Who said it was the ultra-modern shoes that are preventing injuries?
Also how can you tell Mr Green Foot's shoes aren't expensive ?
I didn't say the ultra-modern shoes were preventing injuries. I said the opposite. Also, I KNOW Mr. Green Foot's shoes were expensive. I own two pairs.
Heel striking alone is not going to injure a runner. The bony protrusion called the calcaneus, or the heel of your foot, is meant to assist in shock reduction/braking.
While many superlative runners land flat footed or on their forefeet, there are many who don't. A common footstrike is one where you land on the outside of your foot and "roll" inward before pushing off of the balls of the feet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZVhtPy4AMY This guy is running barefoot and still heel striking. Removal of shoes is not necessarily a quick fix for "bad" form.
Yes, it's meant to
assist in reducing shock and to help break and turn abruptly. However, what I see in that picture is most definitely NOT "assisting". Maybe your big toe is assisting in that kind of position, if you're lucky.
I understand that you can't just fix "bad" form. It takes time and an understanding of what you're doing. I've heard horror stories of people who have switched to "barefoot" shoes (REAL "barefoot" shoes, not Nike Frees, those aren't what I mean) and have ended up in the podiatrist's office with stress fractures and the like because they never took the time out to make sure that they adjusted their gait and form appropriately.
I read a story about a guy who went barefoot (no shoes) in a city. He actually attended classes on how to walk because he was unsure how he should walk without shoes.
I know heel striking alone doesn't cause all injuries. However, the types of shoes we wear tend to help us stay lazy in the way we perform. My comparison is equatable to comparing quality versus quantity when lifting weights. Yeah, you can lift that weight 30 times, but you do it so fast and with such terrible form that it's hardly doing anything for you. So you do more to compensate your "bad" form. This is what my comparison really is about. People honestly believe that buying those "air lifts" or whatever they're called types of shoes are helping them. I believe it's making them lazy, in a way and can, indeed, increase your chances of injury (note: this is on a physics-based analysis alone. Of course there are people that are going to break all odds and never get injured).
I am not convinced that there is a proper way to run. It is en vogue to bash on cushioned and stability shoes, as they are termed.
Noureddine Morceli, ran a mile in 3:44 while heel striking.
Abdi Abdirahman, runs a half marathon in 61 minutes and heel strikes.
Again, I'm not making assumptions that it makes you run faster if you go off the balls of your feet. I'm saying you are much less likely to sustain injuries in your knees by making the change to a different strike of your foot on the ground. It also works different muscles. I find that I avoid shin splits completely and that my calves get a better workout when running how I do now. Yeah, I can't go very far. I'm overweight. I'm not fast and I've never been a competitive runner. However, that does not mean I can't
feel the difference in my stride, in my form and posture and in the overall workout.
You can't knock it until you try it. It takes easing into. Reading about it won't help you make that distinction between what
seems like a good idea and what
feels like a good idea. I've run both ways and can stick a preference now that I've tried both.
You can speak on one side of the argument. Until you try both, you can never really be
sure.
