Guest guest Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Saw this article in the newspaper this morning and I thought it was interesting enough to share. It made me laugh, coming <ahem> right on the heels of wondering about jogging barefoot on my treadmill! Enjoy! Ev"A hundred million miracles are happening every day!" ********************************************************************************************************************************************* "Can't Beat Bare Feet For Running" by Tami Dennis Los Angeles Times Those hallmarks of physical fitness diehards and comfort addicts alike - running shoes - apparently aren't all they're cracked up to be. In a study of healthy young runners published in PM & R: The Journal of Injury, Function and Rehabilitation, researchers found that running in shoes can put more stress on the knee, hip, and ankle joints than running barefoot. It was even harder on the knees than walking in high heels, they noted. Such findings won't surprise many shoeless runners. Roy Wallack recently wrote of running guru Barefoot Ken's decision, some years ago, to ditch his feet's uniform: "That experiment changed my life, ultimately establishing barefooting as a potential cure for somerunning injuries, implicating modern cushioned shoes in those injuries, and becoming the impetus for what may be the most counter-intuitive product in the history of sport: the barefoot running shoe." And the findings may have special meaning to many wearers of high heels. Some of the shoes are fairly comfortable (comfortable-ish? tolerable? not downright painful?), but others ... The researchers point out that there was nothing unique about the shoe they used in the study, saying that it was representative of today's generation of running shoes. But they weren't about to say "toss off those high-priced shackles and run free," either. They wrote: "The use of athletic footwear in running as a means to protect the foot from acute injury and the potentially debilitating effect of switching to barefoot running on foot health excludes such an alternative. The development of new footwear designs that encourage or mimic the natural compliance that normal foot function provides while minimizing knee and hip joint torques is warranted." You can count on some shoes - sometime fairly soon - that are marketed to do just that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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