run merf run!

Forget high tech and go barefoot

..."The technological advancements over the past 30 years have been amazing," said Dr. Irene Davis, the director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Delaware. "We've seen tremendous innovations in motion control and cushioning. And yet the remedies don't seem to defeat the ailments."

Since the running boom of the '70s, giants like Nike, Adidas and New Balance have released improved products nearly every six months. One shoe, the Adidas 1, even has microprocessors that analyze foot impact and adjust cushioning with each stride. New Balance has a motion-control shoe so finely engineered it costs $199.99.

Still, 65 percent to 80 percent of all runners - joggers and elite marathoners alike - are injured in an average year, according to Davis.

"Since the first real studies were done in the late '70s, Achilles complaints have actually increased by about 10 percent, while plantar fasciitis has remained the same," said Dr. Stephen Pribut, the president of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine.

And so True began to wonder, does it even matter what footwear runners use? Or could protective shoes be contributing to the problems they're meant to prevent?

Hoping to discover their secret, True sought out the Tarahumara in Mexico. There they taught him to run lightly on the front of his foot instead of heavily on his heel. He experimented with running on his own homemade huaraches before trying the Bite running sandal, with its deft mix of ancient sparseness and modern cushioning. Eleven years have passed since True changed his technique and footwear, and even though he now regularly runs 40 miles over hazardous terrain, he has not had an injury since.

During the last decade two barefoot-style training methods for runners have been developed based on the same principle: that legs, not shoes, are the best shock absorbers. That is, you land on your forefoot, instead of your heel, and paw back.

Dr. Nicholas Romanov, a sports physiologist in Naples, Florida, created what he calls the Pose Method, and Danny Dreyer, a running coach in San Francisco, started a program known as ChiRunning. "The problem is, the fancy running shoes have allowed us to develop lazy feet," Romanov said. Pose runners, consequently, prefer the thin-soled Puma H. Street, which is actually a casual shoe.

Even Nike now sees the sense of running "shoeless." Just one year after releasing its most structured shoe ever - the Air Max 2004, with airbags and a motion-control footbridge - the company has switched tack by offering the Nike Free 5.0, a shoe it claims will "re-evolutionize" running by enabling people to run as if they were barefoot.

Until he met a reclusive tribe of near-mythical athletes at the bottom of a Mexican canyon, Micah True could never figure out why his running injuries got worse as his running shoes got better. Then, the Tarahumara Indians taught him a lesson that even Nike is now starting to embrace: The best shoe may be no shoe at all.
- International Herald Tribune, 'Forget high tech and go barefoot', Jun 28 2005.

Maybe I should show this article to fenfen when she wants to buy new shoes and tell her why bother to buy new shoes. heehee. Run merf run!