TheBoltBlog

This video is beautiful; the human body moving as it should. A simplistic beauty, recognizable to all regardless of your knowledge of running mechanics, biomechanics, or physics.

Forefoot running is a more efficient, less destructive method of long distance running, that more importantly is how humans have probably always ran (and some still do today in Kenya where children grow up shoeless) prior to the development of the running shoe.

Heel strike running is lazy running. And like most other things in modern American society we always want a quick fix or the lazy way out (fast food, 8 min Abs, steriods, pre-cooked processed food, 99% of ‘diet’ products, get rich quick schemes, etc), so it only seems natural that the shoe industry would create shoes that would allow us to run lazily, skip the development of foot/lower leg musculature, flexibility, and stability, and provide you a super puffy, air-chambered heel for landing.

Problem is, this teaches us to run incorrectly, inefficiently, and is more destructive on our joints. Don’t believe me? Go try running heel to toe barefoot, or try jumping and landing on your heels….not a nice landing (even in your running shoes). Remember Newton’s third law of motion? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. By heel striking and landing forward of our center of mass we are creating a significant deceleration force with each foot strike. Not only is this slowing us down with every step we take, but every time we land on our heel and push into the ground, breaking our momentum the equal opposite force is transferred from our heel up to our ankle, knees, hips and low back.

For more info, Images and video courtesy of
www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu