Another article is making the rounds on the Internet about the new craze (or fad or movement ... or whatever) for barefoot running. This one, though, in it's quest to be balanced (I guess) goes more into badly written freshman composition paper:
[world-champion marathoner and physical therapist Mark Plaatjes] agrees that running barefoot or in minimal-support shoes can strengthen foot muscles and even help heal certain types of injuries. But he’s already seeing the painful results of the trend in his practice.
“I say this not as a retailer, but as a physical therapist: Shoes protect feet when you run on concrete, pavement and rocks,” Plaatjes says. “If we ran marathons completely on grass, I’d say do it. If we had them on the beach or on soft dirt, I’d say absolutely do it. ... But the majority of people can’t do this. So they’re jumping in, but sooner or later they are coming to see me or a podiatrist or a doctor.”
You'll note how most of this is hypothetical and mentions no real injuries or any kind of statistics on people being hurt. That said, I've been running with a pair of Nike Free 3.0 shoes for a while now and have had some problems getting used to them. I wanted to share some thoughts on the process.
The major reason that I think Plaatjes makes the statements he does is that many articles written about these kind of shoes seem to suggest that just switching to the shoes will magically fix any running problems you may have had from previous shoes. This isn't the case. I've found that switching to my new Nike shoes, that I've had to retool the way I run and add some exercises to my routine.
As the article I linked to above suggests, these new barefoot running shoes put more burden on your feet. The reason for this is that traditional running shoes elevate your ankle by making a wedge out of the sole. This wedge isolates your ankle and doesn't allow it to work in the run. Isolating the ankle in this way, in turn causes more stress on your knees and causes your foot to hit the ground with the heel first, instead of the ball as you would when you run without shoes on.
So, the first problem I encountered with switching to Nike Free shoes was massive (and I mean unbearable) pain in my shins after a run. It turns out that despite having switched to a more natural shoe, I was still heel-striking! So, I did some more research and found this article which offers a bit more information on how to have a more proper, healthy running style. I began preparing for this switch by running, barefoot, around my house to build up muscle memory for the more proper stride. Thus armed, I headed back to the running trail.
And promptly sprained the shit out of my ankle. It was a weird sprain, too. Not something where I stepped in a hole or anything, I was just sitting around the house and couldn't walk when I got up. I think the strain of running had caused the injury to just sort of happen. Most likely, this occurred because the Nike Free shoes (and many other of these "barefoot" models) have absolutely no ankle support, whatsoever, which is the exact opposite of the deluxe, foam cocoons most of our ankles are used to running in. Anyway, I did some research on how to rehab a sprained ankle and began doing some ankle strength exercises. After two weeks or so of working these, I headed back out to the trail.
So far (and this all happened two months ago), I've not had anymore problems. I feel better and am getting through my run with much greater ease and a lot less pain (esp. in my knees and ankles). The reason I am posting this article is to offer some advice on things I did to prepare for using the new, "run barefoot" style of shoes as an addendum to all the high human drama, low informational content articles I'm finding online. If you are thinking about switching to these kinds of shoes, I suggest looking into making sure your stride is okay and, also, working on strengthening your ankles, as your new shoes are going to beat the shit out of them in ways those pampered bastards are not ready for.