some other runners observing this have suggested this isn’t good for the feet. Before changing jobs I used to run barefoot on the beach almost every morning for a couple of years with no problems. Any thoughts or other experiences? -d

Run Run Away