New Barefoot Running Research From Harvard

So you don't object to research done by companies on their own products and then reported, but you do object to research partially funded by a company, not done by the company, peer-reviewed, and then published in a mainstream scientific journal.

Got it.

A couple things...

First getting funding from a particular company to do a study is not new at all. You can discount research based on that, but then you better never use pharmacological drugs. Most of the studies on those are funded from the drug comapanies themselves.

Second one study does not validate one particular thesis, but it can pave the way for future studies to do so. Read and be very wary of all research studies, but if you look at it properly you will come away with some valuable knowledge.

Third, "over-pronation" is not a proper scientific word, but invesion and eversion are. However, in the shoe industry, pronation and supination are used and the status quo... thus using it in a study that will be read by scientist and non-scientist alike. Why do you think credit card companies are starting to dumb down their statements.

Finally, without saying it is right or wrong or bad science... read the study and then evaluation. You all let your emotions of going barefoot get in the way. I believe it is a great training tool but don't think it should be done all the time. However, I am open to new ideas! I am hoping most of you go to college, open you mind and don't discredit something before you have studied it...

Finally finally, to the person who talked about some studies showing this or that about pronation... they are all someway flawed due to the vast differences in running shoes. Some running shoes may change pronation whiles other do not, that is more a factor of what shoe is being worn. Many shoes actually create lever arms that can load the foot more than other or running barefoot!

Finally... you know by saying the study is bad due to Vibram funding it... you really are calling into question the authors, and Harvard's credibility along with everyone else who donated money. I find it downright sad that people have a problem with posting a research study on hear at all. People on this board should be able to read a study and decide if it is good or bad or a little of both. I wish more of this stuff should be posted... Would people call into question posting a study saying depth jumps are great for distance runners... No, they would bash it or support it but not question it being posted!

Smoke Free wrote:

Finally... you know by saying the study is bad due to Vibram funding it... you really are calling into question the authors, and Harvard's credibility along with everyone else who donated money. I find it downright sad that people have a problem with posting a research study on hear at all. People on this board should be able to read a study and decide if it is good or bad or a little of both. I wish more of this stuff should be posted... Would people call into question posting a study saying depth jumps are great for distance runners... No, they would bash it or support it but not question it being posted!

this.

Hey OP Adam,

This poster, "make shoes better", raises a critical question that you should answer: what is new about your study? He cites several previous papers that apparently found the same result years ago.

I realize Nature is a top journal and that your paper must be doing something different and/or much better if it's published there. What is it? In layman's terms please.

BTW, I'm not troubled by your funding, and I think it's great that a human evolution lab is doing this kind of thing.

Thanks!

My assumption is that an elite runner will run in the manner that is fastest for her so that if a runner -- and there are plenty of photos of plenty of elites landing on their heels -- would be faster by landing on the forefoot she would.

But, you say, that's only for people who wear shoes and says nothing about barefoot runners. Hence the limits of the Japanese study referred to by Science of Sport (although I can only infer this from your "Their conclusions also suck").

If I understand the recent study, it looked at runners with varying histories, "athletes from the United States who always wear running shoes; athletes from the Rift Valley Province in Kenya who grew up running barefoot, but now don modern running shoes; U.S. runners who used to wear shoes, but now go barefoot; and runners from Kenya who either always wear shoes or have never worn shoes." (From

)

This suggests a pool of runners in Kenya who either don't wear shoes or grew up not wearing shoes.

A running race would seem to be a perfect test. There's a single variable, how long it takes to get from point A to point B.

We're also told that running success is a ticket out of poverty in Kenya. So we have a population familiar with barefoot running and a pure opportunity for success -- survival of the fastest -- yet we don't have Kenyans running barefoot in the US,or at least that I'm aware of. I'm no Darwin but it seems that the observational data suggest running in shoes is better than running barefoot and you seem to concede that heelstriking in shoes can be faster (to an individual runner) than forefoot striking.

Finally, for those interested, here's Ross Tucker's quotation in context:

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2008/04/running-technique-footstrike.html

I agree that the barefoot movement (I'm a limited member) shouldn't forget that virtually all shoeless people, runners and non-runners alike, Kenyan and non-Kenyan, seem to start wearing shoes as soon as they have the opportunity.

One of my favorite demonstrations is the "persistence hunt" filmed by Attenborough; the hunters literally run down their prey over the course of several hours. Although they are hunting in this supposedly oldest and most traditional way, they wear running shoes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUpo_mA5RP8

Clearly shoes provide an important benefit or two!

Nonetheless, if the main benefit is physical protection, not cushioning and stability, then this supports the use of racing flats not cushioned stability monsters.

Well I'm at least glad I don't have to argue with you about whether humans EVOLVED to run barefoot or if they were CREATED to run barefoot.

Humans are incredible endurance runners (one of the best on the planet). Do you contest this? We are also incredible in the primate world in that I'm not covered with hair, but I am covered with eccrine sweat glands. Have you ever seen any other animal sweat the way you do when you run on a hot day? It is our incredible endurance running capabilities and incredible ability to thermoregulate in the heat (due to our lack of fur and abundance of sweat glands) that allows us to engage in persistence hunting and/or become great scavengers (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~skeleton/pdfs/2009a.pdf). Ungulates cannot pant while galloping, ungulates cool themselves by panting, get an antelope (a savanna ungulate) galloping for an hour during the heat of the day and you have a giant dinner.

Why do you think humans are such incredible endurance runners and thermoregulators?

My preferred answer is that evolution, not chance, gave us these abilities through multiple adaptations that increased our abilities as endurance runners in the heat of the day. Some of the adaptations can be identified in the fossils of our ancestors, others cannot. And no these are not just products of our incredible and odd bipedalism. I do not understand why Table 1 in the review article you were referring to is rank speculation to you. This is how research in evolution works. An example: we identify/approximate a species' diet from its fossilized teeth based on relationships between teeth and diet in species living today. Yes it's not always going to be right. Table 1 has a list of adaptations that humans have for endurance running that do fossilize. These are easy to identify because we have humans running all over the place that we can study. It indicates if the adaptation benefits endurance running solely (no effect on walking) or if the adaptation benefits endurance running more than it does walking. The presence of these adaptations in humans allows us to predict that endurance running was an important factor in the reproductive success of our ancestors at some point. The appearance of these adaptations in the fossil record gives us an idea about the approximate time when these abilities were evolved. 2 million years ago is an approximation and the adaptations probably did not evolve simultaneously but over time.

From my perspective, the abundance of adaptations is overwhelming support of the theory that Homo erectus was a great endurance runner and Homo erectus first appeared around 2 million years ago.

Why do you think humans are such incredible endurance runners? Why do you think humans have little body hair and eccrine sweat glands covering their bodies?

Next, about reading our website or reading the actual paper. I understand that most people don't have access to the article, that's why we made the website. And about the media, believe me we tried to keep conclusions that we did not reach from being broadcasted. But they made their own conclusions (unsubstantiated by our research) because they were more concerned with appealing and flashy stories.

The 10 meters is anecdotal from my experience. The ~25 meter run for each trial was consistent across all subject groups.

I can also tell you just from what I saw of the habitual barefoot adolescents running on their way home from school. As they do this run 4 times a day, I'd say it was their natural gait and they were definitely not heel striking. That's not very scientific so we all subjects do the trials in which we could quantify the kinematics.

Honestly, I don't care for the personal attention. I do however love that the research is noticed and being debated. Also we did not choose to publish in Nature, Nature chose to publish us. We submitted to Nature because it is the best peer-reviewed journal in the world. Paper's in Nature are respected because of their rigorous peer-review process. They get the best academics to review their submissions. Regardless of the attention I receive, I believe that generating attention for this research is important as it relates to more than just a specialized field.

SomeActualData, feel free to email me through my lab email, found on the bottom of the FAQ page of our website. I'd love to discuss this more with you and hear your views. This is a tough medium for me to keep up with.

It is beyond belief that every single debate point by the "forefoot/barefoot" crowd assumes that landing on the heel first = overstriding.

Overstriding is reaching ahead of your centre of mass and landing with a locked-out knee; it is a stride error because it is wasteful and contributes to injury. Overstriding WILL tend to make people land on their heels, but not everyone who lands on their heel is overstriding.

Given the fact that many Elites from all countries (including Kenya and Ethiopia) land heel first, one would tend to think it isn't inherently wrong. If someone can't master landing softly on their heel (absorbing shock with a bent knee and "catching" the ground) what are the odds they'll land softly on their forefoot and not destroy their calf/achilles when they switch landing point?

Fix the problem instead of what may either be a side effect or totally irrelevant.

The problem with landing soft is that it takes time. In reality, for speed, landing rigid and ready to explode is much faster. So you want to land close to the position in which your muscles can instantly explode off the ground. Think of it in terms of a sprinter. If Bolts stride is 3 meters then he will take about 33 steps in a 100 meter race. Now if he decreases the time his foot is on the ground by 2 percent then he will cover that 100 meters faster. However, if you are absorbing, "landing soft" you will not decrease the time your foot is on the ground, but increase.

Secondly, if you look, they will be landing flat/midfoot if they are landing under their center of gravity... almost impossible to land on your heel except when over striding. (as depicted when talking about an over stride in a runners gate and landing on the crash pad of a shoe...

Leanermeaner wrote:

Hey OP Adam,

This poster, "make shoes better", raises a critical question that you should answer: what is new about your study? He cites several previous papers that apparently found the same result years ago.

I realize Nature is a top journal and that your paper must be doing something different and/or much better if it's published there. What is it? In layman's terms please.

BTW, I'm not troubled by your funding, and I think it's great that a human evolution lab is doing this kind of thing.

Thanks!

Shortest summary possible. We asked the question how did humans and our ancestors run without running shoes. We found that habitual barefoot runners were more likely to forefoot strike. Then we found that forefoot striking generated reduced impact forces compared to heel striking, regardless of footwear type or lack thereof. We analyzed the biomechanics of forefoot striking and heel striking and found that the difference in impact forces has to do with the collision of the foot with the ground. Simplified, in a forefoot strike less mass is involved in the collision (the first ~50 ms) compared to a heel strike. Read our website for a slightly more detailed explanation. Read our paper for a much more detailed explanation.

It's important to note that we make no conclusions about foot strikes and injury or running economy. We also make no conclusion about what the best footwear is in terms of injury or efficiency. We simply hypothesize that humans were able to run without shoes by forefoot striking.

This study was one of the first to study HABITUALLY BAREFOOT runners. The papers cited studied HABITUALLY SHOD runners who took of their shoes to replicate "barefoot running." Yes that is barefoot running, but it is not the way that a habitaully barefoot runner would run barefoot?

This really is a very simple story and should seem pretty obvious, but it has not been appropriately addressed. Research has focused on heel striking in shoes as a normal activity. As a human evolutionary biologists, I think that running in shoes is abnormal in the evolutionary world. Have you seen any other animals with shoes on besides the ones that we nail shoes onto? I suppose there's also those ridiculous shoes that dogs wear. Anyways, I forefoot strike in racing flats since converting at the end of the summer. This next part is not science, it's my experience. It's obvious to me that cushioning feels good and forefoot striking with cushioning feels even better. It's takes about 3 months for and ex-college runner like myself to make the transition.

Our study did not consider which foot strike would be the fastest for a 5k, 10k, or any race. From the evolutionary perspective, the important question for us is to determine how they were able to run apparently safely and effectively. We suspect that they were able to do this by forefoot striking and reducing impact force. If our ancestors evolved to engage in persistence hunting, they would only have needed to run fast enough to keep the ungulate galloping. There were no PR's back in the day.

This is not the study to talk about if you want to talk speed. Saying something about sprinters and their contact time means nothing here. Landing on the forefoot with a rigid/stiff ankle and not allowed the heel to contact (this is what sprinters do) will also generate a large impact force compared to landing on the forefoot with a compliant ankle. Endurance running and sprinting are different ends of the spectrum biomechanically.

Sorry I was referring to "boggled" and his assertion that people heel strike while landing under them. I would suggest anyone who says this to actually look at the video in slow motion and more than likely you will notice a foot strike in front of the center of gravity.

If you can find a video of someone heel striking under them then please post the link...

Even this youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x6V48IIQRQ)

of Haile Gebrselassie running slow motion shows him striking in front of his center of gravity. You can stop it at the right moment you can see this...

Cavanagh & Lafortune

J. Biomechanics

vol 13, pp 397-406, 1980 (yes, 30 years ago!)

specifically page 402

"The vertical component (of the ground reaction force) for midfoot strikers shows a characteristic absence of the initial peak following contact...."

read the full paper by typing Cavanagh and Lafortune into googlescholar

Press coverage of Lieberman et al 2010 is claiming that it is barefoot that reduces the impact force. Clearly, it is the forefoot strike pattern.

What would Lieberman have said in their article if they had studied shod runners using forefoot strike pattern.....?

somehow "Forefoot strike pattern has lower impact peak" doesn't pack as much sizzle as the breathless, "Barefoot running better than shoes!"

whatsnew wrote:

What would Lieberman have said in their article if they had studied shod runners using forefoot strike pattern.....?

They did. From the article:

Kinematic differences among foot strikes generate markedly different collision forces at the ground, which we compared in habitually shod and barefoot adult runners from the USA during RFS and FFS running (Methods and Supplementary Data 2).Whereas RFS landings cause large impact transients in shod runners and even larger transients in unshod runners (Fig. 1a, b), FFS impacts during toe–heel–toe gaits typically generate ground reaction forces lacking a distinct transient (Fig. 1c), even on a stiff steel force plate4,17–19.

According to their table, no percentage of the habitually shod US runners forefoot strike, with or without shoes. However, for the habitually barefoot US runners, 75% forefoot strike (barefoot) and 37% forefoot strike (shod). This shows that a forefoot strike can be learned through greater barefoot activity and carried over to shoes (for 37% in this study), BUT shoes still encourage 50% of the habitually barefoot US runners to rearfoot strike. The study points out the problem being the design of shoes, placing greater cushioning under the heel, which encourages a heelstrike. The Asics Gel Cumulus was the shoe used in the study. The bottom line is shoe companies need to design a shoe without the heel lift.

The current utility of an adaptation is not necessarily related to the original selective forces that led to the spread of that adaptation. Basic evolutionary theory. To take an admittedly silly example: humans are incredible typists, but nobody invokes Pliocene keyboards as the reason.

And invoking impact-stress-related injuries as a selective factor is, as I argued, pretty dubious. Especially given the presence of multiple large carnivores who would gladly snack on a hominid that went running by in broad daylight.

Actually, endurance running adaptations are unusually hard to identify. Humans are the only habitually bipedal mammals, and are also essentially unique in our endurance running capacity (as you point out). So if there is a feature of our postcranial skeleton that is also unique, is it a distance running adaptation, or is it just because we are bipedal, or is it a correlate of some other feature, or does it not really have a functional impact at all? No way to tell without experimentation. And the amount of experimentation you can do on humans is extremely limited (e.g., no strain gauges).

To take a specific example: the table in question lists expanded lumbar centra as an adaptation to endurance running. We know that how? Why isn't it an adaptation to just bipedality? Or a secondary consequence of the expansion in the thorax/trunk?

Inferring diet from teeth is way way easier, because a tremendous diversity of diets is seen across mammalian species, and they all have teeth, so you've got a really excellent opportunity to do comparative anatomy.

What we'd really need to apply the "teeth-diet" approach (comparative anatomy) to the endurance running question is another extant bipedal primate that was not a good endurance runner. Then we could compare features (like relative size of lumbar bodies) between the two and figure out which were due to bipedality alone and which might be endurance running adaptations. Sadly, no such beast (unless ... paging Bigfoot?)

EZ10Miler wrote:

The two most recent developments in running I'm sick of hearing about:

-ultra marathons

-vibrams and barefoot running.

Both things seem to be embraced by the same type of people.

Because they are better than you.....or so they think.

this latest research and media blitz prompted a response from the local running shops, which i found interesting. it was is my inbox today.

i just posted this on some other minimalist thread, sorry for the dual-post.

-----------------------------------------------

An Open Letter to the Running Community

Regardless of what you call it ---barefoot running, POSE running, Chi running, good-lord-my-calves-are-killing-me running, etc. --- what was once passed off as a fad adopted by an elite few and an assortment of loonies is now garnering national attention thanks to a few hard-hitting publications.

First, author Christopher McDougall's Born to Run introduced the idea of barefoot running form to the masses, praising its injury-prevention benefits as salvation to a long history of running pathologies. The theory closely parallels the typical eyeglass wearer's journey: man has bad eyes, uses corrective lenses to adjust vision, becomes dependent on prescription, eyes become weaker, prescription strength increases.

In running, man, it is postulated, uses footwear as an adaptation, relying on increasingly corrective support structures to do the work, thereby weakening muscle and connective tissue and ultimately creating a greater need for support. However, by removing footwear from the equation many of the smaller stabilizer muscles in the lower extremity can actually become stronger, and the risk of injury can, somewhat counter intuitively, be reduced.

And the theory is sound.

More recently, a human evolutionary biology professor from Harvard University by the name of Daniel Lieberman (whom McDougall quotes extensively in Born to Run) has been one of the lead researchers in a well-funded study which attempts to scientifically quantify the benefits of barefoot running form. Lieberman's study has suddenly been catapulted into the limelight, with an appropriately-timed article in the journal Nature hitting newsstands mere weeks into the 2010 Boston Marathon training season, and a subsequent media flurry, being quoted in the Times and Globe and Tweeted to kingdom come.

Clearly, this whole barefoot thing has a captive audience. Just look up "barefoot running" in your Google News search bar and you'll find over 300 articles published within the last week discussing Lieberman's findings.

So how does Marathon Sports weigh in on the debate? Is barefoot really the way to go, or is it another passing fad?

First, let's clarify some terminology. Barefoot running, from our perspective, is the pursuit of a minimalist, natural running form. It may or may not include running truly unshod on a variety of surfaces, but at its core it is a minimalist movement. Henceforth, we will call it "minimalist running."

As a highly-regarded running specialty retailer, and winner of the coveted Best of Boston award an industry-leading 11 times, we take our integrity very seriously. And as evidenced by our early adoption of "minimalist" footwear like the Nike Free (introduced in 2005 to much buzz and acclaim), Newton, and now Vibram Five Fingers (scheduled to deliver in March '10), we feel that we are uniquely positioned and qualified to enter the ring.

The fact of the matter is this: we have always been proponents of the "less is more" philosophy, in that we are firm believers in using the most basic tools in our footwear toolbox to get the job done. Not every overpronator is in need of a motion control shoe, just as not every 180+ lb runner is in need of a high-cushion shoe. But finding the footwear that allows runners to meet the demands they place on their bodies is our full-time job, and we think we're pretty good at it.

The minimalist running phenomenon is no different. Not every runner who comes into our store is going to be ideally suited to jump right in with both feet (pun fully intended) to an exclusively barefoot training regimen, and our role as educators is to emphasize the importance of proper training and equipment to achieve whatever fitness goals a given runner is pursuing. If that goal is to be running with minimalist form 100% of the time, the proper tool to achieve that may be the Nike Free, Five Fingers, or Newtons, or it may be a matter of decreasing the overall level of support in their normal training footwear gradually over time.

From a training perspective, we feel that Moderation, Adaptation, and Progression (MAP) are the keys to improvement. Anytime a given training program is rushed, without using moderation or taking adaptation and progression into consideration, injury is a likely end result. With that in mind, anytime you see a pair of minimalist running shoes leave our store, you can trust that our staff has taken the time to explain the benefits and potential drawbacks of their use to the consumer.

We accept that, through careful use and diligence on the part of the runner, minimalist running is a fully legitimate form, and over a long period of time with proper training, is likely to yield less repetitive-stress injuries than a more pronounced heel striking gait. The evidence supports this, and frankly it stands to reason on its own.

Do we feel that every runner who steps through our doors can and should be running in minimalist footwear? Of course not; every runner is as unique as his or her fingerprint, and individual biomechanics and form can vary to an enormous degree from case to case. Going back to the eyeglasses analogy, would a lifelong eyeglass wearer simply stop wearing their glasses one day and suddenly be able to see clearly? Not likely. But for those who are ready to take on the challenge of adopting a new running form, or willing to put in the work to get there, we are more than happy to offer guidance, suggestions, and ultimately to provide product to suit their needs.

To those who view minimalist running as the ideal solution to injury-free running, we invite you to come in and pick our brains on the topic. Our staff is well-trained, knowledgeable, informed, and fully equipped to handle the coming tide. We believe minimalist running is here to stay, and we as leaders in the running industry have embraced it.

-Marathon Sports-

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3384691&page=6#ixzz0e19DGcLI

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Horray for Bad Research wrote:

But tell that to the 5'9", 250lb guy that started running barefoot after he read "Born to Run"... and got bilateral stress factures in his metatarsals. But i'm sure he was just doing it wrong. Because barefoot running is better for everybody! Or the 40 year old lady whose barefoot running "trainer" talked her into training for Disney Marathon barefoot...and despite the stress fractures in both feet and her right fibula...she still ran. Yes she's an idiot for running... and its unbelievable that her trainer is still allowed to talk.

hahahahahhaha. I think it should be pointed out that both if these people are too dumb to breathe let alone talk. If you're that fat, I don't think you should be running period, that guy (I'm guessing you) was lucky that he suffered a stress fracture and not an MI. Who reads a book and then drastically changes the way they exercise based on no scientific evidence? And also, how the hell could someone get so fat and still call themselves a runner? I'd eat lead once I hit 200. As for the woman who ran on diagnosed stress fractures, well, the English language lacks words to describe that level of stupidity.