Showing posts with label tarahumara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tarahumara. Show all posts

Thursday, 12 December 2013

Barefoot running: an exercise or a running philosophy?

20:12:00 barefoot , born to run 2 Comments
There are so many books about running out there and more and more runners who are switching from regular shoes to no shoes at all for a number of reasons that sound scientifically sound even though might easily be interpreted as hilarious and scary at the same time. They call it barefoot running. They do it on the track and field or grass. But those who consider themselves "the purest" can do it on the road or in the forest, even on water and rocks. The scariest part of it is that very few people are saying what should be said about barefoot running. I am not here to take part of one or the other team. I'm just writing according to my own experience, how I succeeded and, alas, how I got into trouble with barefoot running. When I was a professional athlete we were running barefoot on the grass, usually after a serious workout such as a very long distance or a tough interval training session, in order to minimise blisters and mainly to build some callosities under our feet, always softened by the sweat, the warmth or just by wearing shoes for a number of hours. We were used to run barefoot on the track and field and on fresh asphalt around 7pm in the evening since early-afternoon asphalt in southern Italy can be so hot that we could have cooked eggs for dinner on it. The exercise was performed also to strengthen ankle, tendons and calves. It was not longer than 10 (ten) minutes and it was considered an exercise indeed. Not a new running philosophy. Apparently things have taken another direction with some consequences that very few people are mentioning. For instance, the steady increase of injuries such as tendonitis and stress fractures, not to mention infections, heel and calf injuries. Stress fractures are the most common injuries caused by running barefoot. A stress fracture is basically an overuse injury. The muscles usually protect the bones by absorbing most of the shocks with the ground. But when the muscles are overtired, they no longer accomplish their function and the bones get stressed more than they should. Transferring stress to the bones can create small cracks that cannot be seen as all other regular fractures that are visible under the X-ray. When this type of stress is repeated a number of times of for longer distances it can not only be just painful but extremely dangerous. Even though there are runners who are claiming that they finished seventy and something marathons in their "birthday shoes" without any injury nor issues that needed any medical treatment whatsoever, there are many others who, on the other side, got serious problems and just don't write about it. I believe that the statistic that makes people believe that barefoot running is healthy, is quite biased indeed. According to my own experience, barefoot running is not healthy. I am making such a claim due to a series of injuries I got into, even after observing the so called rules of the barefoot runner such as slightly increasing the duration of the session or starting on a soft surface. Barefoot running is very risky if it is done as a philosophy rather than a 10-minute exercise. Especially if it is performed on modern urban streets. The damage that it can cause can be so severe to set a runner's career to an end in much less than three weeks. Since Born to run, a book that talks about the Tarahumara indians, has been published and become a best seller in the running community, barefoot running has become a sexy trend. So sexy to make more and more podiatrists really busy workers. The Tarahumara indians, who apparently run barefoot (this statement is not completely true, since they wear handmade protection soles) are different from us. They were born like that indeed. More importantly, they didn't relocate to New York city or Bruxelles. Their lifestyle is different from ours and their needs are really like chalk and cheese.  Habit is not genetics. The environmental factors involved in the Tarahumara community are fundamentally different from those we are used to deal with every day.
Moreover, our society evolved towards a different direction. The one in which we use shoes. Going back in time to a shoeless life will probably sound cool and alternative. That doesn't mean the way to go. Those who are practicing barefoot running without getting any injury are, on average, not very long distance runners. The very few who can run far represent such a negligible part of the running community that they cannot and should not be taken as successful examples. Even in the scientific community there are numerous doubts and lack of evidence about the effectiveness of barefoot running. Keep barefoot running as an exercise. Not a philosophy!
This, of course, is just personal advice.
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