News » I suspect most people who try

I just read an interesting article by Matt Fitzgerald titled “The Barefoot Running Injury Epidemic” about the rising tide of Nike Air Max 90 Femme barefoot running injuries (article Adidas Superstar Femme published on Competitor.com). In the article, Fitzgerald indicates that various medical professionals (physical therapists, podiatrists, etc.) are reporting seeing increasing numbers of patients who are suffering injuries thought to be directly related to running barefoot. I’m not surprised in the least by this, as a simple perusal of almost any barefoot/minimalist running forum will typically turn up multiple people complaining of various aches and pains (some serious, some less serious) related to starting to run barefoot or in minimalist shoes like the Vibram Fivefingers.While the reports in Fitzgerald’s post are anecdotal (we really need some hard data!), I have no reason to suspect that the rash of barefoot running injuries isn’t real. In fact, I myself even Adidas Superstar Femme dealt with some unusual pain on Nike Air Max Classic BW Mens the top of my foot after my first overly Nike Air Max 2017 Mens exuberant run in the Vibram Fivefingers last summer (during which I tried to force a forefoot strike for over a mile – very bad idea). This initial scare led me to shelve the Vibrams for a few weeks before working my way back into them much more slowly (I now run regularly in Vibrams with no problem). I’d speculate that a majority of the injuries being seen are related to people jumping on the barefoot/minimalist bandwagon and overdoing it with mileage to the point where their bodies can’t adapt quickly enough to the new repetitive forces being placed on them. This is a recipe for disaster, and ligament/muscle damage and stress fractures are an unsurprising result (I should note that this is likely not unique to barefoot running, and could equally well apply Nike Air Max Classic BW Femme to switching to a new style of Nike Air Vapormax Womens shoe). I’d also agree with Fitzgerald’s Nike Air Max 270 Femmepoint that some people simply aren’t suited to run barefoot, and there are probably an awful lot of “Jim Hogarty’s” out there (if you haven’t read Fitzgerald’s article, Jim Hogarty is a pseudonym for a childhood friend who couldn’t run). So given all of this, I’d say I’m mostly in agreement with almost everything Fitzgerald wrote in that article. I believe that barefoot running can and does cause injuries (just as shod running can), that it must be adopted with caution and care, and that there a certain number of people who simply should not do it due to underlying biomechanical problems. At the same time however, I see no reason why someone shouldn’t try to run barefoot to see if they like it, and keep doing it if it works positively for them. As long as ike Air Max 90 Mens Grey it’s done carefully (not too far,Nike Air Max 90 Dames Roze not forcing anything like I did with the forefoot strike in Vibrams), I suspect most people who try barefoot running are not going to horrifically injure themselves. I’ve tried running barefoot on asphalt twice myself, only to decide that it wasn’t for me, but I have run 100+ miles in my Vibram Fivefingers with no problem since that very first run.The one major point where I do tend to disagree with Fitzgerald is regarding his take on the evolution of distance running in humans, and this stems mainly from the fact that I myself am an evolutionary biologist. In his article, Fitzgerald states the following:“…humans really are not born for distance running in the same way that cheetahs are born for sprinting. Evolutionary biologists other than Daniel Lieberman will tell you that humans are born Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 35 Femme generalists more than we are born Nike Air Vapormax Femme specialists in endurance running or anything else. A natural consequence of this “jack of all trades, master of none” design is that there are different types of individual specialists within the total human population. Some of us are strong, others weak. Some of us have great hand-eye coordination, others don’t. Some of us can be great marathon runners, others can’t run a step.“There are a number of problems with what is stated here. First of all, who are these “evolutionary biologists other than Daniel Lieberman” that he mentions? I’m sure they’re out there, but why shake the finger at Lieberman’s theory without backing it up with some names, citations, and/or quotes?