Barefoot Running Technique Simplified

the sports footwear industry which has produced a plethora of fancy designs in iterations over the past 50 years has gone from nearly non-existent to having a humongous market size it is estimated that it'll be worth 142 billion dollars by 2026 however despite all the novel innovations running related injuries have steadily increased over the years they are currently estimated to play up to 79 percent of recreational runners within one year of training yes you heard right seventy-nine percent looked at in a different way it's reported that there are seven point seven to seventeen point eight injuries per thousand hours of running if we compare these stats to weightlifting which sits at two point four to three point three injuries per thousand hours of training or powerlifting at one to four point four injuries per thousand hours of training we can see that running is about four times more likely to lead to injury than these other high-intensity sports while this video is not directly about injury rates in running it's important to touch on it because it is usually mechanical strain that causes trauma to the body and this mechanical strain is most often caused by movements in efficiencies if the body is not moving optimally then it is more susceptible to getting hurt so the focus of this video is on how modern Footwear has altered our running mechanics for the worse and how we can utilize barefoot running techniques to regain the lost efficiency as well as improved performance as a side-effect so let's dive right in research shows that individuals who run barefoot or in minimalistic shoes can be up to six point eight percent more energy efficient their nose who ran in conventional shoes this statistic extrapolated over a marathon would allow a barefoot runner to travel 2.9 kilometers further in a shoe wearing counterparts while expending the same amounts of energy there are a few reasons for the barefoot runners reduction in energy cost in this episode we will cover the first barefoot runners tend to strike the ground with a forefoot directly under their center of mass this angle of impact allows for the vertical forces to be converted into rotational forces helping propel the runner forward contrasting me shoe run is predominantly heel strike which is the results of the foot colliding with the ground ahead of the body center of mass this angle of impact sins braking forces back into the body which the randomness then work hard to overcome to continue forward momentum to bits understand this concept imagine that someone is giving you a hard push from behind in an attempt to make you fall forward the only way to resist this motion is to place one of your legs in front of your hips in an effort to stop your body from falling over contrastingly if you stand stationary and then decide of your own free will to move forward what happens to your weight distribution well it shifts from your heels to the forefoot this is because the only way to move forward is to shift your entire mass over the forefoot and beyond until gravity essentially takes over and you fall forward the trick to running then is to not try and stop your body from falling forward like you would if someone pushed you instead it's to try and conserve that forward momentum by striking the ground with the forefoot underneath the body center of mass now in case anyone was wondering not all runners who wear modern running shoes actually heel strike however research has shown that people wearing thick padded sports shoes are significantly more likely to heel struck one of the possible explanations for this is that most sport shoes have an elevated heel which would more than likely come in contact with the ground before the rest of the shoe furthermore soft soles also blunt the feeling of the impact which would otherwise tell your brain that you should stop bashing your heels into the ground because it's super painful and rather docked a different style of running that will lessen the force of the impact moreover that wedge of firm that makes up the souls and inners of all modern sport shoes put short runners at even more of a mechanical disadvantage it makes them less energy efficient then they barefoot running counterparts let's investigate why our barefoot runners more energy efficient than those who train in conventional running shoes let's consider effect almost 20% of the mechanical energy generated from running is conserved by well functioning and compliance ouch when running barefoot the arches of the foot compress and flatten upon impact causing the four layers of muscles under each foot to recoil like a spring and propel the leg back off the ground and into the next rod this action occurs as a result of a group of sins underneath the feet which when exposed detect the ground and stimulate the muscles of the foot to support an arch now let's put on a pair of shoes and note the differences conventional shoes contain arch support this piece of material Falls the dome-shaped gap of the arches so instead of functioning as a spring the foot now rolls from heel to toe and the arches remain relatively dormant further the thick soles of shoes blunt the foot senses thus the muscles are known longest stimulated to maintain an arch and they become lazy and weak the end result is a non-compliant collapsed arch commonly recognized as left feet so now you know why we have an arch it's not just there to look pretty it plays an important role in our gait cycle and sticking on thick-soled shoes with arch support prevents these natural structures from doing their jobs I also want to expand on the points about preserving a sense of feeling with the ground the more feeling we have with the surfaces we are running on the faster we can react to it it is for this reason that barefoot runners have a higher steep rate also known as cadence if we look at the data from a study published in the International Journal of exercise science we can see a pretty linear increase in ground contact time and step rate from barefoot through to increasing shoe sole thicknesses in other words the thicker the sole of the shoe the list feeling we have with the ground and consequently the slower we are able to react to it but why is it so important to decrease our ground contact time and overall steps per minute well according to the research increasing steps per minute or cadence can significantly decrease the amount of vertical motion or vertical displacement that the body displays during every stride this is great for preserving energy and improving efficiency since a great deal of upward motion has no benefit in terms of moving the body forwards which is obviously the goal it's no wonder that faster runners show less vertical oscillation while they run then slower runners by the way just as a side note the optimal cadence for long-distance runners is about 180 steps per minute or more novice runners especially if they use padded shoes and he'll strike tend to rate significantly lower than this now there are other benefits to this faster step rate one is a better stretch reflex from the Achilles tendons and other can of tissues in order to utilize the elastic energy from these father's they need to be loaded and released quickly just like a slingshot as slow as these actions occur the more the muscles get involved and assist in the movements while muscles are important there are energy expensive so the more we can shift the load using our connective tissues which don't use energy to generate force the more efficiently we can move another benefit of having a speedier step rate is that there's less time for ground reactor forces to act on the body let me explain look at the two graphs showing ground reaction forces during ground contact time when wearing shoes or barefoot for simplicity sake let's say that they both reached equal peak ground reaction forces however the shoe runner takes longer to get to that peak after the heel struck and also takes longer to get the foot back off the ground on the other hand the barefoot runner with his speedier sensors and forefoot strike completes the sequence faster to know how much accumulative force was imparted to the two runners during each step we must look at the area under the curve now let's compare the two as you can see the barefoot runner experiences a less total ground reactor forces than the shoe runner for those who lift weights we can think of it as time and attention we know that if we really want to make our muscle sore we can focus on prolonging the negative portion of each repetition which increases the cumulative load on the muscle throughout the workout while this technique can be useful in acute settings in the German to stimulate muscle growth we wouldn't want to run this way over many kilometers because it is highly inefficient and it increases the risk of injury over the long term okay let's do a quick recap number one barefoot running promotes a forefoot strike which helps to conserve forward momentum and reduces the harmful braking forces often seen in heel strikers number two barefoot running increases sensory feedback from the ground which helps stimulate the arches of the feet to act as springs helping to propel the runner forward number three the heightened feeling of the ground also increases step rate which activates energy efficient ligaments and other connective tissues to assist the muscles during every stride and for increased cadence through barefoot running also reduces the ground reactive forces acting on the body which is not only more economical but also juices the risk of injury well that's it from us today gasps thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video please like and subscribe for more content like this in the future but until then keep on exercising your health Cheers

Channel: Barefoot Strength

Views: 645,653

Keywords: barefoot, running barefoot, running barefoot shoes, barefoot shoes, barefoot running technique, bare foot running, bare foot running technique, bare foot running benefits, barefoot running benefits, benefits of barefoot running, how to run barefoot

Id: KfS-0AjdZUo

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020