Intro

Humans evolved to be all-terrain runners – lacking great speed, but possessing endurance to wear down and catch even the swiftest antelope. The human foot, with 26 bones, 33 joints, 19 muscles, 12 tendons and scores of ligaments is a marvel of engineering optimized for running over virtually any terrain … barefoot. Any deviation – such as wearing shoes -- is therefore sub-optimal.  In fact, the rise of the running shoe industry has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in foot and knee injuries.

Through my barefoot running, I’ve rediscovered the ancient technique of running that comes naturally as soon as you liberate your foot from its artificial swaddling! Knee pain went away, and no longer need orthotics to control pronation that no longer happens.

I’m not suggesting that anyone throw away their shoes and a lifetime of wearing them, but I think everyone can improve their running and reduce injuries by learning about the biomechanics of barefoot running.  The greatest lesson of all has been this: NEVER LAND ON YOUR HEEL! Land on your forefoot or at very least, the mid-foot, but the heel should never touch ground first.

In this series, I will share with you tips that I’ve learned from my barefoot running that can apply to your shod running too!

Calf Strengthening

Even wearing shoes, barefoot running technique (forefoot landing) requires, above all, strong calves! And I’m not talking about cattle ranching. It also requires a highly trained sensory feedback loop from your foot to you reflexes called “proprioception”.

Here is a progressive exercise that will improve your calf strength, balance and proprioception:

Start by balancing on one FLAT foot. Flex your knee as much as you can. Keep your weight forward with your center of gravity over your foot. Shift your weight around to feel the pressure changes on the sole of your foot. See if you can make the pressure move clockwise or counterclockwise around the periphery of your foot.

Next, shift your weight forward slight and rise up on your forefoot. Now the fun begins … try one-foot calf raises with your eyes open.  Try them again with your eyes closed.  Now try it with the other foot.  My sports podiatrist said that "If you can get up to 10 calf raises on one foot with eyes closed, you will never again sprain that ankle." He was right. After doing that, I developed foot & ankle reflexes that have numerous times saved my once sprain-prone right ankle from re-spraining.

Forward Lean and Forefoot Spring-Off – Run like a Gazelle

“See these footprints? An old man walked through these woods three days ago.”

“How do you know it was an old man?”

“Young men don’t walk on their heels , but old men do.”

That was from Akira Kurosawa’s  wonderful film Dersu Usala, about a resourceful native Siberian who guides a team of Russian surveyors through remote boreal forests.

Try this next time you run: Land perfectly flat-footed and see how fast you can go. Also, note how it feels (light, heavy, swift, slow?)

Now try running the same course, but landing and springing off your forefoot each time (keep a forward lean). DO NOT bounce up and down off your toes, but using the spring action to PROPEL yourself forward.

Running on Trails and Other Uneven Surfaces

Uneven, unpredictable surfaces can be daunting for runners used to uniform pavement, but it’s a lot more fun. Actually, it’s a blast! It’s not only more interesting, it avoids repetitive motion injuries to the joints and helps you react faster to avoid traumatic injuries like ankle sprains. Here are some tips for embracing your inner all-terrain-vehicle …

1)        DO THE PROPRIOCEPTION EXCERISES described in my last installment! But note: Avoid doing these less  than 24 hours before a workout.. Here’s why: you don’t want to go out the next day with fatigued ankle stabilization muscles.    

2)        When you run on uneven surfaces, you have a lot more time to adjust to that  particular patch of ground if you land on your forefoot first.. Feel the qualities of the surface: hard, yielding, canted, bumpy, smooth, slippery, gritty, etc.

3)        Spread your toes!

4)        Keep your weight directly over your feet for the best balance.

5)        LOOK AHEAD to see what kind of ground is coming up, glance down to see what's underfoot.

One caution that relates to #5 concerns situations where you  CAN’T see what’s underfoot.. Thick, tall grass can obscure your view of the ground.. Squirrel and gopher holes can be lurking in there But the biggie is one that  I discovered the hard way last year. Beware of stepping into rain puddles where you can’t see the depth or shape of the bottom!!

Finally, when I am uncertain of the ground underfoot (as in tall grass or ground that’s riddled with gopher holes) I resort to landing with the whole foot. That is about the slowest way to travel, but it provides a stable platform while I figure out what’s down there. Also, flatfooted landing is handy (footy?) when I’m traversing really sharp gravel; the full foot spread out on the ground distributes the my body weight over a larger area and hence reduces the pressure, which reduces the “discomfort” (aka “pain”!)

Spreading the Toes: Lateral Stability

We spend megabucks on sophisticated shoes that offer pronation control, arch support, etc. One of the reasons is, the very nature of a shoe is to confine your foot and, as collateral damage, inhibit you from using the far more sophisticated BUILT-IN features of your unfettered foot … in this case, the feature I’m focusing on is the ability to stabilize your foot by spreading your toes. You can simulate toe-spreading inside your shoes if the toe box is not too tight. An even better way to liberate your toes to do their stabilization magic, short of barefooting it, is to run in (durable) open-toed sandals. That’s what the ultra-distance running Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s Copper Canyons wear – simple huaraches. Tip: Teva and other companies make excellent running sandals.

Leading With The Knees, Tempo And Shock Absorption

Here’s a cross country ski technique that I realized applies to efficient and injury-free running: lead not with the foot, but the knees – sharply angled knees. The effect is to keep your CG over your feet. To go faster, pick up the tempo. Try some fartlek sprints this way. The theoretical optimum tempo (you can count or use a pedometer) is supposed to be 180 spm (strides per minute) = 90 rpm (revolutions per minute). HOWEVER, as a “data point of one”, I’ll tell you this: my own natural tempo is 166 spm, and it takes focused concentration to get up to 180. But for short bursts of acceleration, going above 180 spm is powerful. It brings to mind a fighter jet kicking in the afterburners or downshifting on an onramp to accelerate up to highway speed.

One of the side benefits of the “sharp knees” is shock-absorption, fore-aft stability and agility over uneven trails.

Running Downhill – And Surviving To Do It Again!

Using Shortened Stride, Increased Tempo and Lean Angle as Your Speed Control Throttle

Even wearing shoes, barefoot running technique (i.e., forefoot landing) prevents you from taking super-long strides. That’s an especial boon to your knees on downhills, but it requires picking up your tempo to keep upright, which can get a little scary as you speed down the mountain like runaway train. What happens when the tempo gets faster and faster, too fast to keep up with?

Before I answer that, let me tell you about an extraordinary experience I had during an otherwise unexceptional midday run eight years ago: I tripped and fell. That’s not the extraordinary part, though. As I fell, I watched with dismay as the sidewalk came up to greet my face. Now here’s the extraordinary part: In my panic, I got the crazy idea that if I simply ran faster, insanely faster, like they do in the cartoons, my feet would catch up with my body and I could undo the fall. Well, I’ve never moved my legs so fast in my life. And guess what? To my utter amazement, my feet began catching up with my upper body. The looming concrete ceased its looming and started dropping away again. Two seconds later, maybe three, my whole body returned to vertical and I continued my run as if nothing had happened (except for that shot of adrenaline)!

So here is the answer to controlling your downhill flight. You reduce your body lean! Body lean is your throttle. Here’s how it works (and this works for adjusting your speed on flat ground too): More forward lean forces you to pick up your tempo (to avoid falling on your face!) and your speed naturally increases. Less forward lean lets you slooooow your tempo and your speed bleeds off accordingly. I first noticed this on downhills, but then realized the principle applies to flat land and even uphills.

Now let me be clear about what I mean by “LEAN”. I do NOT mean bending forward. In fact, I keep a straight back and a plumb line straight body alignment from head to ... midfoot. CG is always in line with my midfoot. You want to flex the ankle, not the spine! It’s what you learn to do in cross country ski technique when they say to keep the “hips forward”: they really mean bend at the ankle not the waist.

To clarify, imagine your body in profile, arms hanging by your side. It looks like an “L” with a tiny foot, right? (If your feet were long enough to describe a normally proportioned “L”, you’d be able to outrun a cheetah.) Anyway, imagine the vertical member of the “L” angled forward from the “ankle” and you get what I’m talking about. Of course, your heel will tend to lift up and that’s FINE, because that positions you over your forefoot, which positions you for that great gazelle-like spring-off!

So, in conclusion, when I want to pick up my speed, I lean forward and it’s like opening the throttle: To keep from falling on my face, my tempo and hence my speed automatically INCREASE. When I’ve had enough, I lean less and the whole system eases back to a more forgiving pace. Until I recover ... and decide it would be cool to pick up the pace again.    

Try playing around with it, it is totally fun!

In Conclusion: Only YOU Can Self-Monitor

I’d like to wrap up this running tip series with some “meta-advice” (advice ABOUT my advice). The expression “one size fits all” is just as suspect for advice as it is for clothing, so my concluding recommendation is to “try on” my suggestions but tailor them to your own body and your own needs. And don’t go whole hog with them right off the bat.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve shared many ancient running techniques that I’ve re-discovered during the past eight years I’ve been running without shoes. As excited as I am about the benefits of these techniques (regardless of whether you are shod or unshod) and as natural as they are for our species, they also represent a significant change for most people – and I therefore urge caution when trying out the new methods for the first time. In particular, I suggest you experiment for short distances and listen to what your body is telling you. In any case, that’s the central tenet of barefoot running: body awareness.

So if your calves ache (they will) from running on your forefoot for the first time ... you might want to revert to the heel-strike method until they recover and become stronger. Your call. But if your Achilles tendon gets inflamed – stop! Lay off, apply ice, take NSAIDs, etc.

See what I’m driving at? Some discomfort or pain is normal and harmless; other kinds are a red warning light. It’s not so much the degree of discomfort/pain as its meaning. As a computer professional, I think of the three kinds of Windows pop-up messages: INFORMATION, WARNING and ERROR. Sometimes, charging up a long steep hill can feel like agony -- but it is simply informational agony, so you don’t necessarily need to stop just ‘cause your lungs are screaming. (No, of course not. You stop because you WANT to, right? Ha ha!  ;-)  )  Other sensations, like an odd twinge in the knee, are what I consider warning messages. You may continue, but you monitor the discomfort, perhaps adjust your gait a bit but in any case you pay close attention to whether it’s getting worse or better. Finally, there are certain types of discomfort/pain – usually the shooting-type – that demand an immediate response. “Running through” that kind of pain can mean lasting damage, so as they say in the movies, "don't be a damned hero!" Bottom line: Use good sense when trying anything new.

That said, I hope that my running tips & techniques prove useful to you and I would like to hear your feedback (email: bruce@barefootbruce.com website: www.barefootbruce.com). There’s still plenty to learn, which is what makes this barefoot phase of my running career so interesting!  

For more information on the Springville Apple Run, please email applerun@ocsnet.net