Barefoot Running – Update!
By peteh on Mar 05, 2010 with Comments 0
Now that is a coincidence! Two days after publishing my first article on Barefoot Running I read another one in the Times on Tuesday!
John Woodward has been pounding the moors, rocks and tarns of the Lake District, barefoot for 25 years. He is rather bemused to now find himself at the sharp end of a growing trend to run barefoot – or at least without the inches of padding, arch support and stability supplied by traditional running shoes.
John runs Natural Running weekend courses from his home in the village of Kirkby-in-Furness beside the Duddon Estuary on the Northwest coast of England near the Lake District. Most runners on his courses come because they’re injured and want to run again. Woodward recently helped an 18 year old with shin splints desperate to get into the Army and a principal dancer with the English Youth Ballet. He broke his foot and was told that he would never dance again. Deciding against surgery, he began to tarin with Natural Running and was able to return to to dance full time within 18 months. “Barefoot running has given me something extra in ballet,” he says.
“It all starts with the feet”, explains Gerard Hartmann, a physical therapist in Ireland who works with Paula Radcliffe. He claimed years ago that deconditioned foot muscles, caused by restrictive shoes, were the biggest factor in injuries.
Hartmann has worked with over 100 world class African athletes. “Most never wore shoes until their late teens,” he says. “They have few foot defects.”
Sports shoes manufacturers, responding to the barefoot boom, have devised thin, glove-like shoes – the Vibram, Nike Free or Terra Plana’s Vivo Barefoot – for more unfriendly ground or night time runs.
You can get more information on the Natural Running course and Coach John at: www.Naturalrunning.co.uk
Filed Under: Training and Racing
