Barefoot/Minimalist Shoe Running Clinic in Grand Rapids, Michigan (Read 1842 times)

 

Our survival as a species had more to do with cognitive thought than running....barefoot or not. 

 

Minimalist shoes are not for everyone, nor even for the majority of today's runners.  For most of us it would be a mistake to emulate elite runners.  If it wasn't a mistake then we would all be running 100+ mile weeks with most of the miles at sub 6 minute pace.  Try to do that when you're a 4 hr marathoner at best.

 

At it's most basic level, the act of putting foot to pavement exerts a large shock load to one's leg.  Minimizing that shock load should occupy at least a minor part of our thought process.  For us 4 hr marathoners that shock is applied roughtly twice as many times as an elite runner.  Furthermore, mechanics for elites is much smoother than for mortals.  Add to that the fact that most elites weigh about half of what I weigh, and.....well you get the idea.  It therefore seems intuitively obvious that what works for elites does not necessarily correlate with what works for slower heavier runners. 

 

The ideal footfall should exert minimal force onto the ground, and should allow has much elastic rebound energy as possible.  A perfectly elastic interaction would be as close to ideal as you could get.  That is why shoe manufacturers put so much rubber cushion into shoes.  It eliminates shock loading and provides more energy return to the ground.

 

That's not to say that there are not new problems introduced by making shoes more elastic.  Anytime you try to solve one problem you usually make two or three more.  Running shoes are no different, and manufacturers have tried to fix these problems by adding stability, or more stiffness in the arch.  In my career I've tried many different shoes and found a few that were pretty good, and most that were not.  Some of the best shoes out there simply aren't made for my feet.

 

For those of you who think there is something better....I would say hang onto what you've got if it's comfortable and you aren't feeling discomfort.  But if you haven't found something comfortable, then keep on looking until you do, and then stick with it as long as you can.

Hate to say; but this's got to be one of the worst arguments I've ever read.  To sum up, to me, you're saying that: "Some people suck and they are slow and there's nothing you can do about--they'll remain being slow and sucking."  You're not Richard by any chance, are you?

There are principles and they can be applied to a 4-minute miler as well as a 4-hour marathon runner.  Some people, most people, don't see that and that's probably why they remain a 4-hour marathon runner--or 5.  There are physiological and mechanical fundamentals.  As long as we all trying to move forward with 2 legs, those fundamentals would apply.

Guess you never heard of some elite runners being "hired" as advisory staffs for various shoe companies to provide feedbacks.  Some of the most popular marathon training programs are developed by former elite runner.  Speaking of that, by the way, I had NEVER heard of a decent marathon training programs developed by a podiatrist.  Does that mean anything?

 

This is true. But shoes do not prevent this. And studies of biomechanics have shown that the more supportive the shoe, the more aggressively (i.e., the harder) runners footstrike.

 

Without super supportive shoes, humans very quickly adapt the footstrike to a lighter, softer, more springy one that absorbs shock very well.

Reference:

A leading article in "Sports Medicine 9 (2) 1990" by Drs. Steven E Robbins and Gerard J Gouw of the Human Performance Group in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada???

I believe they had done the most extensive studies on shoes vs. barefoot, had they not?  But then again, what do they know...

Medical doctors are not adept in the Scientific method and many do not conduct any research. They are experts in the structure of the body and its internal workings, however this doesn't make them experts in biomechanics, which is what we are arguing.

Medical doctors' job is to interpret and apply research, not necessarily to perform it, for sure.  But that does not mean they are not adept in the scientific method.

AND your statement is an imprecise generalization.

signed,

a medical doctor who is an NIH funded researcher.

I agree with the implication being a problem.

The statement that riled my feathers was that without qualification medical doctors are not adept at the scientific method.

I agree with the implication being a problem.

 

The statement that riled my feathers was that without qualification medical doctors are not adept at the scientific method.

 

 I should have said that medical doctors are not trained in the scientific method (from my understanding). Neither am I however, since I am a mathematician and mathematicians are not scientists.