Atomic Nerds

So, back in April Peter posted a link to an article in the Daily Mail about how more than just hippies are starting to question whether running shoes actually help protect you from injury or whether they may actually be more like the cause of frequent injury in runners. I kind of doubt the latter- from what I’ve seen watching the running community the most common cause of running injuries is the fact that cardiovascular conditioning comes much faster than conditioning of bone and connective tissue and runners push their training schedule to the former rather than the latter- but it’s an intriguing notion.

The place where I hang out when my “want to be physically capable of enjoying life when I’m eighty instead of just right now” side is ascendant over my hedonist side is very big on shucking the expensive, hyper-engineered shoes and going barefoot or close to, so this was not a new idea to me. I’m not particularly rigid on the whole “living like a caveman is good for you” thing- for examples admonitions to avoid sunscreen because of the “chemicals” don’t impress me much when relatives living in the sunny band of the country who eschewed it as children seem to be getting incipient skin cancers lasered off once every five years or so- but it seems the crazy barefoot people have more actual research backing them up than the “motion control super duper space shoe” people do. Since they tend to keep up with nutty trends anyway, I also began to notice more of the fitness community I hang out on the sidelines of picking up the trend as well. They’re about split down the middle whether it’s only good for sprinting or the best thing since protein shakes.

It also does have a certain straight up evolutionary as well as biomechanical logic to it; our feet aren’t really evolved to constantly be encased in what is essentially a cushioned rubber rocking surface, and it essentially blocks a lot of the proprioceptive (that’s Science for “your body’s sense of where your bits are in space”) feedback that the toes are essentially there to provide, as well as providing minute adjustments for balance. So some of the more overheated-sounding hooey about protecting joints and balance the barefoot runners (who, frankly, sometimes DO come off as crazy in the same way the raw foodists do) does have some logical foundation.

I’ve always been very much “shod”. I didn’t do much running around barefoot in summer as a kid because in Phoenix, the paved areas are too brutally hot for it, and the unpaved areas tend to be very heavy on non-foot-friendly sharp things, animate and inanimate alike. Inside, well… let’s just say that I had reason not to blithely trust my dogs’ housebreaking at the time and no desire to be finding lapses with my exposed little piggies. Eighteen years of this plus four more of “I can’t go barefoot here, I’ll catch a festering foot fungus”, and the habit of wearing some kind of foot covering was deeply ingrained.

So this summer I decided to only wear shoes when necessary- i.e. going anywhere further than a few feet outside, the hostile ground is just as bad here in NM- and it’s been interesting. I was very definitely biomechanically dependent on the support of the shoe- having my feet give me screaming hell just for spending two and a half hours standing and cooking was proof enough of that. I’ve also found that on a non-biomechanical level I just plain enjoy being able to feel what I’m standing or walking on; it’s kind of like the difference between driving a car with a stick shift and an auto, once I learned that- the extra degree of feedback and control is nice. I find myself regretting it a bit when I have to put my shoes back on to go out.

I’m nothing if not willing to undertake an experiment if I’m curious about something, and I am now eighty-five bucks worth of curious. My Vibrams- shoes designed to be as close enough as possible to barefoot except with a layer of protection for your soles so the sharpies don’t get you- should get here tomorrow. If they’re sized right (which they might not be, ordering online is always exciting like that), starting then I’ll be wearing those instead of regular shoes wherever socially permissable by dress code that isn’t snake territory. (Hell if I’ll ever hike in something that doesn’t provide many inches of thick leather between me and a rattler.) About a month in I’ll give a review- how long it took to adapt and if I did at all, if it hurt and how much, if running doesn’t actually go better in the things after all (I hate running, so this may be missing from the review), and if I really did get the claimed benefits of better balance and coordination.

Stay tuned.

Posted homestead, powerlevelling, Science: we'll fuck you up |