Read 36 times since Friday, October 21, 2011
In 1960 something happened that shook the world. Abebe Bikila won the summer Olympic marathon, but that is not the surprising part, he did it all without any shoes.
Since then everyone has been asking, well is running barefoot better for your health for some reason then? This is a rather controversial subject.
The bare footers remain adamant that they are receiving awesome benefits from their training, because to the wonderful mechanics of human ergonomics. The only thing is not all people have the same foot.
20 percent of Americans have pes planus or a condition otherwise known as flat feet. Now, dear bare footers, are these people to run without shoes too?
Yes Mother Nature is quite brilliant but not perfect, and maybe even a bit of a vindictive harridan... but that is beside the point. The next thing these bare foot advocates will say is, "it is impossible to over train because your body won't let you"
The real reason you can't over train your legs is because your feet are going to get bloodied up and broke long before you start wearing out your calf's or thighs. Though if you ask, them they would say, "my body is just becoming acclimated to the new training system".
That is assuming they know what the word acclimated means and how to use it properly in a sentence. You do have to give them credit for positive thinking, even if it is misplaced.
Any time they have pain in their feet they will say that they are strengthening the muscles. But if there is pain in the legs after running in shoes they blame it purely on bad running technique, and whine about how they are damaging their body.
Then there are the half shoe runners or the super thin sandal gang. I see these people as fence sitters, they want to believe the miraculous claims of the bare footers but at the same time they are cautious that it might all be bologna.
So what they do is the invest a hundred dollars into some funny looking ape shoes, or they spend a day leathering a pair of double thick socks. If so many people are willing to wear stupid, wacky shoes or take them off altogether then there must be some pretty neat research on barefoot walking.
However, there is not. After reading any site that advocated bare-footed-ness or funny shoes there was always a discloser saying something like "We believe there is a strong need for controlled, prospective studies on these issues."
Meaning, they have not done any controlled, prospective studies. So what ever happened to Abebe, who won the race bare footed.
Well he came back 4 years later and won again but this time he set a world record... oh yeah, and he was wearing shoes when he did it. Destry Masterson is an author who has written hundreds of articles. She publishes articles for http://www.nordictrack.com and recommends them for treadmills.
Contact Info:
Destry Masterson - MyOnlineArticleWriting@gmail.com - Twitter: @DestryMasterson
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