Should We All Toss the Running Shoes?

Since my shoulder surgery, one of the only things I can do for my workouts is ride the stationary bike which gets boring but is also a good time to get some reading in. As I started peddling, I flipped through the pages to find where I left off, and to my surprise I was only about three chapters from the end! So today I completed my third book of the year, Born to Run by Christopher McGougall.

This book features an acient group of people in the deep canyons of Mexico called the Tarahumara who are legendary for their super athlete abilities, distance running eliteness and peaceful and secluded lifestyle. Christopher McDougall is a journalist with a resume that includes The New York Times, Runners World, and the Associated Press as employers. Also a runner himself, he seeks to track down this elusive culture in search of their secrets for endurance, strength and peace.

Along with discovering that their diet consisted mainly of corn and beans, that their society functions without money and that they can run any distance in 100+ degree weather, he was surprised mostly by the thin sandal-like peice of rubber they wore on their feet to run through the hot, rough desert. The book also discusses some of the most successful ultrarunners in history that trekked down to Mexico to race the Tarahumara.

One of the most interesting parts of the book is when McDougall lays out the facts about running shoes. Not one study has ever shown that high tech, expensive running shoes prevent injuries any better than chepaer shoes or, get this: no shoes at all. Eh? He interviews some of the greatest runners, running coaches and sports scientists about the topic and many believe that running shoes actually prevent your feet from having control while running (which is what the "control" running shoes are supposed to do) and it actually causes your feet to get weaker and more prone to injuies.

Well what about the cushion from running shoes?? After all, just like some are specifically for control, others are specifically for cushion. While running, the force placed on your feet can be higher than 3 times your body weight. Shouldn't some cushion help? One specialist argues that with soft soles (like cushion shoes have), the foot instinctively comes down hard when they sense something soft and cushy underneath. "When you run in cushioned shoes, your feet are pushing through the soles in search of a hard stable platform." Studies have found that ground reaction forces have no difference in soft shoes compared to hard ones. So the bottom line of the argument was that the stiffer the shoe (or in the extreme case as some ultrarunners have adopted, the lack of shoes all together), the stronger your feet will be, the more stable you will be and the less prone to injury you will be.

Now I am not about to toss my Nikes and go running down the street in my bare feet. In fact the specialists (of course not all, the shoes companies are still out to make money) don't suggest it. They suggest easing back into stiffer and easier-on-the-wallet shoes. Running injuries have incresed over the years sense back in the day when everyone ran in Converse. Take it as you wish, I will think twice about spending $100 bucks on running shoes next time.

If you don't want to read the whole book, read chapter 25 where this info came from. Good read!