Natural Running Symposium – Part 5

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John: Kirsten?

Kirsten: My thinking about what’s the difference between barefoot, natural and minimalist, I think natural running and barefoot to me is the same thing; like Danny said, if you’re barefoot or natural running, to me natural is barefoot. And so that’s the same thing, and I think minimalist is just a gradation of that category.

Everything like Danny was saying, everything from self-made huarachi sandal kind of a thing, or a flip flop, to more of a minimalist shoe. I think of the Nike Free sometimes, I guess it’s a minimalist shoe, but it’s got still a pretty decent heel piece underneath.

And I think that when you start adding something underneath your foot, you take away some of you proprioceptive pieces. Obviously in Maine you need to put something between yourself and some of the hard surfaces. So you’ve got to start thinking about what your best choices, time of year, when to do that type of thing.

I think from a research perspective it’s interesting when you look at some of the shoes. Because you take people who have run; I believe this is reasearch by Doctor Liebberman at Harvard, but he had taken people who, tenured runners, who have always ran barefoot, and he went ahead and measured the angles of their knee and their hips and their ankles, and then went ahead and put a shoe on their feet and measured the same things.

And it’s fascination! You can see, just like what Danny was saying, when you go ahead and you run in your bare feet, they’re going to be a midfoot striker. And their impact forces are relatively low. When you go ahead and you put any… and this is the form; their form was the same, everything else was the same. When you put a shoe on their foot and have them run, they can’t help but strike through that heel. You’ll start to do that automatically.

And I don’t know if Jamie can sort of speak to the fact that the form is really going to be important here too. If you go take a minimal shoe and you have really horrible form, and you’re going to go and heel strike any way type of thing, I think you’re just asking for trouble there. You’re going to add injury to the whole thing.

And there was one quote that I liked from before too, I’d just pulled out. “There has been no studies or peer review, scientific journals, anything”, that when you look at it, and it sort of speaks to where the industry had gone, there’s nothing that says that really supportive shoes have in any way cut down injury rates. I mean there’s nothing out there at all.

So it’s fascinating that we’ve been completely putting these shoes together, everything from the DMX; and I don’t even know all the other shoes, to these really supportive things to date, and then there’s
nothing that says that it’s actually helped us in any way. If anything, maybe it’s hurt us in some ways.

John: Jamie?

Jamie: I think it’s important to understand that it’s not so much about the shoe, it’s about your body. And when I started running barefoot in particular I realized I don’t need a shoe to support my arch. I don’t need cushioning as long as I’m on a relatively soft surface. Your body evolved to run long distance, and that’s what Doctor Liebberman’s research has shown.

So I think the thing about barefoot is it helps you find that natural form. I think one of the first shoes I got was Newtons. And the first 2 minutes of running in those I was like, “Wow! These are great! these are fast!” And then after about 5 minutes I said, “Wow! My calves really hurt.”

Danny: I can tell you why in a minute.

Jamie: Well it’s just an adaptation.

Danny: One of the first thing you did was fast, right? You were running faster than normal, and didn’t have a stretch on your calves and achilles, right?

Jamie: I got to the point, I did like a 10 mile race without my heels touching the ground, and that’s not a desirable form necessarily, and with the Five Fingers I got a stretch fracture running on the road in those, and I attribute it to the fact that they take away some of the skin sensitivity factors, so when you land in bare feet; especially if you’re not used to it, it hurts a little bit. So you’ll lighten up. And the Vibram has just enough cushioning to take away that factor, but not enough to really provide any support. So you’re going to land, open up your stride a little more, and land a little heavier than you would if you were just barefoot.

But I guess to get back to what I said originally, Our bodies are made to run. And if you have some faith in your body, and your feet, in your legs, in your hips…

Kirsten: And you go slow. You don’t go really quick.

Jamie: And you start just very small distances. For me, that’s how I really felt like I finally got it. Like “Okay, this is it.” And then it’s just a matter of I tell people I try to capture that feeling and take it out on the road, or take it out on the trail. And find the shoes that allows you to mimic your same natural form that you have barefoot and apply it to your given surface, if you’re a road runner or trail runner.

So I guess to some extent it’s semantics. Like Kirsten said, if you decide you want to try minimalist running and you’re a heel striker and you slap on a real minimalist shoe, you’re probably going to get injured.

I don’t think you can go wrong. In my 2 or 3 years of trying to find my form, if I sound in trouble, I always went back to barefoot in the grass because I figured I can only do so much wrong if I’m here. After enough of doing that I finally found it. I have like 10 different pairs of shoes.

It depends on the circumstance, or road, or long distance, or short distance, or trail. Or is it muddy or is it soft or roots, or just finding the shoe that works.

John: Okay! Well my point of view on this is I’m not a big believer on absolutisms. When we select product that goes on our wall, we look at it that there’s a reason for that shoe being here. Shoes like that where we call shod runners or whatever, they work for some people.

But what I like about the minimalist movement that’s occurring, and the barefoot running, and the natural running, is it’s making everybody rethink how shoes are built. And it’s making us really take a look at our running forms.

We take Newtons and we take Vibrams and we really try to educate about the adaptation process, and how to utilize it to really maximize it as a tool for better running form. If you’ve been running in a Kayano for 20 years and it’s working for you, you’re not just going to switch from something, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get another pair of shoes as a tool to help you with your running form.

Twice a week, 20 minutes, 30 minutes or whatever. So we’ve seen a number of injuries, and it’s all because, no offense but that type “A” guy gets out there and all a sudden he’s Bam! Running 30-40 miles a week and then they get injured. Well, if his body is used to a certain style of running shoes whether it’s stability or neutral or whatever, he’s going to get hurt. It’s just natural.

So our job as a retailer is to really be involved in the education process; how these shoes work. And Tom and his group… I’m sorry, Tom Curran from Newton came in, and we hold a number of educational seminars to try and educate on our different products.

So my point of view is, there’s no absolutism, but what’s happening is a good thing.

Jamie: Yeah I just want to say one thing. When I run on the road, I do run with Newtons. The whole calf thing was just acclimating.

John: Oh sure, absolutely.

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