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A number of kinematic studies have shown differences in things like joint angles and limb positioning at impact, including an abstract of a paper by a group from South Africa to be presented at the very same meeting as the study under discussion here. It’s important to remember that ground reaction forces simply Nike Air Vapormax Womens describe the reaction of the ground to forces applied by the body via the foot. These are external forces, and Nike Air Max 90 Dam Svart thus don’t describe how those forces are applied internally to individual muscles, bones, joints, etc. Thus, the same Nike Air Max 2017 Womens loading rate might have a very different effect if the limb is positioned in a different way upon impact. In other words, we might not be comparing apples to apples here. What’s more, as the authors point out, footstrike is just one variable to consider, and that “other variables such as joint kinematics, joint stiffness, or muscle activity, may play a more dominant role in determining the VILR (loading rate).” For more on this, see this great post by Jay Dicharry from the UVA Speed Lab.
What I find interesting about this study is that it shows yet again that individual responses are highly variable when Nike Blazer Low Womens it comes to running mechanics – it’s why generalizations are in fact so hard to make. People respond differently to Nike Roshe Run Mens different interventions, and thus Amby is right when he suggests that generalizations about the most appropriate shoe and/or foot strike should be avoided. Different Nike Air Max 95 Mens things will work for different people, but that’s also why I disagree with Amby when he expresses his lack of faith in anecdotal reports and refers to them as “bad science.” One of the first things we teach in elementary biology classes is the scientific method, and one of the foundations of that method is observation. Anecdotes about people getting hurt or overcoming injury through running barefoot or in minimal shoes are observations, and they allow scientists to generate and test hypotheses, just as the authors of the studies referenced here have done.It’s also worth pointing out that science also does have limitations, and one of those is that we are very good at describing majority patterns, but studies are often very bad at telling the individual what is best for them. Non-systematic results in biomechanics studies, as well as anecdotal reports from runners who experience different outcomes when experimenting on themselves, all seem to argue that we will never have one single answer that applies to all runners when it comes to form and shoes. That’s why I view the discussion around barefooting and minimalism to be so important – it is helping to increase variety in footwear options for a highly variable and oft-injured population of runners. The “bell curve” that Amby refers to in his post has long been skewed to one type of shoe, and what I hope is that through individual experiments an additional research we will gain a better idea of where the tip of that bell should be.At the end of the day, scientific studies can be a useful guide, but when you are a chronically injured runner, sometimes waiting for an answer in a Nike Air Force 1 Womens scientific paper can take too long. Sometimes taking a risk and trying something dramatically different can be of great benefit. Sometimes it might break your foot. Without anecdotal reports from individual experiments though, we wouldn’t have the basis upon which to generate and test hypotheses about why some people get one result and some get the Nike Free Run 3.0 Dam other.