A recent thread discussing barefoot running impact forces on a biomechanics user group, reminded me of another important aspect of barefoot running and the main reason many researchers, runners and scientist are suggesting that it may be better to run barefoot than in shoes.
The impact forces are the forces that the muscles, ligaments, tendons and bones experience when the foot first hits the ground. Impact forces are absorbed by the foot and transferred and shared among all the muscles in the leg and up to the hips. Research has shown that this impact force has a higher impulse (change in force over a time period) when landing on the heel than when the runner lands on his mid-foot or forefoot.
Running in shoes has allowed runners to feel comfortable landing on the soft cushioned heel of the shoe and therefore the impact forces and impulses are increased sending larger shock waves through the body and possibly causing injuries. Barefoot running, forces the runner to land on the mid-foot or forefoot, reducing the impact forces and impulses.
The video below from the Nature channel on YouTube about the barefoot professor, Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman, gives a good explanation of the theory. Professor Lieberman also published an article in Nature magazine on barefoot running. Notice how they use video analysis to analyze the running mechanics. They also use force platforms in the treadmill that measure the forces. Force platforms are like large accurate bathroom scales that can determine the position of the foot.
There seem to be advantages to barefoot running, but there are many unknowns too. Even if there are advantages to barefoot running in lowering impact forces and the foot control that may reduce pronation, we may not be aware of the disadvantages that exist.
Barefoot running definitely seems to increase blisters, bruises and pain under the foot. The calf muscles are often more sore and stiff after running barefoot and other muscles may also be strained in ways that cause different injuries.
So if you plan to try running barefoot, start slowly and build up your tolerance and strength. Also record some video footage of your running and try to identify how you run differently in shoes and barefoot.
We are ready to help you with this analysis. Please contact us to see what we can do.
Running is a great for fitness and weight loss, but as many runners know, it can often result in chronic injuries. Running shoe companies continually market their latest breakthroughs in lightweight footwear comfort, anti-pronation, impact reduction, and energy conservation. Grid systems, air pockets, smart chips, and step monitors all make their way into our running shoes. We all seem happy to shell out large sums of money for these shoes and to trust that the shoe company has done a proper analysis and is offering us a product that will improve our performance, reduce our chances of running injuries, or even solve our running injury problem.
We decided to use video analysis to examine how running shoes affect pronation. We are going to show you how to measure rearfoot pronation using your video camera. This measure is often used in speciality running shoe stores to help customers choose the correct anti-pronation running shoes. We will show you how its done and measure the pronation of an athlete running barefoot and with trail shoes.
Pronation of the foot occurs when the arch of the foot collapses and the foot turns outward. The higher forces incurred with running can force the foot into over-pronation, which is often associated with running injuries. Supination is the opposite of pronation and occurs when the foot turns inward.
Below is some video of both the barefoot and running shoe trials. To film this properly we needed to use a treadmill. It would be very difficult to get a consistent view of the foot and leg if the athlete had been running away from us and getting further away with each step. With the subject on a treadmill we can position our camera correctly on a tripod and know that we will have a consistently good view of the foot that we need for our analysis.
You will note that the camera is set up directly behind the subject and in line with the right foot. For this analysis we will concentrate only on the right foot; we therefore made sure that we had as straight a view as possible of the right foot when it was on the treadmill (it is not important when it is in the swing through as we are measuring pronation during the foot stance). Another important factor is running speed. we can only properly compare the pronation angle between the two videos if we ensure that the subject runs at the same speed in both videos. With a treadmill this is easy, as we can set running speed. In this case the subject is running at 6 miles per hour in each trial.
Let's look into the detail of these videos by taking some snapshots and comparing the pronation angle at each of three events. We could do a better job of examing pronation by comparing the changing angle vs time throughout the stance (foot on the ground) phase, but we want to do a simple analysis for now and the best way to do this is to pick 2 common time points. Therefore we will compare the pronation angle at first foot strike and mid stance (midway through the foot on the ground stage).
In order to do a proper comparison over various time points or events, it is always better to digitize points. Digitizing is done by identifying anatomical landmarks on the subject such as the bottom of the heel or the top of the Achilles tendon. Many expensive systems exist that use reflective markers to automatically identify points. For our comparison, we used a relatively inexpensive software called MaxTRAQ 2D, developed by our friends at Innovision Systems Inc., and manually digitized the necessary points to calculate rear foot pronation angles.
The runner running barefoot shows little difference in pronation angle between foot strike and mid stance. The measured angles are 178.6 and 178.7 degrees. A measure of 180 degrees would suggest that the foot has no pronation or supination, so 178.6 is showing 1.4 degrees supination (the opposite direction from pronation) which can be ignored. A angle higher than 180 degrees would show pronation.
We then asked our runner to put his shoes on and once again measured the pronation angle at the two stance events.
We can immediately see that our runner shows a little more supination throughout his running stance when he is wearing shoes than when he is barefoot. At foot strike his pronantion angle is 166.1 degrees or 13.9 degrees of supination. At mid stance his foot has come back into an almost neutral position showing only 4.1 degrees supination. Our runner would be considered neutral both in shoes and barefoot.
Our runner is wearing neutral shoes, meaning they do not offer support for pronation or supination. The supination of about 14 degrees seen at heel strike is also relatively small and as we cannot actually see the bottom of the runner's heel through the shoe, we may have estimated this position incorrectly and the foot could be in a different position inside the shoe (most likely closer to neutral).
If we have estimated the heel position correctly and there is slightly more supination when running in shoes, the subject's shoes appear to provide him a level of cushioning which allows him to land comfortably in a slightly unnatural position. Running barefoot can be painful and the runner therefore controls his foot using the muscles and ligaments surrounding the foot. In this way he can avoid pain and injury while running. There is no large difference in our trials though, and our runner does not pronate or supinate too much during his stance phase of running.
We are not all Abebe Bikele (the 1960 Olympic Marathon winner ran barefoot) and we believe the running shoe has more than likely prevented many more injuries than it has caused. Now that you know how to analyze rearfoot pronation, you can buy your next pair of running shoes with confidence and understanding.
If you would like more information on the software we used to digitize these running trials please email us. Also please comment on our post; we love to hear your opinions.
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