Running Gear

[samurai69]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527455.000-were-built-to-run-barefoot-on-our-tiptoes.html

The secret might have been to land on the balls of their feet.

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cookie / sam / anyone....... if you were going to walk + run 100km would you break out the converse or go and spend £50+ on a pair of fancy running shoes?

Im fairly certain what the majority of runners would do

My "trainers" for this race cost about £75 but I didn`t pay that

The trick is to find a comfortable supportive footwear suited to your situation, marketing though makes you think you need much more

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http://walshsports.co.uk/

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http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jrnj-7YKZE

There are many discrepancies in the way the press has reported our paper “Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners” (Lieberman et al., Nature, 463: 531-565)

Here is a summary of our findings, which we try to explain in simple terms, videos and images in the following pages:

Our research asked how and why humans can and did run comfortably without modern running shoes. We tested and confirmed what many people knew already: that most experienced, habitual barefoot runners tend to avoid landing on the heel and instead land with a forefoot or midfoot strike. The bulk of our published research explores the collisional mechanics of different kinds of foot strikes. We show that most forefoot and some midfoot strikes (shod or barefoot) do not generate the sudden, large impact transients that occur when you heel strike (shod or barefoot). Consequently, runners who forefoot or midfoot strike do not need shoes with elevated cushioned heels to cope with these sudden, high transient forces that occur when you land on the ground. Therefore, barefoot runners can run easily on the hardest surfaces in the world without discomfort from landing. If impact transient forces contribute to some forms of injury, then this style of running (shod or barefoot) might have some benefits, but that hypothesis remains to be tested.

Please note that we present no data on how people should run, whether shoes cause some injuries, or whether barefoot running causes other kinds of injuries. We believe there is a strong need for controlled, prospective studies on these problems.


Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners
Daniel E. Lieberman1, Madhusudhan Venkadesan1, 2,8, William A. Werbel3,8, Adam I. Daoud1,8, Susan D'Andrea4, Irene S. Davis5, Robert Ojiambo Mang'Eni6,7 & Yannis Pitsiladis6, 7

Nature 463, 531-535 (28 January 2010) | doi:10.1038/ nature08723; Received 27 July 2009; Accepted 26 November 2009

Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years1, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning relative to modern running shoes. We wondered how runners coped with the impact caused by the foot colliding with the ground before the invention of the modern shoe.

Here we show that habitually barefoot endurance runners often land on the fore-foot (fore-foot strike) before bringing down the heel, but they sometimes land with a flat foot (mid-foot strike) or, less often, on the heel (rear-foot strike). In contrast, habitually shod runners mostly rear-foot strike, facilitated by the elevated and cushioned heel of the modern running shoe. Kinematic and kinetic analyses show that even on hard surfaces, barefoot runners who fore-foot strike generate smaller collision forces than shod rear-foot strikers. This difference results primarily from a more plantarflexed foot at landing and more ankle compliance during impact, decreasing the effective mass of the body that collides with the ground.

Fore-foot- and mid-foot-strike gaits were probably more common when humans ran barefoot or in minimal shoes, and may protect the feet and lower limbs from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by a high percentage of runners.