The Rules Still Apply, Even if Barefoot Running

A recent arti­cle in Com­peti­tor Mag­a­zine, titled The Bare­foot Run­ning Injury Epi­demic, shares how some sports med­i­cine doc­tors, podi­a­trists, and phys­i­cal ther­a­pists are see­ing a dra­matic upswing in patients suf­fer­ing from bare­foot run­ning injuries. One phys­i­cal ther­a­pist in Cal­i­for­nia says that he has “four or five cur­rent patients with heel injuries clearly result­ing from a switch to bare­foot run­ning and has recently treated another 12 to 15 others.”

As you know, I am an avid advo­cate for bare­foot run­ning. I credit the sim­ple act of tak­ing my shoes off to enabling me to run again after a debil­i­tat­ing back injury which ulti­mately called for back surgery last year. Many oth­ers are able to claim the same sort of dra­matic pos­i­tive ben­e­fit from run­ning with­out heavy shoes on. I also think that run­ning in big, thick, nar­row, high-heeled run­ning shoes can be quite dan­ger­ous, caus­ing numer­ous injuries both directly and indirectly.

But I’m not sur­prised at all by the claims that run­ning bare­foot or in very min­i­mal shoes such as Vibram Five Fin­gers or Terra Plana EVO have caused some injuries. How, then, can I say in the same breath that run­ning bare­foot has helped many peo­ple over­come injuries and say run­ning bare­foot can cause injuries?

If only life were black and white. It would be so easy. So sim­ple. We wouldn’t have to think much about what we do. Once we heard of a solu­tion we could sim­ply apply and, voila, we’re all bet­ter. But nothing’s that simple.

It’s no dif­fer­ent with run­ning. While run­ning is an amaz­ingly nat­ural activ­ity, run­ning well – espe­cially when we sit at desks and in front of TVs all day and eat poorly – isn’t so natural.

I posit that the rise in bare­foot injuries is due to two main rea­sons. Peo­ple are break­ing two car­di­nal rules that apply to all sorts of run­ning, not just bare­foot. While tak­ing off your shoes can feel rebel­lious, that act has not freed you from two very impor­tant rules.

Rule 1:  There’s no overnight cure.

Sorry to break it to you, but there’s no solu­tion that will take you from zero to 60 overnight. There are no short­cuts from the couch to the fin­ish line. You’ve got to take your time, put in the hours, and ramp up your mileage and speed gradually.

Per­haps one of the biggest prob­lems with bare­foot run­ning is that it feels so good! Peo­ple who haven’t been run­ning for years are encour­aged by the stud­ies that report  run­ning with­out shoes is likely to be bet­ter for their them. I keep read­ing sto­ries of how peo­ple, despite hear­ing all the warn­ings about not run­ning far their first time out bare­foot, ignore the advice because they feel so won­der­ful – alive, free, happy, like a child again. They just don’t want to stop. I can cer­tainly under­stand not want­ing to stop after just a block your first time out bare­foot (it wasn’t an option for me, though, as I lit­er­ally couldn’t do any more for weeks after surgery).

The sim­ple fact is that doing any­thing dra­mat­i­cally dif­fer­ent in your run­ning reg­i­ment is ask­ing for trou­ble. The 10% rule – that you can only safely increase your effort each week by 10 per­cent – still applies to bare­foot run­ning. Even more so, as run­ning bare­foot will employ dif­fer­ent mus­cles – mus­cles that haven’t been acti­vated, in some cases, for decades. You sim­ply have to take time to con­di­tion these muscles.

Rule 2:  It’s about form, not skin on pavement.

It’s crit­i­cal to real­ize bare­foot run­ning is about more than run­ning with­out shoes on. It’s about allow­ing the body to run the way it was designed to, in a form that uses the whole body. It’s about let­ting the thou­sands of nerve end­ings get com­plete data from the foot to the brain; enabling the foot to land on the fore­foot area; swing­ing the legs quickly for a fast cadence, allow­ing the knees to bend; releas­ing the poor knees from hav­ing to carry so much weight for­ward with each stride.

Going back to the exam­ples the phys­i­cal ther­a­pist gave in the Com­peti­tor arti­cle, peo­ple obvi­ously aren’t pay­ing atten­tion to their form or they wouldn’t be land­ing on their heels. Any­one land­ing on their heels will expe­ri­ence prob­lems, both with shoes and espe­cially with­out them. It’s impor­tant to con­di­tion the body to run dif­fer­ently, espe­cially when going from a heel-strike to a fore­foot strike. When you try bare­foot run­ning lis­ten to your body, take a day of rest after each time out, and ramp up slowly.

The good news is that both of these prob­lems are quite easy to over­come with aware­ness and some prac­tice. Break the ‘rule’ of wear­ing shoes, but don’t break these two rules.

For a detailed plan, check out the 12 Step Pro­gram to Run Bare­foot.

Photo by Andrea Allen

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