Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Running Shoe Episode 2: It's got to be the shoes

Recently Dr. Lieberman produced his study done on Harvard Cross Country Runners over a long period of time. You can read a report on the study here. Obviously it's really cool that the study was done. And the results are plain to see.
1. Runner's get injured. In fact 74% got injured each year.
2. The study suggests that you are less likely to get injured if you run on your forefoot. But as the above article states the study didn't move a runner from heel striking to forefoot striking to measure the results.
3. The study was funded in part by Vibram the makers of 5 fingers. This suggests nothing. I say thanks to Vibram for doing this.
4. The end result is we don't know much more today than we did. Running hurts, your running form may have an effect on your chance of injury but just because you run "Natural" (I'm using the current term, not referring to anything stated in the study) doesn't mean you won't get injured in fact you probably will.
5. Darn it, there must be something I can pull from this to say that's it's the shoes. The shoes are the cause of all our problems. The shoes if made right wouldn't put us in this heel striking running form. If the shoes would let us run naturally we wouldn't get injured. I know maybe we should build a shoe that forces us to run naturally. That will show the world.

I could go on but I won't. Decide for yourself what works and doesn't work for you. Get out there an run.

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