A new lifestyle model circulating through the country represents a return to our earliest roots—the cave-dwelling days. The Paleo diet decrees that you can’t eat anything you wouldn’t have been able to hunt, pick, or dig up in the Stone Age in an effort to mimic what we’re biologically designed to eat.
Along with the diet, there is Paleo fitness, a regimen that uses the natural exercise cave people would have gotten on a daily basis. Of course, running after a woolly mammoth—or away from a saber-toothed tiger—probably figured heavily into the lifestyles of our ancestors, who didn’t wear shoes.
Thus, barefoot running is a main staple for a Paleo fitness program.
Barefoot running is just what it sounds like: running without shoes. However, with hard running surfaces like asphalt, concrete, and red top, we modern folk need some form of protection. That’s where barefoot running shoes come in. This footwear is designed to create a natural, or barefoot, dynamic for the human foot, for use on unnatural surfaces.
The trick to barefoot running is to learn how to land on your forefoot or midfoot on the down strike, rather than your heel as we are accustomed to when wearing traditional running shoes. Once you perform this natural movement, it’s said that barefoot running can be done without injury—after all, it’s the way we were designed to run.
PROS:
Any kind of running is good exercise, and barefoot running could be more effective at developing musculature and flexibility. In the Skeletal Biology Lab at Harvard University, a team led by Daniel E. Lieberman studied habitually barefoot runners compared with those who use modern running shoes. The study found that, by landing strikes on the forefoot or midfoot, “[…]barefoot and minimally shod people can run easily on the hardest surfaces in the world without discomfort from landing.”
Regarding the benefits of barefoot running, the study found that not only do practitioners of this method “have more ankle and knee flexion than do [running shoe wearers],” but also that modern footwear can be detrimental. The study reports: “[…]many running shoes have arch supports and stiffened soles that may lead to weaker foot muscles, reducing arch strength.”
CONS:
One potential problem with barefoot running is that humans have evolved—and so have our feet. The modern human is different enough from our Stone Age predecessors that barefoot running may cause more harm than good, particularly in people with less-than-perfect bone structure.
Dr. Robert A. Kornfeld, founder of the Institute for Integrative Podiatric Medicine, is opposed to barefoot running, pronouncing it a fad that he hopes will fade quickly. In an article for the Huffington Post, Dr. Kornfeld agrees that barefoot running is indeed natural, and would be a great idea—if not for the fact that modern people are running on unnatural surfaces.
“The human foot was designed long before the paving of roads,” Dr. Kornfeld says. About barefoot running shoes, he adds, “The lack of heel strike on unnatural surfaces is not mimicking the way the foot would perform barefoot on natural surfaces.”
Dr. Kornfeld states that unless a person’s feet are in prime shape, with stable bones and preferably powerful lower leg muscles, barefoot running can and does result in serious injury, such as hip, back, and knee problems, and potential stress fracturing of the metatarsals, or foot bones.
Our Lean on Barefoot Running
For some people, barefoot running can provide a beneficial workout and a refreshing change, encouraging outdoor exercise and the use of different motions and muscles that may not normally get challenged. Currently, there are plenty of barefoot runners who have seen great results using this method. Find out how to buy the best barefoot running shoes to suite your needs and help prevent injury here.
However, barefoot running isn’t for everyone, and could lead to injury. It’s best to get checked out by a podiatrist who’s trained in functional foot typing, as Dr. Kornfeld recommends, before starting a barefoot running regimen.