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| Barefoot running |
| Wednesday, 12 September 2012 07:59 |
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Wednesday 12th September 2012 I have been asked to do a short post on the SA Trail Running enews that goes out this week, so I thought I would share my thoughts and opinions with you. I was asked to do it after this piece on Catalyst on ABC TV was on last week. Here is the post: 'Barefoot' running is a very popular movement describing running in less supportive shoes than we have been used to. 'Chi running' and 'Pose method' are based on the same principles. This includes running with literally bare feet, the use of 'barefoot style' shoes like the Vibram Five Fingers which provde only a thin rubber sole to protect the sole of the foot and have the distinctive 5 toed design, 'zero drop' shoes with no difference in height from the heel to the forefoot but a little cushioning (racing flats or even 'old skool' Dunlop Volleys) and 'minimalist' shoes with a 0-6mm drop from the heel to the forefoot of the shoe. The notion of barefoot running was popularised in the book 'Born to Run' by Christopher McDougall a couple of years ago, and there is a lot of information on the web now about it. I was lucky enough to meet Dr Daniel Lieberman, the evolutionary biologist from Harvard who is quoted extensively in the book and has done a lot of research into running, when I was at the national Physiotherapy conference last year. Check out his website here: http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/
The idea is to reduce the ground reaction force when your heel hits the ground. It has been suggested that we are not meant to run this way, we are not 'designed' to run this way, and it has been the use of built up shoes since the 1970's that has caused us to even try to run with a heel strike. Whilst we walk with a heel strike, walking is a very different pattern to running which includes a different action in meeting the ground.
Running without heavily built up shoes, you cannot land on your heel - it hurts! Running without shoes, you will land on the ball of your foot (the forefoot), then lower the heel, using the many joints of the foot as well as the elastic properties of the achilles tendon and calf to absorb the forces, lower the heel to the ground and then, with these structures on stretch, they recoil, helping generate propulsive force to push us forward to our next stride. It is meant to be a much more efficient way of running both metabolically and in terms of stress on our lower limbs. It is argued that the high injury rates of runners, suggested to be as high as 70% of runners each year, is because of the high heeled running shoes we wear (like the Kayanos I run in). Most of the lower limb injuries that physios see in runners are from overuse - essentially poor accommodation of these forces. The loads are not attenuated well, so show up as plantar fasciitis, achilles tendinosis, shin splints, stress fractures, ITB problems, and hip problems.
There are three key technical things to change to adopt a running style that is closer to a 'barefoot' style, regardless of your footwear. The first is cadence - the number of foot strikes per minute. The ideal cadence is 180 steps per minute. You can count, or use a smartphone app like a metronome to get an idea of the right rhythm. To allow so many steps per minute, your stride length must be reduced - less distance between each foot fall. This is point two. Your foot should land when it is just under your centre of gravity (your pelvis), rather than out in front of you (change # 3). To do this, you will tend to land on the mid or front section of your foot. Shoes with a more built up heel make it more difficult to manage this - you need to lift your foot so high to clear the ground that you almost have to land on your heel. One of the easiest ways to incorporate this is to try to land 'quietly' rather than thumping down each step. In fact, this is probably the key 'take home message' - run quietly with more steps per minute. Doing this will reduce the stress of your landing, and allow the structure of the foot, achilles and calf to take the load, rather than your knees.
So, should you rush out and get a pair of these shoes and throw out your old (very expensive) ones? Well, not so fast. Most of us have not run barefoot since we were 6 years old or so. It takes quite a long time to adjust to the extra load on your foot joints and muscles, your achilles tendon and your calf muscles, so many programs (such as this one, this one, this Australian one, and this Runners World link) suggest running only a few minutes to start with on either a grassy or very smooth paved surface, then finishing the run in your normal shoes. Each session, increase your time without shoes (or with lightweight shoes) by only a few minutes, allowing plenty of time for adjustment. If you have injuries or are a slow learner (from a motor learning perspective) it may take even longer. There is a lot of advice on the websites linked to this post, with a lot more background than I have given.
Be patient, and the rewards in terms of injury prevention could be great. Having said that, the jury is out as to whether 'barefoot running' is the great cure all, or just another fad. There is a school of opinion that says that it may not be for everyone, and certainly Dan Lieberman champions a moderate view. Others are pretty strident that this is the only way we should attempt to run.
For myself, with all I have read and listened to on the subject, my prior learning and the expert advice sought, I am still a bit undecided if it is for me. I am a bigger, heavier runner, so some cushioning will probably always be a good idea. Ideally, more average sized women weighing around 60kg and men of 70 -80 kgs should be fine. I am a really slow learner (from a motor learning perspective - you could also say I am uncoordinated. It wouldn't be mean), so it takes me a very, very long time to change a motor pattern (my form). I have also only been running for less than 2 years, and so far without injury, so am not keen to tempt fate too much by changing style - if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Having said that, I have now bought some Nike Free for the road and Inov-8 trail shoes, experimenting with less drop from heel to forefoot and using them on shorter runs. I am not 'in training' and following a program for a specific event, so I can be pretty flexible with my training, and allow plenty of recovery time between runs, so this is a good time to experiment. So far, so good. I will run the City - Bay this weekend in the Nike's rather than my Kayanos which I have run in consistently. I will still run Yurrebilla next week in my trusty Trabuco's though - I haven't spent enough time in the Inov-8's to know that I will survive my longest run to date happily in them yet!
I'd be interested to hear what you have found - do you use minimalist shoes? Has it changed your injury rate? Let me know at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Running-for-Jodi-Lee/
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Another article on sitting
This one is in really simple terms - if you walk 30 mins (as recommended) and sleep 8 hours, most of us still have 15.5 hours per day not moving. You cannot sit all day behind a screen, then drive your car and sit and watch tv with out it being bad for you. A good read.