Do many elite runners overpronate????

overpronation only occurs when you're in a shoe of signficant elevation

how your foot normally meets the ground is just pronation. No one "over-pronates" without a shoe -- we've all got a natural amount of roll we need to do.

Shilese Sihine has flat feet, and many Kenyan top-runners.

way to pick at words... true, everybody "pronates." When the foot rolls excessively inwards, that's considered "over-pronating." Overpronation doesn't just occur when you're in a shoe of significant elevation, either. When running barefoot, or with shoes that lack support, my feet roll inwards quite a bit (I just had a gait eval done). This has caused quite a few injuries. If I wore shoes that let my feet do what they do naturally, I'd be spending quite a few weeks on the couch.

so if we were in a world without shows and just soft grass and earth (like kenya/Ethiopia) you would be incapable of running?

why would it make sense that your foot is improperly built for running? Did hunter/gathers drop to the gorund with shin splints and get eaten by predators becase of their excessive pronation?

If you pronate a little or a lot -- it doesn't matter -- it's what your body is designed with. the only difference is that the ones who pronate more will over-pronate when they're in a high heeled platform.

Watch someone who pronates a lot, but does a lot of barefoot running go for a jog. They've got perfect mechanics and their feet and legs are just fine. It only becomes a problem when they're elevated off the ground, their feet are weak and their form is poor.

do many of those elites who do overpronate wear orthotics etc or just racing flats like trackhead advises. i had a thread asking about whether or not to wear flats without orthotics a while back. i tried with just the flats but got terrible pains in my groins after only a week(im only 16) the same pains as when i was injured a few years ago and i made my 1st switch to orthotics. Now i wear the racing flats but with orthotics and its working out fine but im still curious as to whether if i stuck with the flats on their own for a few weeks and jus beard through the pain would it stop and my bodily mechanics work properly. the problem is i cant afford to get injured with world yths and euro yth olympics on the horizon!!

Yes, hunters/gathers got eaten literally, having their genetics killed off, not being passed down, not weakening the subspecies any further.

trackhead wrote:

Did hunter/gathers drop to the gorund with shin splints and get eaten by predators becase of their excessive pronation?

if that were the case, then that gene would have been weeded out of the population -- but the majority of people naturally pronate to a noticable degree

Joanie Benoit and Said Aouita were notorious over-pronators. Any pic of Joanie running taken from in back of her shows her practically running on her ankle.

trackhead read what you wrote above.

We were not talking about normal needed pronation but OVER/Excessive pronation, big difference there.

The Etheopian woman who finished, I believe, 4th in the Olympics was overpronating substantially. Okayo, who has beautiful form, DNF.

Although some aspects of mechanics can be learned and improved, some aspects are a result of a person's natural skeletal, muscular, etc. structure. Although a certain form may be the most efficient for an individual, there are aspects of form that are more efficient for the population in general. It seems that those with that better form do better at the top levels, but there do seem to be exceptions.

But whatever pronation you come with is NORMAL. There is nothing wrong with it. It's when you're on an elevated platform that you're forced to tip inwards causing OVERPRONATION.

I work with a women who naturally pronates much much more than I do. But if you watch her run in the RC-150s she looks fine because she doesn't have the platform off of which to roll.

agreed

trackhead wrote:

if that were the case, then that gene would have been weeded out of the population -- but the majority of people naturally pronate to a noticable degree

Not necessarily, you don't have to outrun the lion just run faster than the slowest guy!

women pronate more than men because the angle of their quads in relation to their hips is greater, so the ankle must roll more to lessen pounding on the feet. whats over pronating for a guy might be normal/acceptable for a girl.

It's true that people "back in the day" did pronate and maybe even overpronate. But maybe they also had foot, back, leg, etc problems to go with them. Don't forget--some people naturally have terrible eyesight, and in olden times were unable to see or function well in society. It's why we have glasses now.

trackhead wrote:

so if we were in a world without shows and just soft grass and earth (like kenya/Ethiopia) you would be incapable of running?

why would it make sense that your foot is improperly built for running? Did hunter/gathers drop to the gorund with shin splints and get eaten by predators becase of their excessive pronation?

If you pronate a little or a lot -- it doesn't matter -- it's what your body is designed with. the only difference is that the ones who pronate more will over-pronate when they're in a high heeled platform.

Watch someone who pronates a lot, but does a lot of barefoot running go for a jog. They've got perfect mechanics and their feet and legs are just fine. It only becomes a problem when they're elevated off the ground, their feet are weak and their form is poor.

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It is not that the foot itself is improperly designed for running, it is that specific people's feet are. Not everyone has the advantage of good biomechanics. The fact remains that there is a wide variance in biomechanics from person to person. It is not only wrong but also irresponsible of you to ignore this fact.

You say that people who regularly run barefoot have perfect biomechanics. I think you are confusing correlation with causation. Maybe one's efficient biomechanics self selects him to be a candidate to run barefoot. When I see a 300 pound lineman running barefoot with perfect biomechanics then I will be a convert.

trackhead -

I definately overpronate a lot still when I run barefoot. I have custom orthodics specially for overpronation but I don't like wearing them because they are so stiff. So I tried getting away from them and into flats and also did easy barefoot running on the side, and I ended up getting injured in the area of my foot that rolls in (the posterior tibialis tendon) and I have not been able to run at all for the first 6 weeks of my cross country season so far. Can you explain to me what I did wrong, in making the switch? I was running in the flats (ultimate 81s and ekidens) for the 3 months of the summer with no problems until I introduced barefoot running about 3x a week towards the end of the summer. I also ran in flats (ultimate 81s) during the entire winter last year with no problems. So do you think it was too much barefoot running too soon or something?

I should have mentioined that these statements hold true as long as weight is not disproportionate to frame

How long were the barefoot runs when you first did them and how long were they until you became injured?

Did anything else change at that time (before/during/after the addition of barefoot running)?