Sunday, August 7, 2011

New to barefoot running? Nervous to try?

Sadly it takes a modicum of training to re'learn' something we were born to do in the first place. We'll call this retraining.

I see a parallel in the adoption of football helmets. The helmets protected football player's heads so their levels of impact could remain high. Later we learn that although the head's skin is protected, the brain suffers so much internal impacting that damage is just delayed. It's the same with these 'protective' shoes. Were able to run over broken glass, but any other claims are not the complete picture.

To acclimate and retrain, try this: buy a cheap pair of tube socks from your grocery store. Run wearing just these socks. (well maybe some shorts and shirt were apprpriate). Chances are in 0.5-1mile you'll see wear patterns already in the fabric! This is a bad sign, but don't worry it's fixable. Save the socks, save pics of them labelled with the distance it took to create.

Practice your short steps, light landing, quick cadence and NO push off when lifting the foot- you'll notice these socks last longer and longer wear-free.

Give it a try and post your comments.