running without shoes seems to be the latest trend right now is this type of
exercise beneficial or can it cause your body harm well let's find out in today's
video we're gonna go through the pros and cons of running barefoot when
following trends runners today are split between the benefits and harms involved
in barefoot running but the scientific community hasn't been able to give us
some sort of answer that we can use and so to answer this question appropriately we must first look at the historical
aspects of wearing shoes and what was let's say memorialized in the past and
it's generally accepted throughout most of human history all of human history
running was performed by barefoot or at least Vince's old shoes in fact the
original Greek Olympics was exclusively barefoot and even in recent times there
been a number of professionals who've been famous for going barefoot and
winning many races such as Bruce hello I think he won the men's 5000 Olympics in
1962 however we do know that humans have been wearing shoes for a very long time
the army wants you is a five thousand five hundred year old leather shoe that
was found in 2008 and Armenian is the oldest piece of leather footwear ever in
the world different us Armenians last name always in than ji n just just a thought but we could see from historical
records that there have been a preference for shoes for thousands of
years and today wearing shoes of course is universally accepted unless you live
in Venice Beach in California but saying that nothing is conclusive since we know
that some civilizations such as the Greeks and the Hindus prefer going
barefoot and that's usually for a variety of reason in the case of the
Greeks shoes were seen as self-indulgent but the long lasting desire for Footwear is quite apparent and this raises the
question is barefoot the optimal choice and why have we seen such a demonstrated
predilection for shoes in the last 50 years there's been a growing suspicions
around modern shoes especially these high-tech shoes running shoes have been blamed for increased incidence of
running injuries and this has prompted many runners to consider going barefoot
however are these concerns legitimate when we look at the structure of the
foot and you know I love the foot I when I was back when I was in university I
spent many years just analysing dissecting I got so good at the foot
that I used to teach labs and and classes and I'd have the students carve
out each bone there's 26 bones in the foot go around to carve out a navicular
can they form you know the Tallis and it in in an
artistic way you would really get the feel and you would get to understand the
the structure of the human foot and we could see that the structure it's very efficient for absorbing shock and it's a
by design it's brilliant and so when we run barefoot our lives can utilize what
we call this kinetic shock energy running through the spring actions of
the natural arch of the foot and here's the thing if you ever broken a bone in
your body you understand what kinetic shock is and what kinetic shock feels
like every single step hurts so you can comprehend the shock your body absorbs when you run so when we compare the
differences between foot motions of barefoot versus shoe running there are
distinct striking down on the part of the foot that hits the ground first
here's the thing when we run in our shoes we land more on the heels and
conversely when barefoot we land more on the balls of our feet and this helps us
avoid heavy impacts which is equivalent to to the three times our body weight additionally landing on the balls of
their feet or the center of our foot there's almost no impact collision
additionally when we look at things like muscle activity who means of
electromyography and then again I hate using words like this or phrase like
this but it just means the electrical activation of the muscles studies have
shown there's a higher pre activation of the plantar flexor muscles when running
barefoot another fact to consider is that barefoot runners have been found to
use typically less oxygen around 4% less than those who run with shoes and
comparing the injury risk there's also shocking results runners
and people who run with shoes appear to have an increased risk of ankle sprains
plantar fasciitis as well as other chronic injuries of the lower limb and
oh and by the way if you're out there and you suffer if you know somebody
suffers plantar fasciitis make sure you check out my video on it it's an
excellent video I'm getting getting lots of comments on that it's it's it's
information that they're getting nowhere else there's also been finding suggests
it running with high heels might even be better than run with shoes itself that
sounds crazy and almost counterintuitive right uh it also must be mentioned that
the American Podiatric Medical Association has not been entirely
convinced of the many new studies that report the benefits of going barefoot
and they have stated that there's still not enough
evidence to support such claims while doing research for this video today it
became apparent that many of this injuries that I found in these studies
were from let's say a transitional phase from going from shoes to barefoot and
this makes sense because if you're going to do anything like this you're going to
start especially going from shoes to bare feet you're gonna be affecting what
they call the mechanoreceptors to proprioceptors and there needs to be a
period of time a transition so your body can be thing your body needs to adapt and that's the key to health really is
how well your body adapts and I want you to think about this so if you're running shoes the mechanics would be different
running with bare feet because when you run with shoes you're using the big what
they call the propulsion muscle the big I call them the stupid muscles yeah and
and when you run barefoot it's more primal and so you're using a more
delicate intrinsic muscles so like it's like this here's another way imagine
going to see an orchestra or a concert and the only instruments allowed to play
are the big loud stupid instruments or I shouldn't say stupid but you get what I
mean and yeah it's it's music but is it
coherent is it melodic is it symphonic hmm yeah if you like that kind of thing
but when running barefoot you you you'll need the transition into this movement
primal movement patterns if you look at a three-year-old run that's where we
should be moving towards and we're using all of your muscles in a more
orchestrated fashion and the music will be beautiful so now that we've looked at
the evidence would be great for you out there who are watching us to weigh in on
this is barefoot running something you would like to try so with this
information I believe we can narrow down the right environment for us to go
barefoot you choose like a like a sandy beach or an open green space and you can
wake up there that inner child and try it for yourself thanks for
watching and I thought the real soon oh don't forget this like if subscribe