A while back I posted some information on massage and research on massage. Here are three self-massage demonstrations.
Month: February 2010
News on Barefoot Running: Part III
StandardTo this point we’ve looked a couple of aspects of the human foot and running. In Part I we looked at research showing the unshod or minimally shod foot worked quite well at running for the vast majority of human history. In Part II we looked at the following: 1) research linking knee osteoarthritis to high loading forces on the knees, 2) higher loading forces were associated with stability shoes, and 3) lower loading forces were associated with shoes such as flip-flops that allow a more natural foot movement. Thus we can conclude that in order to avoid ailments such as knee osteoarthritis (and I might guess the same for hip, ankle, and low back arthritis) we should do whatever we can to allow our feet to move unencumbered.
[Researchers] concluded that running shoes exerted more stress on these joints compared to running barefoot or walking in high-heeled shoes.
So here are the lastest findings on this issue. Running Shoes May Cause Damage to Hips, Knees and Ankles, New Study Suggests details the findings of a study published in the December 2009 PM & R, the journal of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. (Here’s the abstract, and the full text.) Researchers studied 68 healthy adult runners as they ran on a treadmill both in modern running shoes and while barefoot. Significantly higher torque forces were observed in the subjects when they were in running shoes. The study reports “An average 54% increase in the hip internal rotation torque, a 36% increase in knee flexion torque, and a 38% increase in knee varus (inward) torque were measured when running in running shoes compared with barefoot.”
Those are significant forces! And why do most people wear running shoes? To protect the feet, provide stability, to be comfortable… Very interesting that these shoes actually increase the forces which we’re looking to minimize. In closing, the researchers say,
“Reducing joint torques with footwear completely to that of barefoot running, while providing meaningful footwear functions, especially compliance, should be the goal of new footwear designs.”
So with that statement in mind, I’ve recently purchased a pair of Vibram 5-Fingers model KSO. I’ve worn them the past couple of days at work and they’re quite interesting. I plan on wearing them exclusively when I weight train, and I plan on running in them fairly soon. (There’s a little too much snow on the ground here in Denver right now.) I’ll probably try some running on the grass first and then try short runs on pavement. We’ll see what happens…
News on Barefoot Running: Part II
StandardPreviously I discussed how wearing shoes alters the human running stride. For millennia, our feet functioned well enough to get us to the 1970s when we put them into running shoes. The result seems to be our adopting a running stride (heel strike) that may be more stressful and injurious than an unshod stride (forefoot strike). I want to continue the discussion by looking at a few more studies of our feet and the effect of shoes.
The original ATV...
I’ll go back to a Science Daily article from November of 2007 called Your Knees Want to Take you Shoe Shopping. The research was originally presented in 2007 at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting. Researchers analyzed the effects of various footwear on patients with knee osteoarthritis. Specifically, they looked at loading of the knees.
The first point the researchers make is this:
“In knee osteoarthritis, there is abundant evidence that patients with abnormally high loading knees (high amounts of stress on part or all of the knee joint) are at increased risk of both injury and disease progression.”
Now, the important research findings were these:
“Researchers found that clogs and stability shoes were associated with significantly higher loading of the knees, while the walking shoes and flip-flops resulted in lower knee loads similar to those occurring when walking barefoot. Therefore, shoes that allowed natural foot motion and flexibility appeared to be more beneficial in terms of knee loading.”
That final statement goes to the point that a natural stride, unaffected by modern high-tech footwear seems to be more healthy for us. Here’s more supporting information. Footwear Alters Normal Form and Function of the Foot is a 2009 Science Daily article that profiles a study on barefoot walking. Specifically the researchers studied people who’d never worn shoes. The researchers wanted to observe the biologically normal function of the foot which had evolved for millions of years without the influence of shoes. They indeed saw habitually unshod feet moved performed differently from shod feet. The article notes:
“Barefooters have a relatively wide forefoot and manage at better distributing pressures over the entire surface of the foot sole, resulting in lower (and most likely favourable) peak pressures. As such, the fundamental scientific results are also important for clinicians and for the design of quality footwear, which should not hamper the foot’s biologically normal function.”
In Part III of this series I’ll discuss new research that demonstrates running shoes actually contribute to greater stress at the ankles, knees and hips.
News on Barefoot Running: Part I
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The cutting edge of running technology!
First of all, a disclaimer: I am NOT telling everyone to throw out their running shoes/inserts/orthotics and go barefoot to run all the time forever. If you’re having success then keep doing what you’re doing. I do however suggest reconsidering what you think you know about the human foot and the shoes we put on them. If you’re in pain then you MIGHT consider changing from a highly structured foot environment to something less structured. Alright, on to the important stuff.
The case against running shoes (or maybe FOR going barefoot from time to time) seems to be mounting. What we’ve got here is more evidence that for running, the human foot all by itself is likely the most highly advanced instrument for the job.
I’ve posted previously on the issue of running and human evolution, and the issue of running shoes vs. barefoot running. Research continues on the issue. An article in Science Daily titled Barefoot Running: How Humans Ran Comfortably and Safely Before the Invention of Shoes tells us of research on three groups of people: those who had always run barefoot, those who had always worn shoes, and those who had converted to barefoot running from shod running. (This analysis of different types of runners is one strong point of the study.) Runners in Kenya and the U.S. were subjects. The project was a joint effort between Harvard, University of Glasgow, and Moi University. The full article can be accessed for a fee in the journal Nature.
The researchers observed very different patterns during barefoot running vs. shod running. Barefoot runners land on the mid-foot or the forefoot whereas running in shoes tends to promote a heel strike. Barefoot running results in a more spring-like step by utilizing the arch of the foot rather than driving the heel into the ground.
“Our feet were made in part for running,” Daniel Lieberman (researcher) says. But as he and his co-authors write in Nature: “Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning.“
The researchers suggest than in fact barefoot running may be less injurious than running in modern running shoes. They caution that running barefoot or in minimal footwear must be a gradual process if one has been running in shoes for a long time. Lieberman delves further into the biomechanics of barefoot running on his web page called (surprise!) Barefoot Running. I haven’t read this site yet but I’m planning on digging into it ASAP. Looks very interesting.
From what I’ve learned as a personal trainer I recognize the immense importance of properly functioning feet. If you take a look at your feet and how much movement is available to those things you may be surprised. There’s a lot of potential movement there! Proper foot movement brings on proper knee movement which brings on proper hip movement which makes the trunk and the shoulders move properly. Liberman observes that humans have been using their feet for far longer than the modern running shoe has been around. In our modern age we’ve decided that much like our food, we’re going to out think nature and “improve” on something that’s worked well for a very long time. But what happens when we put our feet in running shoes? We start to take away movement. We put a big piece of foam between us and the ground so that we desensitize our feet. (Compare this to going to a movie in sunglasses or listening to music with earplugs in.) In other words, we seriously alter something that’s been working pretty well for thousands of years. This alteration in function is made even more dramatic if we use orthotics. So it seems entirely likely to me that many cases of knee pain, hip pain, even shoulder and neck pain may well be rooted in what we’ve done to our feet. At the very least, I think it’s worth examining the issue. I’ll discuss more on the issues around barefoot vs. shod running in upcoming posts.
Z-Health for Toe Pain
StandardThis will be brief. I’m enormously excited over the results I’ve been getting from my Z-Health work. My back pain, Achilles pain and shoulder pain have all improved quite dramatically over the past few weeks. (I also added 70 lbs. to my deadlift in one fell swoop!) Yesterday it was my wife’s chance to be surprised by Z-Health.
My wife is a triathlete who’s had intermittent big toe pain in her left foot over the past several months. It comes and goes and it never had a clear-cut cause. Yesterday, after visiting with Jason Wood in Lakewood, CO I went home and had my wife go through some Z-Health R-Phase drills. One of the Z-Health concepts deals with opposing joints. That means since my wife’s toe pain was in her left foot, I had her go through drills with her right hand and thumb. The result? No toe pain whatsoever! As she gaped in bewilderment, she drove her foot into the ground and wiggled her foot all over and she could not replicate the pain. The toe pain returned this morning during a dog walk, she went through the drills again for a few moments and again the pain was gone. (As an aside, the toe pain comes on most notably in a pair of hiking boots. Perhaps the shoe is interfering with the natural function of her foot, as I’ve discussed here.) Pretty cool stuff this Z-Health.
I’ll be taking the R-Phase certification in March and April of this year and I’m extremely excited. I’ve just barely begun to scratch the surface with this exercise protocol and I expect to see more and more dramatic results. If you’re a fellow personal trainer, a chiropractor, physical therapist or anyone else involved in the health & fitness business, I highly suggest you look into Z-Health for everything from injury treatment to increasing sports performance. If you’re an athlete or just an everyday fitness fan who’s either in pain or not performing as well as you’d like, you would do well to seek out a Z-Health trainer for help and advice.