the flaw in your analogy is that you do you best running in flats, while if you're myopic you most definitely don't do your best "seeing" without glasses. the sleeping in the woods analogy is just stupid. not saying you're wrong, just come up with a better analogy.
Sorry, "i'll never feel the same" but "the other guy" is wrong and so are you, shmuck. Heel counters are needed to keep the feet of heel-strikers centered in the shoe, so that they won't slip out the back (or cause the upper to fail in the back) when they land on their heels. If you don't heel-strike, a heel counter really isn't necessary. I know this from experience in running in shoes that lacked heel counters. Run barefoot sometime and try to "use your whole foot." How idiotic.
uh, no wrote:
Personally speaking, my biomechanics are very bad. If I ever tried to do all my running barefoot or in racing flats, I would come down with yet another injury. There is no way to change this.
Your shod biomechanics may be bad, but the way you've phrased it makes it look like your dire predictions of injury as being an irrational response. You'll never give it an honest try, I'm sure, so you're safe from potentially eating your own words.
Bingham wrote:
Sorry, "i'll never feel the same" but "the other guy" is wrong and so are you, shmuck. Heel counters are needed to keep the feet of heel-strikers centered in the shoe, so that they won't slip out the back (or cause the upper to fail in the back) when they land on their heels. If you don't heel-strike, a heel counter really isn't necessary. I know this from experience in running in shoes that lacked heel counters. Run barefoot sometime and try to "use your whole foot." How idiotic.
ah....yeah i dont care who you are, you run anything further than MAYBE 800m
your heel will contact the ground, and pronate.
"heel-striker" or "Midfoot-striker" whatever.
your a Plantigrade
not
a digitigrade.
LOL
i run probably 30mi aweek barefoot, much of it on pavement.
you dont land on it, but it does contact the ground(or else why would you have a fatty pad on your heel bone).
Whose mechanics are bad?
Check out most barefoot runners out of Africa -- flat feet, high level pronators. They're fine.
To your examples:
1) reading is not a necessity to survival
2) if you stay around the equator where man evolved, you'll be fine staying outside at night.
Bingham,
If you're right ont he ground, the heel counter is a hinderance.
whether or not that is the case i coudlnt care less, but to say your heel doesnt contact the ground is wrong.
sorry jackass bingham, but listen to madein_82 he's right. i run barefoot all the time and use my whole foot. you must look like moron when you run just bouncing off your balls. just about all spikes/xc flats come with heel counters. i like that cause the shoe has structure, and not for stability. i'm willing to admit that it might just be a matter of preference though.
oh yeah wrote:
Your shod biomechanics may be bad, but the way you've phrased it makes it look like your dire predictions of injury as being an irrational response. You'll never give it an honest try, I'm sure, so you're safe from potentially eating your own words.
Nope. 3 fractures, 6 separate cases of tendonitis, bursitis, and 4 back strains due to foot problems.
And throughout it all I did workouts with flats and barefoot strides and jogging every day.
I've tried; it doesn't work for everyone.
It's there for walking, my semi-literate friend. Does the fatty pad help when you jump to the ground from a significant height? You're guilty of generalizing and projecting your own experiences, you have never seen the heels of my training shoes.
trackhead, heel counters (or a lack thereof) have no effect on me, either good or bad and whether I'm "right ont he ground" or not.
trackhead wrote:
Whose mechanics are bad?
Those who cannot safely do 100 miles per week in flats.
Check out most barefoot runners out of Africa -- flat feet, high level pronators. They're fine.
I wonder how you'd be able to tell what foot type any African athlete is considering race videos give profile shots for 98% of the race with the occasional frontal shot or moving camera. None of this is enough to determine whether someone pronates.
Also, the stride pattern in a race on a flat track wearing spikes is not representative of the foot strike pattern the runner uses doing 90% of their miles in training on dirt and grass and road in different shoes.
To your examples:
1) reading is not a necessity to survival
2) if you stay around the equator where man evolved, you'll be fine staying outside at night.
Running is not necessary to survival either.
Sight is, in many cases. And about the sleeping in the woods argument, I am employing the logic of "Running barefoot is natural." Taken literally, so is sleeping naked out in the woods. Should we do this as well?
The argument "it's natural" does not mean it's advisable.
yeah whatever....
Nobody of any significance, has ever ran long distance without touching your heel.
does the word PLANTIGRADE!!!
mean anything to you?
probably not i dont care.
Hey head's up, there is a UK site
that actually shows a pair of NB 302's for sale.
Only one pair of US size 8's.
madein_82 wrote:
does the word PLANTIGRADE!!!
mean anything to you?
No, because there's no such word. Did you mean "plantarflex"?
I'll agree that you're sorry, but to say that I should "listen to" "maiden_82" because you say so is a joke. "maiden_82" obviously relies upon assuming that he has seen and knows all, which I can easily tell is not the case. It's only you who looks like a moron when you fail to even conceptualize not heel-striking without "bouncing off your balls." Tell it to Gebreselassie, when you run him down with the help of a car. You're shackled with ignorance. Just about all mass-marketed spikes and xc flats made to day have to accomodate for the fact that runners clog around in overbuilt shoes and therefore have really weak lower legs and feet. I've never seen a heel counter on the Jasari, Kennedy, Harambee, etc.
Your semi-literate means of expression means nothing to me. When you figure out how to clearly state your point, let me know and I'll bother paying attention to your babbling again.
did you miss the parts of my post where I said "near the equator where man evolved"
running is necessary to survival. did you miss that big anthro article?
Study: Learning to Run Propelled Evolution
Study Suggests Man's Evolution From Walking to Running an Instrumental Step in Human Evolution
The Associated PressThe Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY Nov 18, 2004 — New research suggests that developing the ability to run long thought to be a byproduct of walking for early man was actually an instrumental step in the evolution of people from ape-like creatures into what we know today as humans.
In a study published in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature, University of Utah biology professor Dennis Bramble and Harvard anthropologist Daniel Lieberman conclude that natural selection favored early humans who had genetic mutations that accommodated running.
Over time, that included a narrowed waist, shorter forearms, larger buttocks and skull modifications allowing the body to cool itself.
The research suggests that primitive man's evolution from walking to running was fundamental to human evolution forsaking the capacity to live in trees, but vastly improving the species' ability to find food and ultimately becoming anatomically similar to the way we are today.
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They also hypothesize that running preceded brain enlargement and may have precipitated brain development by allowing primitive man to locate and consume more protein.
"The structure of specializations required for hunting are sort of counter to those that are useful for climbing," Bramble said. "We sort of favor the notion that humans may have evolved running initially to increase their intake. But not through hunting probably through scavenging."
Bramble estimates early man walked for 2.5 million to 3 million years before finally developing running ability.
Previously, researchers hadn't much focused on running, instead considering it simply a byproduct of walking. But Bramble points to specific adaptations like the Achilles tendon as evidence that man wasn't capable of running until evolution accommodated it.
"It turns out that (the Achilles tendon) is a terrific spring, and it makes a huge difference in the economy of running, but it makes no difference in walking," he said.
Bramble said scientists might have overlooked the importance of running because humans aren't considered particularly fast in comparison to four-legged animals.
However, Bramble says endurance, more than speed, was the key for early man enabled by adaptations allowing the body to cool itself and function over long distances.
Furthermore, Bramble suggested that early runners could even have been faster than our contemporaries, perhaps in part because projectile hunting weapons made running less necessary as humans evolved further.
"Some of our ancestors very likely could have been better runners than some of the best runners today," he said.
Christopher Ruff, director of the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at Johns Hopkins University, said the theory is valuable, but won't necessarily change the way scientists think about human evolution.
Ruff said it's difficult to tell which genetic modifications uniquely accommodated running because so many of them also aid in walking.
"It's more of a hypothesis than a real test of the theory," he said. "It's interesting to think about the data in this way, and it's a good idea to consider some driving forces, but I don't consider this proof."
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
whatever ..
ive provided a link to a def. of plantigrade.
feel free to read it.
..
if in between your personal attacks and ravings, you had actaully read my post you would see that i did not, question your lack of need of a heel counter.
and i in fact do most of my running barefoot or in H's.
that said you are still wrong in regards to your understanding of foot plant, if you think that it would be possible to say run a fast 5,000m without touching your heel.
we simpliy are not built for that sort of running.
trackhead wrote:
did you miss the parts of my post where I said "near the equator where man evolved"
No, I read it. It is a caveat, not directly related to the arguments I made about flats, which have done unanswered, and your own, such as the one about Africans, which have gone unsupported.
running is necessary to survival. did you miss that big anthro article?
Evolution is a theory, not reality. And running is not necessary to survival. Quoting presitigious anthropologists does not change the fact.
A person is born and may never run, but they will not die from not having run. Evolution does not equate with survival.
Running may be healthy, but it is absurd to say it is necessary to survival, and even if it were, that says nothing about running in flats.
So I await your reply to the other comments, since you seem to be the major proponent of this theory.
It is directly related -- it links the ability to run (unshod) with our development of a species.
Yes, evolution is a theory. Just like plate tectonics and gravity.
How does evolution not equate with survival? When the early hominids left the jungle for the grasslands, the ability to run long was needed so those more adapted to it survived, passed thier genes on and the process of natural selection took it's course.
The hunter/gatherers of the Khalahari will run for up to 6hrs chasing zebras.