Other than limping 4 days after my 2nd ever bf run, the only biomechanical trouble I ever had was a month or so of PF that I decided was from not allowing my heels to touch ground solidly. After altering my form it went away for good.
Too much Too soon, your horror stories....
- Thread starter OneBiteAtATime
- Start date
OBAAT, I see you are from Quincy. I guess that's MA. I started BFR in Quincy, IL last July. TMTS was the first day. The pavement was too hot and I blisterred. Waited two weeks to heal and started running in the morning.
That's IL, BareFootExperience. Although I am from the ShowMe State......
There is a lot of hot asphalt in Quincy. I've been seeking out concrete and definately run in the mornings.....
There is a lot of hot asphalt in Quincy. I've been seeking out concrete and definately run in the mornings.....
One morning about 4:00 a.m. I was running East on Main about 2 blocks from Wood's park. A cop turned around and came back, "Are you okay?" "I was just avoiding the heat of the day," I said. "I noticed you don't have any shoes." So I explained and he laughed. So, I guess I've been stopped for RBF.
The only TMTS stories I've heard have been from people who just switch to minimalist footwear, not those who go all in to barefoot. And the TMTS seems to come from people running in minimalist footwear the same way they ran in evil shoes (ie heel striking).
Go barefoot. Listen to your feet. And if you still feel like running but your feet feel raw, then incororporate the minimalist footwear, but jog/trudge at first.
Go barefoot. Listen to your feet. And if you still feel like running but your feet feel raw, then incororporate the minimalist footwear, but jog/trudge at first.
Been listening. In fact, I'm currently skipping workouts because of knee pain. Knee pain was what ended my career as a runner in college some 18 years ago. I've ran (shuffled really 10mm's) less than 25 miles in the last 3 weeks as a barefooter and I already have knee pain.... wondering if I'm going to have to be a barefoot swimmer instead.... I'm pretty sure I'm not heel-striking... in fact, I'm almost having to force my heel down... pain in right knee - especially when I bend it inward, like sitting indian style....
There are folks that swear by trigger point therapy. I've found some benefit from it for various things.
I think you need to work on your hips and glutes and like others say find those trigger points and work on those too.
The only time I have knee discomfort is when my hips/back are misaligned. Something to think about.
Where to begin on TMTS injuries...
BF - friction blisters, hot asphalt burns/blisters, stubbed/cut toes, rolled big toes, TOFP, glass/wire/rock bits dug out of the soles (due to inattention)
VFFs - friction blisters, black toe (too small a size VFFs and a hilly course), stress fracture (left 3rd metatarsal head), sore calves/achilles
I think that covers it. I may not be overly bright, but I'm persistent. Slowly learning.
BF - friction blisters, hot asphalt burns/blisters, stubbed/cut toes, rolled big toes, TOFP, glass/wire/rock bits dug out of the soles (due to inattention)
VFFs - friction blisters, black toe (too small a size VFFs and a hilly course), stress fracture (left 3rd metatarsal head), sore calves/achilles
I think that covers it. I may not be overly bright, but I'm persistent. Slowly learning.
Hmm...I mean, you DO want to incorporate your heel—You want to come down on the whole foot at the same time. Sounds like you're running on the balls of your feet? That would be bad. Make sure you're running with your knees bent. That's a 'trick' I learned from Ken Bob. Running with bent knees insures (I mean I think) that you come down on the whole foot, and that you're 'treading' lightly. Knee pain with running barefoot sounds odd/unusual.
There's no way to know ahead of time how fast you can convert over to barefeet running...patience is the most important thing. I was injured off and on the first 2 years but was still mixing in shod running. The 3rd year I started all over at 1/8 mile at first and slowly and I mean really slowly progressed only barefoot for a whole summer and have been injury free aside from very minor stuff like a few blisters and splinters etc for the last 5 to 6 years.
I had an acute yet minor MCL strain/sprain more than a year into starting to run barefoot again. I think it was because I got out of my car and started running without warming up or stretching first. While seated in the car, doing errands, my left knee was at a static angle, so perhaps it had stiffened up. But still no real idea why it happened. Less than a mile into my run I felt a sharp pain. I wasn't going particularly fast or slow, and hadn't suddenly increased my weekly mileage or anything. Really, just out of the blue.
It took a long while for it to get all better too--a few weeks before I could even run again, and then something like 7-8 months before any lingering ache was gone. Perhaps some pains/injuries happen no matter what--shod or bare, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. I'm one of those lazy, 'just run' runners though, who doesn't consciously think about technique very much, so perhaps my form was off, although if that were the case, you'd expect the MCL problem to have flared up earlier into my getting back into running, and not to have gone away on its own. In any case, I know I was landing under my COM, with a midfoot strike.
For clarity, let me throw one other perspective in here (now that I've figured out just about EVERY possible way to do it wrong). The slightly outside ball of each foot touches the ground first for me, but not by much. I then allow the heel to come on down. As Lee said, the bent knees keep the heels from hitting hard, but they should still come all the way down, or your calves will get tighter than banjo strings. Just another slightly different experience and another perspective. I always tell people to try standing on one leg, letting the other foot dangle freely; using your leg muscles, lower the dangling foot slowly to the ground. However it touches the ground (should be ball first, slightly on the outside edge for most people), that's how you should be running. "Relaxing your feet" I've heard it called often. I pretty much let my feet dangle limp at the end of my legs. When they touch the ground, my autonomic system fires the leg muscles needed to make it all work, including the heel coming all the way down and touching the ground, but not hard - the impact gets absorbed by the leg muscles and the spreading of the impact from ball to heel. I hope you can translate that into something you can practically use.
I hadn't come across much about the heels before, so all this recent discussion of it here has been interesting. Especially so because after I tried being barefoot for the first time, then my husband recommended I learn to run in (regular) shoes some (this before we knew much about minimalist options and barefoot potential), I absolutely could not stand the way the regular shoes affected my heels coming into contact with the ground. These were not overly cushioned shoes, either, but with just enough of a raised heel that it totally messed up how I already knew felt much better!
I'm interested in this. On a very small sample of one run yesterday<g>, my feeling is that my stiff feet/soles today have been much better after a more 'ploddy' run yesterday that probably did let my heels settle down more than the 'springy' cadence I had been cultivating. So I'm wondering if that might be something I've been doing.
