Its the new trend here.
Barefoot runners have better technique and form, they land with their foot right under the sternum (breast bone), land with an almost-flat foot bearing on a toe landing versus a heel landing, and they always run with more of their stride behind them than infront of them.
These techniques have been seen in the best road runners and elite distance runners for years, but what is the impact on your knees? Is it more effective to run in shoes and do drills for better technique?
I myself would rather run with shoes as I have a leg length discrepancy. Taken by x-ray through my L5-S1 Joint (the last joint above your sacrum and at the bottom of your lumbar spine) this is the best x-ray for diagnosing leg length discrepancy.
Personally, with a short leg, my body wants to lengthen my sho
rt leg (by heel striding) and lengthening my left leg with heel landing... now this works with a shoe on, but barefoot the forces are so much higher that I worry about additional fractures. I have already fractured my left foot twice running in college and high school. Therefore, I recommend that a runner such as myself either run with shoes, or run with perfect foot-plant and add an additional long leg knee bend to even out the pelvis.
Another scenario is the acquired foot positional deformity otherwise known as a flat arch.. Many runners (90%) have low arches from beating the ligaments on the bottom of their foot to death after exhaustion of the muscles that hold up the arch (posterior tibialis muscle mainly). Hanging on these tendons and ligame
nts in the foot creates stress syndromes, friction, and damage over time. A runner in this situation should not run barefoot.
10% of runners have a foot deformity that appears to be a higher than normal arch. Known as excessive "supinators" this foot is extremely un-flexible and prone to increase forces just below the ankle that appear as metatarsal fractures and increased degeneration from the abnormal load.
As each structure is designed for a particular use, I cant help but wonder what are these runners going to do. My gut tells me that there are going to be an abundance of plantar fascia pain, achilles tendon injuries and many fractures from those of us who cannot be "textbook normal."
