Barefoot Not Best For Most Runners??...

Darkand

Darkand

Chapter Presidents
Feb 17, 2013
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Bangor, Northern Ireland
barefootdarkand.tumblr.com
#1
So a club runner retweeted this today on twitter and after reading this it was all I could do not to hunt the writer of it down, find the running shop he works in and tattoo the real facts about barefoot running on to the soles of his feet!
The writer works in a shoe shop and knows our sort, apparently.

The line that got me most...
"You don't even really need to look at their feet, just the awkward shuffle that they are forced to adopt to protect their knees".

ARRRGGHHHHH! Seriously?! What a numbskull!!!
I had to reply to the guardian on twitter from both my accounts pointing out the narrowmindedness and ignorance of their piece and pointing them in the direction of Professor Daniel Lieberman's research page.

http://www.theguardian.com/p/3t84k/tf

Anyway, read and prepare for frustration of the highest caliber.

Given the guy who wrote it works in a running shop, I'm wondering if The Guardian accepts random articles by members of the public...if so I might write a rebuttal piece telling the real facts and having a pop at this idiot. :)

(Deeeeep breath!) and rant over!
You guys are such good listeners. :)
 
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#2
Don't you worry about it Darkand his coments are pure ignorance talking at its best.
 
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#3
Because people taking long, hard hitting strides pounding the ground is so much more graceful....but, what Dama said. He needs to widen his field of observation (certainly not all barefoot runners have the same stride length or pace!) and learn some new adjectives. He is biased from the start so choosing to describe it a certain way when it could be said differently. I get so frustrated when people resort to unnecessarily unkind descriptions in their discussions.
 
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#4
I wasn't too impressed with his article there, but I guess we should always remember that someone's view on one issue is hardly ever a full measure of the whole person. His blog, Acceptable in the 80s, is a fairly interesting series of posts about running and what he is trying to achieve with his running.

Who knows? Maybe some day he'll have something or see something that'll make him think, "Perhaps I should try to take off the shoes some," and he'll find out what some of us feel when we run barefoot. That's all to his advantage, I'm sure, I don't think if I were even ever able to take my running to a level of training that he does, that I would even be able to come within sniffing distance of his running speed.
 
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#5
If you don't like the article, don't read the comments. Jeez... I would have thought guardian's readers were better informed than these... I wanted to write "bile vomiters", but that doesn't sound correct (even though it sounds fitting), so I'll just write idiots instead. Than these idiots.
 
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#6
No, you're right, happysongbird, no need to revert to unnecessarily kind descriptions of others. They're not idiots, they're uninformed. And they call barefooters (in barefoot shoes!) morons, which I don't like, so I shouldn't call them morons back, that won't solve anything. I think they have weaker arguments than eg Daniel Lieberman. That's all I can say. (And they call me a moron.)
 
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#7
That article is intellectually dishonest to say the least. His "sample" of barefoot runners seems to be flawed. His observation that barefooters run fewer miles may be due to many reasons, if it's true. Many runners come to barefooting as a result of injuries, serious injuries. Many are also older (with age comes wisdom?). That's only two possible reasons that barefooters run fewer miles. Has he spoken with any high-mileage barefooters or has only talked with folks that came into that running shop? This is the first time I've heard that barefooting causes more pressure on joints. Any data to support this?

Maybe this entire debate is like politics. People really don't want to be confused with the facts. They believe what they want to believe and nothing will convince them otherwise.
 
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#8
The article cites no real research, and the commenters just speculate.
 
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#11
My mileage went to 40 miles per week when I ditched the shoes completely. I was running 10 miles 4 to 5 days a week, sometimes 6 days a week. I would run up to 17 miles just for kicks.
 
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#12
It is obvious that the two main arguments of the article are faulty.

Argument 1) We are not designed to run on roads.
-> We need not be designed for running on roads. We only need to be designed to run on hard surfaces, the chemical composition of the ground is not relevant for biomechanics. But typical natural ground in the region where homo sapiens evolved (Central Africa) is dry earth, which is essentially as hard as asphalt or concrete.

Argument 2) Our ancestors had low life expectancy, and therefore did not need their joints for a long time.
-> Lower life expectancy (compared to modern times) was mainly due to exorbitant infant mortality (50% or more?). The people who survived the first few years had a good chance of reaching the 60s or 70s.

Things like that happen, when salesmen instead of natural scientists write articles.

All the best,
Martin
 
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#13
gueng said:
Things like that happen, when salemen instead of natural scientists write articles.
Click to expand...
Liked your comment, except that I think anyone can research well and be thoughtful without a "professional title" and I've seen quite a few examples of people with "degrees" be sloppy and biased. :)
 
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#15
happysongbird said:
Liked your comment, except that I think anyone can research well and be thoughtful without a "professional title" and I've seen quite a few examples of people with "degrees" be sloppy and biased. :)
Click to expand...
True, but Martin wasn't talking about anyone, he was specifically referring to a "salesman "
Many salespeople are trained to be deceitful, and quite a few are coached on how to lie .
I'm not just ragging on professional sales people, indeed there are plenty of licensed professionals in a variety of disciplines that are merely acting as salespeople to get rich while screwing over the naive. In general I don't trust academics or salespeople since they have similar motives. And whether it's my vehicles or my own body I also tend to be skeptical until convinced otherwise.
 
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#16
Longboard said:
True, but Martin wasn't talking about anyone, he was specifically referring to a "salesman "
Many salespeople are trained to be deceitful, and quite a few are coached on how to lie .
I'm not just ragging on professional sales people, indeed there are plenty of licensed professionals in a variety of disciplines that are merely acting as salespeople to get rich while screwing over the naive. In general I don't trust academics or salespeople since they have similar motives. And whether it's my vehicles or my own body I also tend to be skeptical until convinced otherwise.
Click to expand...
except there was that part at the end about natural scientists. :)
 
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