Many of us have been blinded by all of the fancy technology we have seen in shoes lately. There are fancy new orthotics, over-pronating correcting shoes, and gel cushions shoes that cost a ton of money. These shoes claim to correct and prevent running injuries. However, there are studies out there that have shown that these expensive shoes are the problem that can lead to costly injuries.
In Christopher McDougall's book Born to Run, he tells the story about Stanford's Running Program under Vin Lananna. Nike was just starting to boom as a company when Lananna was coaching, and Nike sponsored Standford by providing the athletes with these expensive and "state-of-the-art" running shoes that cost $70 a pair. Lananna noticed that after the athletes received these shoes, there were more injuries among his athletes and athletes even started running barefoot. Lananna stopped ordering the shoes and switched back to the $20 dollar shoes that the athletes used to run in and found there was far less injuries among his Stanford team.
How can running barefoot or cheap shoes prevent injuries? After a 9.6 mile road race in Germany in 1989, researchers asked various questions about the runners such as their training and their shoe selection over the year. From their research, he found that the injured runners that participated in this road race that had shoes that cost over $95 were twice as likely to get injured than the runners who bought shoes at $40 or less.
I could not believe these stories my junior year of college. Being an injury-prone cross country runner here at Regis, I decided to do my own experiment. I switched from my $100 Saucony shoes with the fancy corrective technology to my $39 Nike running shoes. I ran every race my junior year and I did not have one single injury that year after I made this switch.
When looking at proper running form, the runner should be striking more on the front of their foot either on the balls or the front part of the foot. This action is seen when a runner is in it's "natural" running form we have evolved over time that allows your heel to drop later, which causes your center of gravity to move front of your foot. This will then allow you to contract your calf muscle and give you more momentum in your running as well as better efficiency. If you are wearing an expensive trainer, you are having a "heel to toe" action which destabilizes your ankle, messes with the proper foot striking process, and gives you poor running form that leads to injury.
I am not saying that you should suddenly switch to running barefoot. You should work into running in a cheap trainer and then eventually running barefoot on the grass to strengthen your ankle and foot muscles. We are naturally made to run in the bodies we are given. Men have won marathons barefoot and have broken the 4:00 mile in a pair of running shoes with leather and a thin sole. Barefoot running I believe could benefit runners if done correctly.
References
McDougall, C. (2009) Born to Run. New York: Alfred A Knopf.
McDougall, C. (2009) The painful truth about trainers: Are running shoes a waste of money?. The Daily Mail. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html
Murphy, K., Curry, E., & Matzkin, E., (2013). Barefoot Running: Does It Prevent Injuries?. Sports Medicine, 43, (11). 1131-1138.
That is interesting how the cheaper shoes seem to be more beneficial to runners than the expensive shoes! Do you know if there is a difference in material that the expensive shoes are made from (compared to the cheaper shoes)? Also what is your opinion on Vibram shoes? Because, from my understand, they are made to imitate running barefoot which seem to be beneficial to runners because it causes less injury. However, they are also very expensive. Do you still suggest people buy it even though it is costly?
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