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This site is best viewed chronologically, start here. Then follow the post order in the archive.

Recommendations: 7mm sole, don't go too fast, take your time, on concrete, flat, no hills!
If you don't do that, go below 7mm, go too fast or up-hills, you will get injured.

Friday 7 December 2012

Brains plus Brawn, or is it?

Yes, I know, long time no news. I have been taking it easy those last days, I had this Achileas tendon pain plus a small one on the knee. I run twice a week, only on flat. It is fine now, the tendon feeling is gone and the knee is only weakly present. Will start running hills again soon.

I wanted to attract your attention to the following conversation with Daniel Lieberman Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University. Prof. Lieberman is the one that did those studies about impact forces while running with shoes or barefoot, very interesting studies that I intended to comment on here, but never found the time. Now, in this conversation, he summarizes and adds his personal view on those analysis and others, and what it means to be a running human. Very very interesting and provides the basis for why we love barefoot running.

I can't resist to give you a few quotes from this very interesting discussion:

"We didn't evolve to wear high-heeled cushioned shoes and crash into the ground. We actually evolved to run lightly and gently, because it hurts to land on the ground the way people do in shoes."
or,
"Our lives are filled with problems like insomnia and constipation that are extremely recent. They're novel, and they're caused by the way in which we misuse our bodies."
or again,
"I would argue that a lot of shoes actually cause people to become injured because they're comfortable."
and eventually, my favorite
"We love comfort, and people make a lot of money selling us comfort, but I would challenge the notion that comfort is usually good for us."
Eventually, he finishes with a conclusion from his recent study that barefoot/forefoot runners have less injury that shod ones. Of course, the running shoe industry would like you to doubt that.