Do We Need Running Shoes To Run? 776
prostoalex writes to tell us The Daily Mail has an interesting look at current research in the field of running and injuries related to running. Most of the evidence pointed at a lack of any need for running shoes. Some of the more interesting points: the more expensive the running shoes, the greater the probability of getting an injury; some of the planet's best and most intense runners run barefoot; Stanford running team, having access to the top-notch modern shoes sent in for free by manufacturers, after a few rounds of trial and error still chose to train with no shoes at all."
Expensive running shoes = fashion wear (Score:1, Insightful)
Who's surprised?
Hmm, no... (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in High School I remember seeing a girl nearly lose a toe to a sharp rock, it cut so deep it went right to the bone. Blood everywhere, shouting, etc.. As long as there are pointy things on the ground, I can risk a broken ankle. Yes, the whole "personal story proves nothing", but what should we learn from if not experience.
Who would have thought? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm, no... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:5, Insightful)
Or concrete.
Just sayin'.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:5, Insightful)
Running injuries... (Score:2, Insightful)
I imagine most running injuries are caused by a lack of wisdom rather than a lack of proper equipment.
Re:Hmm, no... (Score:5, Insightful)
Running on the balls of your foot means that the shock is being absorbed in your calf muscles. Running on your heels means it's being absorbed in the cartilage of your knees, which can very quickly wear out. Most running shoes I've tried have been weighted such that it's easier to put your foot down on your heel than on the front of your feet, which is likely to cause long-term injury (the cartilage damage is cumulative). They attempt to avoid this by having a lot of padding under the heel, which ends up making the heel heavier and making it even harder to put your weight on the front...
That's not to say running shoes are intrinsically bad. If I were to design some, they would be flexible underneath, to make it easy to run on the balls of your foot. They would probably be weighted slightly forward, so that your toes would be pulled down, and would probably have a thinner sole at the back than the front. In short, they would be almost the opposite of most running shoes I've seen. If anyone wants to make shoes like this, please send me a pair...
Re:Football is the same (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution doesn't have a mind at all.
Re:My Knees and Hips Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
So you had bad shoes, then bought good ones, and then the good ones went bad, and somehow that means that good shoes are better than being barefoot?
Check your data again. It doesn't lead to your conclusion.
The Daily Mail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:4, Insightful)
To say that evolution is all about reproduction is nonsense. It's also about raising offspring to survive better than the environment and other predators can kill them off.
Not to trot out the correlation-causation thing (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summary:
Isn't it possible that the more you run, or the more you get into running, that it is more likely you are going to purchase the more expensive running shoes? So that would seem to correlate mileage and expensive shoes, and it is possible there is a relationship between increased mileage and increase injuries.
Re:hmm .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm, no... (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends, are you a construction worker?
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:5, Insightful)
You're also meant to reproduce by the age you're 14 or 16. Aside from legal considerations, today you'll probably get to be on a talk show if you do.
Evolution stopped being important when civilisation set in. Or rather, it changed. It's no longer "natural" selection, we found our own selection criteria and moved on with it. Earlier the female chose her mate by his fitness. Today, she chooses him by the size of his wallet. Evolution 2.0, if you will.
comfort is the best indicator (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can walk and run comfortably in your shoes, and if your knees and back don't start to feel funny, the shoes are probably pretty good for your feet and style of walking and running.
You may want different shoes (or even slippers or thongs) for when you're sitting at your desk.
Re:hmm .... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a form issue in my case which the shoe helps to correct. I'm guessing those people who run barefoot have really good form. Take away my shoes and put me on a flat area without any rocks, I figure I might be able to run a few miles before I'm forced to stop because of knee or hip pain. I'll keep my shoes, thankyouverymuch. No joke ... when a new runner starts to experience pain, the quickest remedy to buy new shoes.
Oh, I certainly agree, but I think the article brings up an interesting thought that while it's not necessarily the quickest, running with good form barefoot is better and healthier than wearing most any shoes you can buy. If you move to landing on the ball of your foot, rather than the heel, and depend on your calf for shock absorption, you handle the shock very easily and naturally (I noticed this during my short stint as a cross-country runner, but didn't really make it a habit for some reason.) and also ostensibly strengthen the relevant muscles, reducing pain in the long run (no pun intended).
So, basically:
Shoes = easy, temporary fix.
Using good form barefoot = long-term fix which addresses the cause of the problem.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:5, Insightful)
Earlier the female chose her mate by his fitness. Today, she chooses him by the size of his wallet. Evolution 2.0, if you will.
I would argue that she's still choosing her mate by fitness. A "large wallet" is indicative of societal fitness. In civilization, physical fitness has decreased in reproductive importance as it no longer has a significant bearing on our ability to survive and protect the family. The size of the wallet, however, is a very good indication of how well a mate can provide for the family.
slippery slopes (Score:3, Insightful)
That sounds like the ceramic paved sidewalk out front of this apartment building.
Except for the slope part.
Cannot walk on that when it's wet, in any sort of shoes I can buy in Japan, without slipping. It's a lot like trying to walk on slippery ice.
Ice is one thing I don't care to walk barefoot on. A bed of nails is another.
To tell the truth, my knees and back would probably be in better shape if I hadn't gotten used to the partial buffering sneakers give. I've developed a really bad gait. I've tried to unlearn it, but I can't seem to find any sneakers with a good heal these days, and it's considered uncivilized to run around outside without shoes in Japan.
Oh. Tapeworms is another thing I don't want to walk on without shoes, although it's not as big a problem here in Japan as it was when they used to use unpasteurized fertilizer.
Sample Bias (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's another good example of "correlation vs. causation." Extremely good runners have a very mechanically efficient stride and smooth foot action. Some of this is training, and some of it is related to how the feet and knees are aligned. Most people do not have perfect alignment. We will probably never become Olympic competitors or join the Stanford running team, but we can run for fun; I do the occasional road race, and I'm doing a triathlon next weekend.
Those of us who run for fun and who are not gifted with perfect alignment may overpronate or supinate our feet when we run. This action is less efficient, so we're less likely to be fast enough to join a college team. A small majority of people overpronate, somewhat less have a good neutral position, and a few people supinate. To look for overpronation, check out your old tennis shoes: if your shoes wear out first near the ball of the foot, chances are you're an overpronator. (If you have flat feet, you're also probably an overpronator. Try the "wet foot test": when you get out of the shower, step on a piece of paper and look at the prints you make.)
I'm a moderate overpronator, and shoes with a little extra cushion that compensate for my less-than-perfect foot position have kept my feet injury-free for five years.
Re:hmm .... (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason you are experiencing pain is that one side of the thick wedges of foam in your shoe has lost it's spring, turning your shoe into a crappy little ramp that actually accentuates whatever that wedge was meant to correct.
The proper corrective for poor form is not a running shoe. It's either running barefoot, or running in a shoe with a thin rubber sole that serves as protection only. Try if for a month, but build your miles slowly. All the muscles, tendons and ligaments that your current shoes have allowed to atrophy will build up, and eventually you will be running like nature intended, with nearly perfect form.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:4, Insightful)
Evolution is about getting your children to reproductive age. In other words, success is measured in the number of grandchildren you have.
Not sure I believe this (Score:5, Insightful)
"Then there's the secretive Tarahumara tribe, the best long-distance runners in the world. These are a people who live in basic conditions in Mexico, often in caves without running water, and run with only strips of old tyre or leather thongs strapped to the bottom of their feet. They are virtually barefoot."
Virtually barefoot. Which is to say not barefoot at all. These 'best runners in the world' have decided that they need footwear.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Running injuries... (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine most running injuries are caused by accidents, rather than lack of wisdom.
Mostly, I suspect we're not talking of accidents (e.g. falling over, twisting an ankle, etc.) but of repetitive strain, etc.
Re:Not to trot out the correlation-causation thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Knees and Hips Disagree (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, actually it did lead to his conclusion... but it doesn't necessarily influence your opinion or the conclusions of others.
There is precedent, and then there is belief.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:2, Insightful)
So run on grass, and when you get good enough start kicking the people throwing glass and metal objects around in the balls and run away from them.
Re:My Knees and Hips Disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:5, Insightful)
Or rather, it changed. It's no longer "natural" selection, we found our own selection criteria and moved on with it... Evolution 2.0, if you will.
One really annoying thing about Evo 2.0 is that people that should be having more kids (kind, intelligent, financially responsible) are not but those that should not (lazy, stupid people, with anachronistic religious views) are pumping them out like it's their job to overpopulate the world.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Football is the same (Score:1, Insightful)
"the truth is that there are just as many long term marriages as ever,"
Our population in the US has more than doubled, so that's not saying much. On a percentage basis of the available adult population, there are fewer long term marriages, as well as a huge number of people who do not get married in the first place.
The statistics are skewed, but on the overall scope with everything else considered, divorce has skyrocketed, but it is a complex issue which I think is more along the lines what you are fundamentally pointing out (also, annullment and the number of them has changed). This all isn't surprising, given how society and family has evolved with more choices to divorce, more litigation, and the acceptability.
Anyways, if I recall, it's 50% of single to married couple (first time married couples) who divorce, and something like 30% of all marriages (it might be the flip of that, 30% of all new first time marriages, 50% overall), so the skew has been taken into consideration.
Re:Anecdote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:you just think you're joking. (Score:3, Insightful)
So ... actively scanning the skies for signals, running them through algorithms, trying to show that the signals carry more meaning than could normally be expected from "background noise", then trying to find any other explanations for this apparent "design" (as I recall, SETI's biggest hits have actually been in the signal analysis of oddball stars?), and in the end only looking at it as "data from another lifeform" when nothing else fits the bill ... you're right. That very last step may seem non-scientific -- but it's actually just a hypothesis that they then intend to test, if it ever happens, by beaming back signals and attempting verifiable, testable communication. This is different from just receiving the signal, analyzing it, deciding that it's from someone, interpreting it in one way or another (with no reproducible method to prove that it's the right interpretation) and then acting on the results and trying to force others to act on it too ... that's religion.
Re:My Knees and Hips Disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup yup. I had more trouble with the expensive nike's than I ever had with the low-midrange asics: they last longer, and they don't wear poorly, even if you have a tendency to pronate (like me). The fricking nikes would wear so as to make the pronation worse.
The precise point in your joke where... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if we attached some kind of protective surface on the feets, and then strapped said surface around the foot to hold it in place
Soft-sole moccasins work.
eventually with some stabilizing technology so it wouldn't wobble
And that's where the trainers fail it.
exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, possibly for people with normal/good feet.
But, those with flat feet, in need of arch support, could still benefit from good shoes...
Exactly, if you are an athlete runner you have to learn the proper biomechanical motions or you will rip yourself apart. Once you do, well, it's what your body was built for. But for those of us who run seldomly or who have previoulsy injured ankles or knees it's painfully obvious how a running shoe is a lot easier to run in. I don't need a study to tell me that I've done my own definitve study on myself.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:4, Insightful)
One really annoying thing about Evo 2.0 is that people that should be having more kids (kind, intelligent, financially responsible) are not but those that should not (lazy, stupid people, with anachronistic religious views) are pumping them out like it's their job to overpopulate the world.
IMHO this is still bad old natural selection. We have created a society for the lazy and the stupid, so in this environment the intelligent ones are not the fittest ones. Evolution doesn't have a goal, even though it would be great for some people if it did have one of intelligence.
In other words, build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
Re:The right shoes (Score:3, Insightful)
What you're describing isn't brand loyalty; it's sticking with what works.
If you were buying Nike shoes, say, to match your Nike exercise clothes, your Nike hat, your Nike gymbag, and Nike wristbands, even though the shoes hurt your feet, *that's* brand loyalty.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:3, Insightful)
Wheat plants, which are dumb, reproduce more than chickens, which are relatively smart. Chickens, which are relatively dumb, reproduce more than humans, which are smart. Is that an "annoying fact of Evo 2.0"? Dumb humans reproduce more than smart humans. Is that really "an annoying fact of Evo 2.0"? No, it's the same feature which produces so many chickens. The powerful humans on top of the social ladder, who tend to be smart, take advantage of a huge pool of cheap labour, just as those at almost every rung of the social ladder take of advantage of the huge pool of cheap food. I won't say it sucks to be a wheat plant, because they don't have a nervous system. But it does suck to be the average chicken, because their lives are terrible. It also sucks to be the average weak human, because their lives are terrible. It's nice to be the average powerful human. If you find that the large numbers of reproducing dumb humans negatively affects you, then maybe you should be looking to move up on the social ladder to where you take advantage of them rather than suffer them. You are smart enough to be there.(Note I'm not saying that luck plays no role in who gets into the powerful group or the exploited group).
A population (in the biology sense of the term) at a higher trophic level always needs a larger pool of suitably-evolved populations in order to live, in terms of prey and/or otherwise. These populations need not always be a different species from the population which uses them. So too do human populations at a higher social level need larger pools of suitably-evolved populations, some of which includes humans at a lower social level.
This is the same reason that you will see those reports come out once and while [bbc.co.uk] that the human race will evolve into two different species, where one is a short, stocky, dark, unintelligent in genetics and labouring in society, and the other is a tall, slim, fair, intelligent in genetics and living in the lap of luxury in society. This is not to say that such predictions are at all correct or even reasonable.
Re:you just think you're joking. (Score:5, Insightful)
SETI is based on a scientific hypothesis: "Given the number of stars and planets in the universe, it is statistically likely that intelligent life has developed on planets other than Earth." SETI itself is merely attempting to gather data in support of this hypothesis. The hypothesis is provable (If aliens land on the planet tomorrow, it would be proven; if we find the functional equivalent of TV signals in our observation of interstellar waves it would be proven; if we land on Alpha Centari in 200 year and find primitive lizard men carrying crystal tipped spears it would be proven; etc), and SETI is one attempt to gather data which might prove it. No one at SETI is making an absolute declaration that "Intelligent life absolutely exists in the universe and even though we've never found any hard evidence, we've proved it." They have a theory, and they are gathering evidence in support of that theory.
In contrast, Intelligent Design advocates are taking a gap in knowledge and declaring it "proof" of some other knowledge. What they're saying is "Because we cannot figure out how 'x' happened, it must be proof that some outside force or being made it happen." First of all, this is an unprovable hypothesis. Even if a being showed up tomorrow and claimed to be God, and demonstrated phenomenal cosmic powers, there is no way to be sure that this being was or was not THE designer, as opposed to something that perhaps has enough power to have done it (I doubt there are any measurement units of Earth that could comprehend whether a being actually has "limitless power" or "apparently limitless power"). Secondly the methodology is flawed. The equivalent with SETI would be a researcher discovering an anomalous unexplained signal, and unilaterally declaring it proof of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence without first attempting to understand the origin of the signal, whether it has any intelligent pattern or looking at other theories.
Absence of an explanation for a phenomenon does not constitute proof of the explanation you're currently trying to sell. Just because primitive man didn't understand how gravity works, doesn't mean that they would have been correct to assume that there are giant suckerfish under the ground constantly inhaling to keep us all tied to the Earth. A divine being wandering about changing reality at his or her whim might constitute evidence for a supreme creator (though not definitive proof, it could be a different divine being for all we know), but a lack of explanation for certain phenomenon does not.
Having said all of that, I believe that there are beings and forces that exist outside of what we consider "nature". Since I can't defend those beliefs via repeatable experiments or hard evidence I don't present them as "science" or try to teach them in "science class". You can HAVE religious or other superstitious beliefs without insisting that those beliefs be taught as facts. If you want to believe that the world was created, or that there is a supreme intelligence guiding its development, by all means do. Just don't try to present those beliefs as if they were provable facts.
Re:exactly (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't speak to your specific case. I have flat feet, and I gave up on running entirely because I would get ankle and knee pain. I was using running shoes. Maybe I would have had better luck with something that had a thinner pad. I can only comfortably assert that the running shoes I used were not good enough to help me.
If nothing else, I'm grateful that the article has inspired me to try running again. I had abandoned the idea entirely.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have to be faster than the predator, just faster than someone else in your group.
This is a funny joke for a t-shirt, but I'm pretty sure this isn't how it worked in primitive human tribes. We're hardwired to help each other, gang up on enemies, and ostracize members of the tribe that screw their neighbors (like, say, by leaving them to be torn apart by predators). One of the defining features of the human species is that if you fuck with one of them, you fuck with all of them.
Unlike other herd animals, humans will kill the thing hunting them, then kill its mate, cubs, and packmates. A few repetitions of that and smart predators start thinking that the gazelle look like safer targets.
Re:Of course we don't need running shoes (Score:1, Insightful)
Whose image were we created in, again, according to the Bible?
When Christ is asked about paying taxes, what does He say? "Whose image is on that coin?" "Caesar's." "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto God what is God's." The unspoken point being thus: Whose image is on you?
Re:you just think you're joking. (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever read any Greek mythology?
Re:exactly (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm speculating, but I would not be surprised if that difference in foot travel has an impact on both the state of the foot arch. I would also imagine that it has a big difference in the health of ankles, knees, and hips.