Let me preface this by saying I am not an expert, nor do I claim to be. I also acknowledge that there are many many people out there who are much more knowledgeable and experienced than I am on this subject, I simply wanted to share a little bit.
okay..enough of that.
Since about 6th grade, i have been interested in health professions. yes, I know that is a broad term, because it has been a broad interest. I have gone back and forth a lot on what I want to do (have been pretty settled for some time now) but I have always be interested in a couple of fields of study. One of those would have to be orthopedics/athletic training/physical therapy stuffs. I have been relatively fortunate in my life to have avoided any major chronic injuries (IT band, stress fractures, lower back, etc.) regardless, I have done my best to attempt to keep up with what will help me avoid injuries.
The one true chronic sports injury I have struggled with has been shin splints. While this isn’t anything major, and probably every runner/basketball player/anyone who exercises has had some bout with them, they still suck. It is an annoying pain, one that I especially want to run through *note: bad idea* After casually talking to several different sources (an ATC, Orthopedic, and a PT) and some online research, I self appointed one of my treatments to be barefoot running. This was as easy self-prescribed treatment as i love running barefoot. There are two large soccer fields near my house, and they work great. The general idea here, for me, was that I needed to change my running stride. I was/am a heavy heal striker, and I often over stride. When barefoot running, 99.99% of runners will turn in to forefoot strikers. Add in the bonus of running of grass as opposed to asphalt/concrete/brick/gravel, and it seems like a good idea.
I only bring all of this up because about once a month, a new study is released saying this is either good, or bad, for injury prevention. As soon as one set of results is released, they are contradicted or invalidated. A recent study released by Nature brought some results showing decreased impact force and decreased loading rates when running barefoot. You can check it out, or see what the Sports Scientists have to say about it. I just thought the study was interesting, though little conclusion was made. This study pretty clearly states that running barefoot will not HURT you, but the preventative values are not quite ironclad.
If you have something to add or feel that I missed something, let me know! I enjoy running barefoot, though it only makes up a fraction of my running time. I enjoy the chance to mix it up just a little bit.
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side note: finally found a friend to swim with, my tri buddy Charles. We both did our first race together, and raced White Lake Sprint together last year. He says he’s probably doing B2B this year, so should be great! now i just have to get him a blog ;-) Yay for getting back in the pool, less yay for sucking this AM.
and because i don’t have another picture to put up here:
pissed off renter or clever rouse to scare the cops away? wonder how it worked out for them…
4 comments:
Lots of interseting debate these days on barefoot running. It's good though, as more people continue to barefoot run the mounds of evidence (one way or the other, or mixed) will hopefully help to determine what the impacts are. It's cool stuff.
...though, not as cool as that Failboat sign.
I think the latest word is that there are benefits if you have been habitually barefoot... which we are NOT here in the U.S. There are benefits to us too, but because we are a shod society, we need to ease into barefoot running. Too much all at once with CAUSE injury in those not habituated to it.
That said, I think it depends on your foot strike. I strike on the ball of my foot, and when I switched to the Frees the only thing that changed for me is that I wasn't carrying around a bulky heel. I never strike on the heel--so it was just added weight. But for someone who has always been a heel striker? I think caution is in order! A gradual introduction...
So interesting that you wrote about this - I just saw an orthopedic doc friday about my foot (I had a bunionectomy in 2002, and turns out not everything that should've been done was done). He actually brought up the benefits of barefoot running, but like Mary pointed out, we're not habitually barefoot here in the US.
I've never run heel-toe; I think I strike on my forefoot...is this good or bad? :)
did you see this, on the runner's world website? It's about running barefoot.
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-267--13401-0,00.html
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