Am part way through Born to Run on audible and being plagued with niggly running injuries in my calves and achilles in general and a calf injury meaning I've not run for 2 months I'm considering exploring this.
I appreciate that in the transition period ironically it can add stress to achilles and calves after a life time of walking and running in shoes but just wondered if anyone has any insight or experience of this and any tips for making a transition aware from conventional running shoes?
I know
@Cloudworm is a huge advocate from the running thread but wondered if other Lifers also have any experience or insight.
Cheers
Comments
I'm thinking that if I am taking a slow and steady approach to building up the mileage over next few months then it's probably the ideal time to transition and build up slowly over next 6 months with minimalist shoes but am mindful that it will probably take a lot of getting used to and may be too much to do on the back of a calf injury. Lots to consider!
Thanks for your insight.
Other things we enjoy that are bad for us:
Beer
Driving cars
Watching Charlton
I could go on.
I have the weakest soles of feet known to man. If you saw me attempting to walk on a stone beach you’d think it was a comedy sketch
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_McNuff
I hear stories and know older runners who have issues later in life. Now, I'm not suggesting this applies to the above story but in many cases these are self inflicted. Over doing it, not listening to your body, poor diet and bad footwear (even applies to every day walking about town shoes). There is more science to it these days. For every one of those stories, there are lots of people that run relatively trouble free into their 60s & 70s.
My advice re: injury, would be go to a decent sports physio who will be able to identify any weaknesses and imbalances and then recommend ways to overcome the issue. Many injuries are as a result of your body compensating for an imbalance.
Source:
The Amazing Wilson
These stories pre-date my childhood, but Wilson was my Dad's hero.
Disclaimer: These stories reflect the attitudes and language of the time and may cause offence to some.
I did think about it and do occasionally run very short distances barefoot on a beach or golf course - but I wouldn't go beyond that. I went to a talk by Chris McDougall - author of Born To Run - about 10 years ago. He mentioned something about thinking about form with every stride. Which I felt took the fun out of running. The talk was excellent and resulted in local runners wanting to give it a go. 10 years later I don't see those shoes anymore.
There's a wide range of minimalist shoes. At the more regular end of the range you have brands like Altra - which have padding & support but are zero drop - to the ultra-minimalist sandals that are 4mm of rubber strapped to the bottom of your foot with no padding or support. I'm at the minimalist end of the spectrum, running with about 8mm of rubber just to protect from gravel, sticks & sharp rocks.
More important than your choice of shoes is learning good running technique - everybody concentrates on a forefoot strike when they start minimalist, because that is obvious. Wearing padded shoes allows you to heel strike without any immediate pain (though it's terrible for knees and backs) whereas if you try to heel strike in minimalist shoes you will be in a world of hurt. That's only the most obvious adaptation though - as you get into it you learn to shorten your stride, pop your feet off the deck rather than pushing down, develop a quicker cadence, maintain good posture & utilise your quads & gluts more for your stride. But it all takes time, if you're trying to teach yourself. If you watch pro-runners, they avoid injuries by having perfect techniques, but they have a team of coaches. Amateur runners get more injuries because their technique is not perfect & they don't have experts to help them correct.
I definitely get less injuries from minimalist running - my knees & back were particularly bad when I used to run in regular running shoes. However, if you're into races and running PB's, you are unlikely to be as fast in minimalist shoes as you are in regular ones. It's a trade-off.
If you want some in-depth discussion, join in at https://www.reddit.com/r/BarefootRunning/
It affects the bottom of the foot and heel, is excruciatingly painful and has you hobbling like you're on Afka's stoney beach.
I think the best advice as far as that is concerned is to protect your feet on hard surfaces with supportive footwear.
https://heelthatpain.com/heel-pain/barefoot/
I believe studies have showed that platar problems are actually reduced/ far less prevalent in those with minimalist shoes as arches tend to be more pronounced and stronger.
The golf ball therapy sorted me out when I had this years ago and worth trying for anyone suffering from it.
I've taken the plunge and got a couple of pairs of vivobarefoots including a pair of horrendous looking work shoes which will make me look like coco the clown.
I've missed most of the race season this year and have to build up from square one after recent injury in terms of distance and frequency so I've considered it is the optimal time to explore this and will do it very slowly.
My expectations in terms of distances and speed are tempered accordingly and I'm in no rush to get back to longer distances or fast (for me) times at this stage as see this transition as a bigger investment.
Always getting achilles and calf injuries in expensive heeled shoes so think it is worth at least trying for next 12 to 18 months.
In terms of technique and form I tend to over think it and think that we are literally born to run as our bodies intended (to a degree) and that we can do so intuitively but will need to read up a lot more on this side of things of course.
No doubt I'll be hobbling about in covered End in 2 months in my clown shoes cursing the day I ever tried this :-)
Ps the sandals sound superb and something to aim for in years to come. Did a light run and some physio completely barefoot at the park on grass last night and it was pretty liberating.
Back in the day when I was doing fairly serious mileage, I picked up an Achilles and calf injury and it ended up taking about a year to get rid of. The problem was my fault ... I'd get back to normal training far too quickly, and the whole thing would flare up again. Back to square 1, rinse and repeat.
So, my advice ... even when you think you're over it, give it another couple of weeks. It will be quicker in the end.