Lets just end the heel strike debate right now.

Aghast wrote:

How come there doesn't seem to be any studies that address this question correctly, e.g.:

1 group of heal strikers followed for a few months and then trained to switch to forefoot and followed again

1 group of forefoot strikers followed for a few months and then trained to switch to heal striker and followed again.

Record injury rate and efficiency before and after switching....

lack of money and interest. There is no pharmaceutical to be made so there is no money to be made so nobody does any studies. Poor running form is not considered a major health threat so the organizations that fund studies focus on other things (blood pressure, heart disease etc)

people don't just decide to do huge studies like this just for the heck of it. Too much money involved.

another reason could be that most studies on topics like this are pretty much useless. So you follow people for several months and want to measure efficiency based on ONE variable. How would you account for the million other variables that could be affecting efficiency.

tomtom,

If you've read through this entire thread, you'd know by now that, if you are going to make unsubstantiated assertions without some strong evidence to back them up, you're going to get slammed. It has nothing to do with someone's running pedigree. Furthermore, you'd also know that what you've presented are rehashed comments that have already been undermined.

Remember that sceptics require proof, sceptics don't need to prove anything, except they have reason to be sceptical.

Clit on bush haytit fund wrote:

lack of money and interest. There is no pharmaceutical to be made so there is no money to be made so nobody does any studies. Poor running form is not considered a major health threat so the organizations that fund studies focus on other things (blood pressure, heart disease etc)

people don't just decide to do huge studies like this just for the heck of it. Too much money involved.

another reason could be that most studies on topics like this are pretty much useless. So you follow people for several months and want to measure efficiency based on ONE variable. How would you account for the million other variables that could be affecting efficiency.

SO you think that scientific studies require huge monetary investments or are all about major health threats and only pharmaceutical companies can afford to fund them? How old are you, son? Tens of thousands of studies are made every year without one dime from "Big Pharma".

lucKY2b wrote:

unsubstantiated assertions without some strong evidence to back them up

er, sorry for the redundancy.

thank you for the completely unprovoked, condescending personal attack.

In order for a study to be statistically valid there needs to be a huge sample of subjects, that are followed for a long period of time. This requires a great deal of money. Ideally the study would be double blind, but in the case of footstrike that would be very difficult. So yes, scientifc studies of this nature absolutely require a huge investment. The equipment to measure efficiency BY ITSELF is tens of thousands of dollars. Plus you need to pay staff for at least a year (for the type of study being discussed) and you need to compensate the hundreds of subjects.

Malmo- here are some questions for you: how would you design a study to study the differences in footstrikes, what is your cost estimate for the study, and what organization(s) would perform the study.

Clit on bush haytit fund wrote:

In order for a study to be statistically valid there needs to be a huge sample of subjects, that are followed for a long period of time. This requires a great deal of money.

What the hell are you talking about? You neither need huge sampling of subjects nor do you need to be "following them" for long periods of time (whatever that's about?) to have a valid study.

malmo wrote:

If you have "bad mechanics" it will be improved through training.

I have seen so many well-trained runners with the same horrible mechanics they started out with. Usually these are people who started running later in life. Training helps but some people start with bad mechanics and never overcome them.

tomtom wrote:Guys, this thread is the most ridiculous creation of mankind I witnessed this year. So, I feel urge to add some SO IMPORTANT comments here.

So-called forefoot strike is natural to mankind. No one is able to run barefoot with hard heel-strike, at least not for long. Our body evolved to run in one specific position, altering it is always wrong. You can't run with greater efficiency using the pattern completely different than the one created by nature.

While there are no studies to supply forefoot nor heel strike, It's pretty obvious that the natural running is the most efficient way of doing things. It's matter of natural selection, faster humanoids survive, and no genetic line ever evolved to heel-strike. How one can be so thick-headed to do not recognize this is beyond me.

So you have no proof to back up what you are saying yet anyone who doesn't agree is thick-headed?

silly old fossil wrote:Yet one thing they all do is hire a SWING coach.Look, there are plenty of runners at Penn State that trained just as hard as Malmo...so what caused him to run faster than them? Was it just his vastly superior VO2 Max, or were there other"intangibles"....running form being one of them.If you are not running "up to par" consider hiring a running form coach; one who specializes in just that.

But you don't necessarily need a coach that is going to obsess over how your foot strikes the ground

Clit on bush haytit fund wrote: This requires a great deal of money. Ideally the study would be double blind, but in the case of footstrike that would be very difficult..

BTW, what on earth do you mean by "double blind"? You're not making any sense. Are you sure you're not meaning double secret probation?

tomtom wrote:I see victims of the american education system here. Ever wonder why the whole world laugh at you? Jesus, where you guys got the idea of "natural form in shoes"? There is no such thing as "natural form in shoes" or "natural form on bicycle", for one simple reason - shoes and bicycles never were part of our natural environment, hence we never ever evolved to gain "natural form" for them.

We have one and only effective way to move forward on two legs, every modification will be against the body mechanics. Sure, having the ridiculously effective cardiovascular system you can win some races even with form as ugly as Malmo had, still running against nature always cost little more energy.

Can you prove this?

silly old fossil wrote:Malmo, the point being the hobbyjogger/reporter can do all the summer of Malmo's in the world, but he is not going to get to the sub-elite level unless he changes/improves his poor mechanics.

Malmo, basic question for you - is a runner "stuck" with his natural mechanics, or can he modify/improve them?

Is our improvement as a runner strictly limited to training only? That seems the thrust of your argument.

But perhaps when he does a few seasons of some higher mileage, he will simply get more efficient and faster.

Of course you can modify your mechanics, but will it necessarily make your faster? It might. Or you might get hurt and if you are injured one thing is for sure, you won't be setting many PR's.

Training can be pretty all encompassing.

malmo wrote:

Clit on bush haytit fund wrote:

In order for a study to be statistically valid there needs to be a huge sample of subjects, that are followed for a long period of time. This requires a great deal of money.

What the hell are you talking about? You neither need huge sampling of subjects nor do you need to be "following them" for long periods of time (whatever that's about?) to have a valid study.

I'll ask you again...regarding the topic of foot strike, how would you design a scientifically valid study, and how much would you estimate the cost to be?

tomtom wrote:No, they are not. Only advantage shoes have over our feet is fact that it's rubber touching asphalt, not our skin. Vibrams compensate this, and there already were races won by Vibram-wearers. Or by barefoot runners, just to mention

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegla_Loroupe

who won numerous races against world champions, or famous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abebe_Bikila

who won olympic marathon barefoot.

Yeah, Bikila broke bone training barefoot - and this is only reasony why people like me train in shoes.

All of the world records were set by people running in shoes.

tomtom wrote:Sure it can be. For example, using rubber instead of skin to push from asphalt. But heel-strike is not improvement, it put half of your running muscles in positions and range motions completely different that ones you have while running barefoot. Wonder why Kenyans dominated running so badly? Yeah, almost all of them run as close to "natural" form as possible.

Again, there is one and the only natural form of running - one you have barefoot. Every change you made put your body mechanics under stress. There was not even slightest chance for heel-running to be even close as efficient as forefoot-strike, otherwise some human subraces or even culture groups would evolve to run from these lions (or after these females) on their heels.

So why is that elite runners do heel strike?

tomtom wrote:so, tell us, how much faster they ran after they got shoes, and don't forget to tell us how much faster they would ran with vibrams instead than barefoot.

They did run faster once they wore shores, look it up.

When someone sets a world record wearing your precious vibrams, lets talk.

I believe this debate would be appropriately ended by concluding that the body will find the most efficient form for whatever stresses it is under. If you first take care of nutrition and alignment in your skeletal structure, as well as working on muscle strength, then the training should produce the form that is most suitable. You run like you do for the reason, and it's because your body is responding appropriately according to its conditioning. Purposely changing mechanics is like treating the symptoms. The body knows what's best, and if you take care of problems within the body, then the form should come by itself.

You people make it complicated when it's really that simple. Heal and strengthen your body, and the rest will come. Some of the ways of helping your body's structure are not common sense, but you have to find the best way to deal with it. I believe chiropractic can help with many of these problems, as well as barefoot running and weight-lifting, as well as active, dynamic stretching. All this along with nutrition will put your body in the environment it needs to perform well and efficiently.

In sum, the bad form is the SYMPTOM, not the problem.

tomtom wrote: It's matter of natural selection, faster humanoids survive, and no genetic line ever evolved to heel-strike. How one can be so thick-headed to do not recognize this is beyond me.

You have a fascile understanding of what natural selection means. "Humanoids" - SCREEEEEECH! - just say "humans" OK? Humans did not need to be fast to survive, nor was there a reason for them not to heel-strike. Humans became the dominant predator because of one reason, the Brain, which allowed him to effect a couple of hunting strategies, 1) the creation of weapons, and 2) social hunting strategies. But hunting societies are all marked by lower survival and fecundity rates. The most important reason why humans were able to establish their niche in all four corners of the globe was once again, that brain, which lead to the domestication of both plants and animals, and eventually more tools.

HHH wrote:

When someone sets a world record wearing your precious vibrams, lets talk.

You can set the bar much lower than that.... much, much lower.