Mounce 1 Racquel Mounce Jamie Mcbeth-Smith English 1010 December 4, 2013

New Shoe Era

Introduction It seems that thin soled shoes have always been around, these days there is a movement happening in the athletic world, the minimalist movement. The movement was inspired by was made popular by Christopher McDougall who wrote 2009 when he came out with Born to Run in 2009, is a biography that follows his adventure to find the Mexican Indian tribe Tarahumara famous for their long distance running with little footwear (The Great Shoe Flap). The idea is that traditional running shoes are harming the biomechanics of the human gait by changing the way our bodies move, thus lessening the impact on the individual joints due to the theory that our bodies have evolved to run for the purpose of survival.

As the minimalist movement has picked up steam and the shoes are often also called different names including: barefoot, zero- drop, or minimalist shoe; the last is the most common name. This means that there is a zero drop from heel to toe. Although there this is a fast developing movement there are still those who disagree with it. Although many people would agree with the argument of minimalist shoes, there are those who dont approve of the movement, calling out that the shoes are hurting the joints because the cushion in todays shoes

Mounce 2 helps to keep our feet pain free while protecting our joints from damage that occurs from walking.

What Do Biomechanics Have To Do With Running? In his book Natural running: The Simple Path to Stronger, Healthier Running Danny Abshire writes, The human body is a wonderfully complex mechanism. Emphasizing the claim to move more efficiently your body needs to move the way it was designed to. In other words it may not be healthy to move in ways that are not natural due to the fact that it may cause harm to the joint being used. For example, making your knees move in an unnatural way causes

unwanted stress to the delicate parts of the knee that have to work together flawlessly in order to be able to use the joint. The stress is too much stress results in pain either in the immediate future or later in life. As the older generation could tell us, we should be kind to our bodies when we are young. This theory may be harder to acknowledge than some may think. For example, many critics argue that running athletes should take special care in choosing foot ware that will not damage their joints by not providing enough support for your feet and allowing the muscles in the legs to over exert themselves causing muscle strains and tendon damage.

Instead speculating on what could happen to the body, instead Abshire has been working with the University of Colorado to design shoes that let the human body move like it is supposed to, specifically reducing padded soles of the shoes so the body can sense the ground through the shoes to make judgments about how to best position the body for balance and economy (Abshire). Although the human body is extremely complex its still connected to the brain, which organizes and send signals that control the limbs to achieve proper balance. As an

Mounce 3 illustration think of your brain as a circuit board in which when your foot hits the ground when running your brain has to analyze the information through the shoe and determine how your foot is going to land before hand. What is the best position so that the next step can be taken? Do you land on your toes, forefoot, or heel? This is where the art of feeling comes in, the more padding that are on the bottom of the shoes the less information the circuit board receives. There is a lot happening in the locomotion, or movement, when jogging, running or even walking. Gait is defined as: a sequence of foot movements (as a walk, trot, pace, or canter) by which a horse or a dog moves forward (Merriam). So why is this such an important term? Because its how your foot touches the ground effects how the rest of the body will absorb the shock.

Importance of a Gait There are 3 main gaits: walking, running, and sprinting. For our purpose we will only talk about the first two. The Walking gait is when the heel of the foot is the first point of contact. Coincidently the knee is straight an allows for no cushion in the step and as a result does not allow for any shock absorption during the movement, which is fine due to the delaying pace. Running or jogging on the other hand is different. Because of the quick tempo of the activity it is important to land on the mid foot (forefoot). This absorbs all of the shock that all of the weight being put on the foot making contact with the ground is causing, thus will causing less damage to the joints. The opposite is true when the heel is the first to make contact with the ground. Abshire observes, Most people actually run with a heel striking walk gait, not realizing the many negative affect that it has on running form, efficiency and economy. The point is by landing on the heel of the foot when running causes negative effects to the athlete making them expend more energy than they normally would, due to the inefficient style that is being practiced.

Mounce 4 Side effects from this habit include overstriding, increased impact force, increases rotational force, slow tempo and the need for enormous muscle force to keep momentum going. (Abshire) So the idea is that in having a minimalist shoe all of these problems can be avoided by being able to feel the ground through your shoes. After all there are is a benefit to running in minimalist shoes, the foot muscles also get stronger and need less support (Nirenberg). A study done by the Army Medical Journal in 2012 reported that the candidates who wore minimalist shoes reported running faster than those who wore traditional running shoes. In fact those who wore minimalist shoes reported an injury rate of 13.7% compared to the traditionally shod who reported their injury report was 4.67% through out the whole study. These injuries included the total amount of injury that accrued in all body parts: foot, ankle, lower leg, knee and hip (Goss, 27).

Further more of those who wore traditional running shoes 83 % changed their shoe type in the last two years and 44% changed due to an injury. As a result 35% or 866 out of 2509 changed their foot strike pattern during the two years of the study, thus leading to the conclusion minimalist shoe wearers who have been wearing minimalist shoes for more than one year reported fewer injuries at the hop, knee, lower leg, ankle, and foot. What the study is saying is that the group who wore minimalist shoes reported fewer injuries than traditional group of runners, due to the fact that they where able to change their stride and make themselves more efficient runners (Goss, 28,29).

Mounce 5 Future Benefits So if the shoes are truly better like the data in the study implies minimalist shoes could be used to as an alternative treatment? This is the idea behind another study, whereas this one aims to investigate what effects providing minimalist shoes to elderly women with Osteoarthritis would have on their symptoms. Osteoarthritis is the most common musculoskeletal disease that mainly affect joints that suffer from constant weight overload, such as the knee(Trombini). As a consequence the patient finds it hard to do every day activities such as walking and descending stairs. Moleca are inexpensive and have been around since the 1980s. They are the shoe is the shoe of choice due to its flexible sole that would allow the foot to move more naturally during gait. The hope for this study is to implement a low cost effective treatment and therefore would minimize the use of knee braces and medication (Trombini).

This benefit could be why podiatrist is slowly gravitating toward minimalist shoes as a treatment as well. In fact one in six Podiatrist recommend training in barefoot to increase foot strength. Dr. Michael Nirenberg happens to be one of those doctors and supports the claim in his article Surprise! 16% of Podiatrists Recommend Barefoot Running, I always war minimalist shoes: in my office, at meetings, weddings and do on. In making this comment Nirenberg makes it clear that he is for the minimalist movement by wearing the shoes in everyday life. In fact he has treated runners from all over the county that are involved in the same barefoot movement and has noticed that they seem to be able to tune into their own biomechanics and continue to take part in the sport while wearing minimalist shoes no matter what kind of foot type they have (Nirenberg ).

Mounce 6 Conclusion Although there are a lot of opinions going around the simple fact is that the movement is to new and there have not been any major research studies done. The truth is maybe we should be looking at the studies that are being done on foot ware such as high heels and the long term effects. Obviously they have been and are a tried and true piece of our society. Is it possible that the other 83.59% of podiatrist are not suggesting this alternative foot ware to patients because they are being carful in the fact that there is no long-term proof to how the movement will effect this generation at a later age? One thing is for certain there is just not enough research to support the point that they are bad, likewise there are few things that say that the shoes are good for out feet. For now the public will just have to wait for science to catch up to the vision of many.

Mounce 7 Work Cited Abshire, Danny. Natural Running: The Simple Path to Stronger, Healthier Running. Boulder: VeloPress, 2010. Print. Goss, Donald L., and Michael T. Gross. Relationships Among Self-Reported Shoe Type, Footstrike Pattern, And Injury Incidence. U.S. Army Medical Department Journal (2012): 25-30. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2013. Merriam Webster Dictionary. 19 11 2013 <http://www.merriam-webster.com>. Nirenberg, Michael. Surprise! 16% of Podiatrists Recommend Barefoot Running. Americas Podiatrist. Publication date: October 27, 2013, access date: November 5, 2013. The Great Shoe Flap: Is Barefoot 'Better?. Running & Fitnews 28.1 (2010): 3-9. Health Source - Consumer Edition. Web. 31 Oct. 2013 Trombini-Souza, Francis, et al. Effectiveness Of A Long-Term Use Of A Minimalist Footwear Versus Habitual Shoe On Pain, Function And Mechanical Loads In Knee Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Controlled Trial. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 13.1 (2012): 121-128. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2013 Zmuda, Natalie. Marketers Sprint To Join Lightweight-Running Craze. Advertising Age 82.31 (2011): 10. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.