Barefoot Running: New Research

Barefoot Running: Myths and Facts

Let me start by saying that I have never been a fan of the barefoot running concept.  While I completely agree that humans have evolved to run barefoot, my belief has been that we learned to run on grass and dirt–not pavement and blacktop.  Our legs and feet simply do not have the cushioning and protection needed for these harder surfaces.  Therefore, in my opinion, barefoot running has always been a risk that’s just not worth taking.  However, I have never really had any proof beyond my own intuition that running barefoot on concrete was not a good thing.  Luckily has published some of those facts I have been missing (here).

To summarize, researchers had 12 athletes run on both a cushioned and non-cushioned treadmill while there oxygen intake was monitored.  When weight was controlled (ie: the weight of a shoe was applied to the foot without the additional padding of the shoe) it was found that the runners used 1.7 percent more energy when running barefoot.  The takeaway from this study was that the body was actually using additional energy to help cushion the foot strike. Therefore shoes with even just a little cushioning are still better than minimalist shoes or no shoes at all.



2 responses to “Barefoot Running: New Research

  1. Assuming the conclusions are true, and barefoot runners to expend slightly more energy running barefoot on non-cushioned surfaces, that only somewhat marginally contradicts barefoot running’s purported benefits. i’m interested in knowing how barefoot running affects the probability and rate of injury in runners on those hard surfaces

    • Thats a very fair point, however my belief would be that if the body is expending energy on cushioning, then the body recognized there is cushioning needed. I think an additional data point would be on how the body reacts to hard versus softer surfaces (such as grass and dirt). If we are seeing additional expenditures of energy in the harder surfaces it might show that the body has not fully evolved to run on these surfaces.

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