Barefoot, minimalist, natural running style

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." -Oliver Wendell Holmes

When I first started this piece several years ago, the focus was on what barefoot running is and why a new runner might consider it. At that time there was just a bit of material in the popular media about natural running style. Barefoot was considered a fringe and was more a lifestyle choice than a running topic. I even had a handout from Ultrarunner magazine about adopting some barefoot running, because this was an article that was fresh, and addressed the topic in the mainstream. I am happy to say that the world has changed a bit, and now the terms barefoot and natural running have achieved almost “Kleenex” status in the common vernacular. I now only need to give you the basics while pointing you to dozens of great resources on the topic, including an entire book written by Dr. Daniel Howell, about all of the health benefits of not wearing shoes. As more viewpoints have been discussed, research has been generated, and we have discussed the topic among those who work with runners – the majority opinion has begun to shift my mind has indeed been stretched – to the point that minimalist running is something I expose runners too from the beginning now. The funny thing here is that by examining the history of our sport we see a bit of, “what is old is new”.

While the book Born To Run and the recently published research of Dr. Dan Leiberman seems to have energized the term barefooting – running barefoot did not start in 2009 or even in this century. While I would encourage you to read the work of both of these guys – I’ll take a minute to point out some highlights of how we got to running shoes in the 20^th century. I hope to also spark a bit of thought about what things looked like before shoes and how that factors into where we are at today. I kept my shoes through this fervor about bare feet, but I can tell you that my thinking, as well as my shoe choices, continues to evolve over time on this subject. I think that every runner should look at the history of our sport and can take a lesson from what shoeless or minimal shoe training can do for your running.

The feet have 26 bones, 33 joints, 12 tendons, 18 muscles; each foot is an amazing piece of machinery and while it has many things it does not have others – so why it is made this way and what was it for in the first place? Science has made a great case for a theory that the current form of humans evolved and succeeded as a species due to 26 different, running specific, adaptations. These adaptations allowed us to pursue quarry on the move, at a rate just fast enough to tire that animal out, while we have the innate endurance to finish the hunt and gain groceries. Again, Dr. Dan Leiberman offers a much more through explanation of this theory and it is solidly based in the science of both anthropology and comparative biology. We were able to travel, pretty fast, and fast enough to win food and cross great distances. Clearly, we did this without shoes and anthropologists have not found any evidence of Nikes from this critical time period. 

Until Bill Bowerman, the famous University of Oregon track coach, created the running shoe in America in 1972, just 40 years ago, we all ran in very thin light shoes that offered little in the way of a heel cushion or padding from the ground. I have read that he designed the shoe to accommodate what he felt would be a longer and more competitive stride for his athletes. He could teach them to lead with the heel and the longer stride length would out run the competition. Bowerman was NOT a physical therapist, medical doctor or biologist who may have asked, “what might this lead to, other than winning races?”

Currently in Africa and many parts of the developing world, children are raised without transportation and also without footwear. It is estimated that the average Kenyan child has about 1,800 miles on their legs and feet by the time they graduate from primary school and all of these miles, for the majority of kids, are without shoes of any kind. It has been argued that this contributes to the number of victories for great Kenyan runners at the international level and on the Olympic podium. Early leg development and natural foot strength (at altitude, Kenya is a mountainous region with an altitude similar to Flagstaff, AZ) allow these kids to develop all the capabilities of their legs before serious training ever begins for competition.

Many cultures are able to train and run well without shoes or with minimal shoes. The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico are featured in Born To Run for their great ability and running in very simple sandals – a slab of rubber strapped to their feet for protection from sharp objects. This is a similar style of shoe to many early Nations of the American Southwest and the pre Spanish cultures in South America such as the Maya and Inca. The Inca empire had thousands of miles of roads and very little in the way of shoes to traverse them. In those days a severe running injury would cause you to drop lower on the food chain – a deadly prospect. I have read counter arguments in the past three years that state that the Tarahumara Indians are a specific race of people that have passed on the genetic material that allows for more durable legs perhaps. I think that this is about as credible an argument as saying that I am passing on the genes for my kid to couch surf and play video games. The Hopi oral tradition explains that their people ran to the Pacific annually to pray for rain. MapQuest explains that this is a trip of at least 523 miles, one way, from Winslow, Arizona to Los Angeles, California. The Spanish missions in California were built to be one days ride apart from each other for a number of strategic reasons, but recall that only the Spanish elite had horses – thus everyone else was on foot. The examples in history of long distance ambulation are simply too numerous to count, nor to be coincidence. While you may have to change your definition of what “running speed” is you can safely accept that our species adapted and excelled because we can ambulate well and without significant assistance.

According to Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run, Alan Webb’s feet where flat and three sizes larger when he started working with his high school coach to become America’s new top miler. In 2007 Alan set the world’s best 1,500 meter time and broke Jim Ryun’s American record for the mile. But his quest began with flat, weak, de-conditioned feet that were in need of rebuilding. McDougall writes about an interview with Alan Webb on page 175 of his book and Webb says “ I had injury problems early on, … so we did foot strengthening drills and special walks in bare feet” McDougall writes that Alan’s feet changed and his arches became higher as muscles strengthened – his shoe size decreased and his injuries abated.

McDougall writes of an Irish Ph.D, Gerard Hartman who is considered an expert in physical therapy and works with professional runners from around the globe to improve their running. He has been a proponent of barefoot running for many years and cites that “the deconditioned musculature of the foot is the greatest issue leading to running injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past twenty-five years”. Many folks have advocated that slowly and gently strengthening our feet over time will allow us to run better and with less injury. We may even find that we can run in lighter footwear. Lighter footwear means less effort and perhaps faster, or the sensation of faster, as the weight on the end of your leg from a heavy shoe creates a pendulum which takes effort in order to keep swinging. 

Danny Abshire, the author of the book Natural Running is another interesting example in the quest to relearn natural movement patterns. Here is a guy who made his living for years building orthotics for skiers, runners, tri-athletes and elite sports professionals. What he saw in more than a decade of technical realignment of these people, who were presumably pretty good physical stock in so many other ways, was that they had poor posture and muscle imbalances that caused the need for orthotics in the first place. So Danny goes on to design a shoe that will help rebalance runners, patents the technology as he goes, and over a decade, seeks to sell that technology by offering it in turn to each of the five major shoe companies. They all turn him away stating that “people do not run that way” and they’ll never be able to sell this expensive stuff. Abshire is so driven by what he has learned that he then starts a shoe company to sell what he knows will work. The result is Newton shoes for a midfoot strike and more natural movement. Dr. Mark Cucuzzella won the 2011 Air Force Marathon outright, at age 44, wearing a pair of these shoes. Rather than calling the shoe a miracle – I’d say that Mark’s technique paid off and he had a good tool to aid his technique. Watch him run and you’ll see relaxed and upright form that resembles an East African, or an Olympian, or a Tarahumara, or if we could go back in time maybe an Inca, and if you walk out to the playground you’ll see your own kids run this way too. It’s what we are made to do.

What do shoes do for me? While all seem to agree that having a sole cover your tender skin provides some protection – many experts are currently reexamining what shoes do well and do not do so well. The good news about this controversy is that in the past 38 years, very little substantive research has been done on how shoes truly affect feet and that is beginning to change now. The United States Military is greatly invested in physical conditioning of its personnel and in the past has seen very high rates of injury in basic training and its share of running related injuries. A recent study on determining the appropriate footwear has shown that the type of running shoe had no correlation on injury prevention for the military personnel in the study. This leads us to “well what can I use to control the movement of my foot, for the least chance of injury?” Your gait, how your foot hits the ground and your running technique becomes more important than the type of running shoe that you might wear according to this study. Manufacturers have succeeded in creating footwear that controls movements of the foot and offers important padding from the ground as you begin running. However, seeking to control the movement of the foot by using a shoe will not ultimately be successful in preventing injury, in the long run, according to new studies. Technique will carry the day and great technique; sensitive feet that are aware of what they hit (and strong feet) may lead to using a much lighter shoe down the road. 

Do I just take my shoes off and go run? That would be a bad idea and let’s restate that it is not about being barefoot per se for many of us but getting closer to what your feet are already designed to do with barefoot or minimalist running style. First is that the process must be very gradual, even more gradual than learning to run, because you will retrain what 30 or more years of wearing shoes has done structurally with your feet. Second is that all of us have deconditioned feet similar to what Dr. Hartman discusses above – and this means that we have to slowly build up foot strength, even before we start running in minimalist footwear. A number of sources are now offering self assessment tools and drills that will recondition feet and we have covered many of those in the Learn To Run class. I think that if you have already come from a culture of shoes that you will want to learn running first and at the same time, you may choose to learn how to reduce the amount of shoe that you use. Adapting to a high cadence, shortened stride, and enhanced posture for your foundation takes months or longer, and often requires a friend’s careful eye to keep you on track. The only examples of people being injured with natural running come from runners who, in their enthusiasm, progress too quickly in bare feet or minimal shoes. One of my stated objectives for the class is to introduce you to a new lifelong activity, injury free. Therefore I do that with what your feet are already used to, and provide resources, and hopefully a strong dose of caution to you, while encouraging you to move your running to the next level by seeking to strengthen your feet, give them back proprioception, and develop what skills have been robbed from you by shoes to reset both your posture and stride. Moving naturally is a long road that enhances your running and avoids injury if done correctly and conservatively. One book about Lance Armstrong is titled “Its’ Not about the Bike” and I reemphasize that it’s not about your shoes either. I have seen folks heel strike in Newton shoes and Vibram Five Fingers and barefoot as they are already trained to this pattern of movement. To unlearn and tune into what you are doing in relationship to the ground is not beyond any of us, but it does require patience, meanwhile wear what you want. I find my patience lasts longer with light protection and that my progress is faster in these techniques without big bulky shoes, which offers greater feeling for the ground.

In the current day a larger percentage of runners are now dedicated to running entirely without shoes. They have run marathons, ultra marathons and farther in bare feet, and a second subgroup simply enjoys being barefoot full time, so they carry flip-flops with them to get into Wal-Mart or a restaurant. You can read their websites and their ideas about what shoes do and do not do for the wearer and how they feel freer with naked feet. There are as many reasons to consider shoeless as there are folks not wearing shoes. I would challenge you to consider the common thinking on this matter and both accept those who forgo footwear, as well as reconsider what you may gain from simply being barefoot at home or in the yard.

Before you assume that the “barefoot guys” are off the deep end in their “foot yogi-mysticism”, take a good look at the number of people from the medical community that advocate the sale of moccasins to children and preach “barefoot is best” for toddlers. The reason for this, they advocate, is that kids walk sooner when they learn to interpret the ground with their feet (proprioception) and build foot strength naturally. They do not want kids to cut their feet and thus sell a light flexible protective moc- type shoe to achieve this. Many parents have subscribed to this idea with the pediatricians blessing and I’ve seen it work for my own kid. (As I was buying lots of bulky shoes for my running, at $80/pair…)

Arthur Lydiard was a cobbler and made shoes before he was a coach. Lydiard was a coach who was very focused on the success of his athletes. He had his runners in the most basic of footwear and preached against anything “more” for his entire career, which extended well into the era of modern shoes. Internationally sought after coach and physician, Dr. Phil Maffetone was suggesting more than a decade ago that minimal footwear was preferable for similar reasons. Even Stanford University’s world class track and cross country coach (the program gets Nike’s for free) has had his athletes running barefoot in the grass, two afternoons a week, for decades. He said to Nike that his guys got hurt less when they subscribed to this method. (This is what drove Nike to work with Dr. Gerard Hartman to create the Nike Free.) Long before the birth of the very popular Vibram Five Fingers shoe – many companies across the country have made a living manufacturing simple moccasins and unstructured footwear that allow the foot to move and muscles to work. Inuit people, north of the Arctic Circle knew that this is what kept their feet warm in winter – that the soft, moose hide boot would flex and allow better blood circulation. There have not been any podiatrist studies to examine the number of injuries related to these modern day moccasin, or mukluk wearers because they seldom report any injuries.

So before you ever consider running barefoot, simply walking around without shoes at home is a good place to start and walking farther, progressively is another. You may choose to try the new Vibram Five Fingers Shoes as well, which offer that slight amount of protection for your tender skin, a bit of arch, and not much else for padding. I have started using theses on very short runs (by time) and adding minutes each week very slowly. I spent a year reworking my stride before I ran with these shoes so that I am not landing on my heel much at all but using the mid-foot and most of my foot to absorb the impact of each step. To acquire a lighter step you can practice this technique while walking – you need not run in order to learn how to walk more gently and with a light step. Recall what I have said in many stride analysis sessions – that cadence, how often your feet hit the ground, has everything to do with a light step. Walking or running, your step must be smaller and faster to achieve lower impact forces. 

For two years now the Outdoor Retailer Trade show saw scores of outdoor footwear manufacturers gunning for a piece of the barefoot pie, gearing up to make “thneeds”, or feather weight running shoes for everyone who wants to run barefoot. The marketplace is now flooded with these new shoes, some of them using untested, un-researched technology as well, making them in some ways like Bowerman’s first Nike’s. You may choose to try them or go barefoot, grab some moccasins, run in cheaper “race flats” or just try your old Chuck Taylor’s like Lydiard ran in for decades. One key criterion for choosing these shoes is that they should not have an elevated heel. Your foot should be neutral from front to back, just as if you were barefoot on the floor. Most of us can adapt to this well if asked to do so slowly – because you have never seen a baby or an east African in high heels. A second key criterion is that they should be firm, without a lot of additional padding. The more that interferes – or is between you and the ground, the less likely you are to develop the sensitivity to be balanced and at your best. Cucuzzella has been cited as saying that the harder the surface, the lighter the landing. But if you cannot feel the surface, your foot cannot adapt to it with a light landing.

Think about a deliberate program of gentle foot strengthening for yourself as a possible next step in your program and add it gradually, just like you started running. A foot that “knows the ground” and is most sensitive, may be less likely to sprain an ankle, will run trails better, and may run slower at first but that is OK, you’re in shape and will not “de-train” as a part of this process. Your lower legs will continue to develop in a way that may reduce your injuries over time and your stride will adapt to something that is more powerful in the long run. That is what I want for your running – long running for the long run. So run gently out there.

Read an article about the US military study here http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/phys-ed-do-certain-types-of-sneakers-prevent-injuries/?emc=eta1

The study here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20576837

Danny Dryers list of preferred light weight shoes
http://chirunning.com/blogs/danny/2010/02/07/chirunning-recommendations-for-minimal-shoes/comment-page-2/#comment-1330

Interesting article on shoes from a rehab perspective

http://www.chirunning.com/shop/pages.php?tab=r&pageid=18&id=575

I have also added several new links on the toolbar here to assist you in learning more about natural running style. If you ever plan to increase your training volume, or wish to develop further as an injury free runner, you owe it to yourself to look over the current research in this area.