Do many elite runners overpronate????

Could be too much too soon on the barefoot work.

I started by just doing drills and then adding in 10min runs. i did this for a while before i started 20min/30min and then a while longer before I started seriously running barefoot. i took a year from the time I started until I was doing 60min barefoot runs.

I'll post more later when i have time.

From your previous post, you said that you believe ALL people with a "normal" weight distribution can benefit from barefoot running and their level of pronation is set at a naturally optimal level. Therefore, someone who is a severe overpronator and someone who is perfectly neutral are equally efficient and injury prone. If everyone is already at some preset pronation level that is best for them, then why do people who run barefoot unequivocally develop a neutral gait. This change from overpronation to neutral completely contradicts your original statement that they are already pronating to the optimal degree. This goes back to my point that barefoot running is self selecting: those who are efficient to begin with naturally gravitate towards it, while those who significantly overpronate do not because it gets them injured. This is an honest inquiry by someone who does not have a preconceived bias against barefoot running or have any affiliation with a running store or company so please respond.

I raced against Bekele in Gateshead Grand Prix this year and as we walked out to the start, I noticed that he had really flat feet/fallen arches but when he runs he is on his toes so its hard to see.

my comments are with regard to the mechanics of the foot -- strength is another issue

Hey Runnergurl, as I already mentioned to you (and trackhead agreed with), you just did too much too soon. I haven't even done a 30 minute bout of barefoot running, and I've been doing it since March! Also, are you accustomed to 60-90 min. runs? Gosh, I didn't get up to that amount until my soph. year of college. To have your wisdom teeth taken out, take a few days off, and then jump right back into 30 min. barefoot/60 min./60 min./90 min., this sounds like a recipe for injury. Our body will adapt to whatever stress we place on it, but when the stress exceeds the body's ability to cope it, that's when we get injured. Something else.... on the Yahoo message board for Barefoot Runners, someone wanted to know if there was a shoe they could wear to work that would keep their feet from being stiff when they later ran barefoot. The point is, if you wear stiff shoes on a daily basis and then go run barefoot or in flexible flats, this is going to be a strain on your feet. Get accustomed to wearing sandals or other flexible shoes, as this will easy the transition to barefoot running and training in flats.

Question for Trackhead wrote:

This change from overpronation to neutral completely contradicts your original statement that they are already pronating to the optimal degree....

This goes back to my point that barefoot running is self selecting: those who are efficient to begin with naturally gravitate towards it, while those who significantly overpronate do not because it gets them injured.

What trackhead is pointing out is someone may overpronate with their shoes on but pronates to their optimal degree WITHOUT their shoes on. Running without your shoes helps you achieve the most neutral, efficient gait, FOR YOU.

I overpronate extensively (that is, with shoes on!), but as trackhead pointed out, my degree of pronation is reduced when running barefoot. How do I know? Because not only does research illustrate this, but my injury woes (most likely because of shoes) have melted away! As a result, I've been able to train consistently for 9 months and improve my 5K PR by 38 seconds! It's a false notion that because someone overpronates with shoes on, their degree of pronation would be exacerbated while barefoot. Moreso, this idea that pronation is bad and we need to "control" it with stiff shoes is wrong. If you're an "overpronator" and you want to lessen the degree of your pronation, slip off your shoes and go run!

When I ran barefoot for my gait eval, there was some pronation. When resting, my feet naturally rotate inwards. The last time I tried lightweight trainers (NB 830) I got IT band syndrome. My feet cross in front of each other when I run, putting outward stress on my legs (and causing a femur stress fracture). Could that be caused by my pronation or from a different problem? I switched to NB 856's from Asics 2090/80's and I haven't had problems since (3 months though, problems could start again). Please explain. Also, if my feet may be weak, could you recomend some exercises to strengthen them?

for strengthening, start just walking barefoot on grass. 10min, 20min, just start small and work up. For running, I usually recommend 10min of easy jogging, with a minimum of 48hrs until you try it again. Then just start to build. It was a year after i started walking barefoot on grass before I was doing 30-60min runs.

Wow, I guess I didn't realize how long a 30 min barefoot run actually was, I definately did one only a few weeks after doing 10-15 min ones. I had been doing 60-90 min runs since June, and usually getting anywhere from 7-8 hrs of running a week in with a 2 hr long run (the 90 min run was a mid-week semi-long run). The usual was 60 mins. Anyway, I know now to do things much slower, I guess I had to find out the hard way, lol.

But nature is not stupid -- people are designed to move one their feet for extended periods of time.

The Bushmen of Namibia will run for hours chasing animals (zebra, I think) until the animal is exhausted and has to rest; and then they attack.

It's shoes that f*** us up -- if there were no hard surfaces or elevated shoes we'd have almost no problems

No one has been able to explain to me why humans should run in high heels