It all started off amicably enough. The five panelists - Professor Daniel Lieberman, podiatrist Simon Bartold, Professor Benno Nigg, Professor Daniel Howell and Dr Matthias Marquardt - at UKSEM’s Natural Running debate in London today interrupted one another only to state how much they agreed with the other’s point.
Are shoes inherently evil? No, was the consensus. Do they have a role to play in offering protection? Sure. (Even Professor Howell, who has spent the best part of six years barefoot 24/7 conceded that sometimes shoes were appropriate, just as oven gloves are sometimes appropriate when getting something hot out the oven…)
Another thing they all agreed on was that the answer to the question ‘Is barefoot better - in terms of injury prevention and/or performance?’ is that we don’t know. The scientific research to give a definitive answer simply hasn’t been done. Yet.
But as the debate progressed, some differences in opinion began to surface - in terms of why runners get injured, what good running form is and whether shoes and surfaces can play a part in increasing or decreasing the risk of injury.
Professor Daniel Lieberman has shown that barefoot runners (at least, those who habitually run barefoot and have a ‘natural’ barefoot style’) don’t experience an ‘impact transient’ - that is, the sudden collision force when making first contact with the ground. This is in sharp contrast to the typical heel striking runner in shoes, who experiences an impact peak equal to 2-3 times body weight on landing. This lack of impact transient is what Lieberman believes allows barefoot runners to run on any kind of surface - soft or hard - without it being painful or injurious. The absence of the impact transient, Lieberman suggests, is because barefooters run in a different way - landing underneath the body rather than out in front, landing with the forefoot/midfoot instead of the heel and keeping their strides shorter, but faster. This type of running style or ‘form’ uses the foot - in fact, the entire body - in the way it was designed to be used. Hence the term Natural Running.
But Professor Benno Nigg contests the idea that running injuries are caused by initial impact - citing his own lab’s research suggesting that they are caused by so-called ‘active forces’ during ‘mid-stance’ (when your foot is fully weight-bearing on the ground, mid-stride). ‘Why do we concentrate so much on impact forces, not active forces?’ he asked. Lieberman pointed out Irene Davis’s research (from Harvard University) that shows a link between the size of the impact peak and a link with various common running injuries, including tibial stress syndromes and ITB problems. His own studies, using accelerometers, have shown that the impact force reverberates right through to the head - it’s not inconsequential. ’It’s also about the rate of loading, not just the magnitude,’ he added, using a neat example of hitting someone on the head with a hammer (I suspect he might have liked to do just that to Simon Bartold, who rather nastily dissed his website… but I digress). Hit someone at slow-mo speed and the effects are very different from moving the hammer at top speed was the point.
The funny thing was that despite their very different reasoning, Professors Lieberman and Nigg agreed that cushioning is a feature in running shoes that we can do without. For Lieberman, it’s because the foot is designed to accept these forces when you run with good natural running form. For Nigg, it’s because impact isn’t relevant in injury development, so why cushion against it?
When it came to what a shoe should, and shouldn’t offer, opinions converged once more. What a statement it sends to the running shoe industry when five experts sit on a panel and say a running shoe shouldn’t need: cushioning, stiffness, medial posting, arch support or a heel raise. Just a couple of years ago you’d have struggled to find any shoe that didn’t offer the majority of these features. A seismic shift and one that the shoe companies are at least attempting to address, although some of their offerings are more minimal in name than in nature.
As time was petering out, the debate was just starting to get to what I consider to be the heart of this matter. Form. What needs to happen now is for the industry - shoe makers, coaches, scientists, podiatrists - to accept that the real issue here isn’t whether you should run barefoot, or wear a minimalist shoe, or a traditional shoe. The real issue is about how you run. That’s why my money’s on Lieberman as the one to watch in terms of future research. Any scientist, regardless of their credentials and standing, who still talks about people ‘naturally’ having a heel strike is, in my opinion, putting their research ladder up the wrong wall. No one has a natural heel strike. If you did, then you’d run with a heel strike without shoes, which no one does, at least after a few steps when they realise how painful it is.
Once we recognise it’s all about form, then two things can happen. Firstly, barefoot/minimalist shoes will stop getting ‘blamed’ for causing injuries. And secondly, people will realise that they need to learn the skill of running just as they’d learn any other sporting skill. And then we might start to see a reduction in the level of injuries.
Great article Sam. Thanks for posting so quickly. As someone who follows the debate very closely, I would loved to have been there.
But it’s been great to follow the twitter comments and read your first hand account from here in Australia. Hopefully the round table debate was filmed.
The 3 key points you highlight come through very clearly:
- the lack of scientific research on the matter
- agreement on what a running shoe shouldn’t need
- the way we run is the real issue, not what is or isn’t on our feet
I was fortunate enough to meet Dan Lieberman at the Australian Physio Assoc conference last month and I think the things he says make a lot of sense.
Managed to film an interview with him which is worth a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFj6aIPQwcs&sns=em
Thanks again and happy running!
Great post Sam, Thanks for reporting on the great debate from such a quality panel. I totally agree with your conclusions as well. It is all about form and how we are designed to run.
The current trouble being that traditional sneakers or training shoes don’t allow for that, and those of us who have grown up with the “wrong equipment” really need to learn to run all over again.
I have to realize i’m back at the same point as my 4 year old, who has perfect form by the way!
“say a running shoe shouldn’t need: cushioning, stiffness, medial posting, arch support or a heel raise. :
not sure whether you were there or not based on your blog. I was.. and this is definitely NOT what was said!
Lieberman was made to look foolish by Benno Nigg for using lab models to suit his needs (not real models that can be applied to real people), and was unable to answer questions by Bartold about his own website and statements that cannot be supported by real science. Time to stick to anthropology? His real area of expertise??
Of course I was there, Lisa, hence the report. I’m mystified as to why you could disagree with the ‘what a shoe shouldn’t need.’ I was listing it in my notebook at the time it was being discussed. The only slight point of contention could be that Dr Matthias Marquardt said ‘medial posting’ and Professor Lieberman then added ‘arch support’ and the panel then agreed that the two were not the same thing. I don’t agree at all that Lieberman was made to look foolish by Nigg - or Bartold for that matter - it just looked to me like people uncomfortable with the status quo being challenged.
Actually Sam, Lieberman completely dodged a number of questions. He was challenged on his use of the dynamic mass model, which was created by Professor Nigg and applies only to static models. Nigg actually stated that Lieberman was wrong to be using this model as justification of his results, which are generally considered to be flawed (the Nature sudy randomised its stats and compared an unshod cohort with an average age 19 to a shod cohort average age 40, amongst other things. This paper would never have been published in a peer reviewed journal) and in support for his contention that we all should run barefoot.. because he, Lieberman does it, and it apparently was the way we all ran 10,000 years ago. You have a science major so you know this is extremely dodgy. Lieberman was then challenged by Bartold on his rigid model approach to biomechanics. Bartold quoted straight off Liebermans website, he was actually reading off it right on stage, which I have since checked and he is right, which states that upon heel impact the “foot and leg come to a dead stop..” Huhh!??? as biomechanist, Lieberman makes a fine anthroplologist. This rigid model approach is clearly absurd, as Bartold pointed out, and in combination with the rigid mass model makes no recognition of the dynamic systems that come into play during real running by real people (not long dead people..!) On being challenged, Lieberman got all huffy and refused to respond except to say he was being misquoted.. off his own website ( if you need more ..go to the Vibram Five Fingers site [a product Lieberman endorses]and you will be able to watch a fascinating video where Lieberman says heel striking did not exist before 1970… what the??? Finally.. the most telling point for me was when Bartold asked the moderator the question ” if a study was designed to take habitually shod runners, make them run barefoot for 45 minutes 3 times a week and monitor them for 6 weeks would this get through the human ethics committe of your university?” The immediate answer was ” no, it definitely would not” . The reason? Because the risk of injury is too high and Univerisities will not approve any human trial likely to injure.
One final point.. why is it that one has to transition so carefully into a minimalist shoe, when one can have no running experience, go to a store and buy a traditional running shoe with no dire warning and no advice to transition? Why,? Because the risk of injury is low!
Hi Lisa,
I wasn’t at the session (upset about that but had teaching!!!). With respect to your final point, I think this transition period is required because people will be using their body in a way they have not done so for a while (since wearing heeled shoes). Running in minimalist shoes/barefoot is likely (I say likely because I’m not sure if anyone has specifically collected data on it) to put more emphases on the plantar flexor muscle group and the achilles tendon, especially during impact i.e. a greater eccentric loading. This will obviously require training period to allow for adaptation to occur within the system. People are use to walking and running with heeled shoes (we’ve done this all our life) and so our bodies are trained. There is always a physiological learning curve with new movement patterns, or training regimes. I think this is why the transition time is required. If not, then we will overload the body when it is trying to adapt, and instead of damaging (I’m referring to the required damage seen within muscle following exercise that stimulates the repair and growth) and allowing for repair and growth, we will just be damaging an already damaged system, and prevent it from having the time and rest to repair.
If the injury risk is so low, then why do 60-80 per cent of runners get injured in any given year? Again, it all comes back to running technique. You need to run with good form, regardless of whether you are wearing minimal shoes, chunky shoes or no shoes….
Totally agree with the last comment. Well said Sam. Again, stressing the importance of re-learning the best form to use regardless of what is or isn’t on your feet.