Abstracts of Barefoot Training

After millions of year's barefoot running, people who stepped into the civilized society invented the shoes. But the British "Nature" magazine published a research recently, which showed that moderate barefoot running helps your feet to touch the ground in a healthy way and also helps to form musculoskeletal health.

Harvard University and other Institutions' researchers investigated the United States and Kenya long-term runners who landed their feet on the ground. The results showed that people who ran for a long time with running shoes always land their heels on the ground at first. However, those people who often run with barefoot will let their former soles to touch the ground at first.

It can be seen from the research that if heels touched the ground at first, the impact forces your heels obtained would be three times of your body weight, even though you were with running shoes, which was also contained a cushion. However, if your former feet touch the ground at first, the impact will be reduced to only about sixty percent of body weight because of the effective cushion of tendons and joints that are come from the ankle. The researchers believe that it will be healthier if runners could use their former sole to land on the ground, because this kind of long-term impact will give rise to fatigue fracture or plantar fasciitis.

Daniel Lieberman, a researcher of Harvard University, said that the ancient people may require long-term barefoot running to pursue its prey, which made the relevant foot structure have an evolution. Therefore, if people can take appropriate barefoot running, they might feel more comfortable. This is also conducive to the musculoskeletal health. However, the researchers also showed clearly that running shoes should not be abandoned since the hard thing on the ground may do harm to your barefoot.

After you are accustomed to barefoot running, the ground impact and the effective mass of your foot will be reduced suddenly. Your legs will also be more flexible and more natural; the focus of your whole person will be stable, just as dance freely. It should be noted that you are likely to harm yourself if you take barefoot running in the first six months. It is recommended that runners can choose a pair of special structure running shoes at the beginning of his barefoot running, the "virtual barefoot running shoes," which are made of special materials. This type of shoes will allow your heels, ankles and other different parts to be flexible as barefoot, it not only can play a protective role on your feet, but also can really help you to gradually get rid of the long habit of running shoes.

It is also explained by Lee that you can choose to wear nothing on your feet, but we can not deny that it will be a practical protection if wear a pair of running shoes on feet. What we have to notice is that training course is the key. With respect to barefoot running, you need to pay attention to what sort of people is born to be barefoot runners. Barefoot running has always been a controversial problem. If you are a runner who did not encounter any problems or injuries, then this might not be designed for you. Barefoot running might be appropriate for you under the condition that you have ever injured on some aspects, such as the pain on anterior tibiae or the wrong running way.