Why barefoot isn’t best for most runners

"…no idea what it means, but it's a strong little chick"

Oooooohh, she's a hot one.

OMG, my wife is coming into the room. If she see's me ogling this one, I'm in deep doo doo. I'm outta here.

This might make your day for all of you. Great video:

Move

All I know is that running and other kinds of slow movement were no longer working for me. Maybe it is my age. I am 48. Maybe it's my body type. I'm short and stocky and kind of surprisingly heavy for my size. Maybe I just really wrecked myself doing too much long distance hiking. I've been trying to figure out what I broke with all that and try to repair it and I seem to have found my own answers and things that are actually working for me. It was becoming unsustainable to force my body into ever more extremes of endurance. Now I know that I do not have to. Not that this other way is easy because it's not. But it does give me lots of free time to sit on my deck and read and I can take a nice walk in the sunshine during lunch rather than sweat and run.

"…the type of movement is less important than moving itself, a stolen hour at the gym is just as important as a big day in the mountains, a victory over life's demands."

Great vid link Miguel.

Running and I are attached at the hip, but there are aspects to it that downright suck at times. Moments of pain, boredom, isolation, and fatigue that make it difficult to remember why I'm out there putting one foot in front of the other when I could be sleeping next to my wife in a warm bed. It only takes a stretch of perfect trail or a view after a long climb to remember and wash away those doubts. Some people overcome challenges and better themselves through strength training, others through hiking, for some it's running and cycling. Whatever the means, it's all good and should be celebrated equally.

Wasn't this thread about running barefoot?

"Wasn't this thread about running barefoot? "

It was, until the usual absolute statements that derail most good threads.
This sucks. That is stupid. One should NEVER. ALWAYS….!! And so on..

People who state personal preferences in a facetious manner ruin all discussions, everywhere. Always.

"If you think steroids are just used by people who are exceptionally large and muscular, did you not follow the recent Tour De France biking scandal?"

Uhh.. you know most drug use in cycling is EPO and blood doping… stuff to increase red blood cells for better oxygen use. or in the case of Contador. clenbuterol which is a broncodiolator which helps you breathe better

as far as training for hiking.. i find my cycling a 1500-3000mi /year makes my legs and core strong and increases my aerobic capacity. and hiking helps my cardio for biking. hiking my lungs max out first and my legs are fine.. biking my legs max out before i'm really breathing super hard except on steep hills.

i've met kenyan marathon runners.. they are a lot stronger looking than that pale finnish guy. obviously they won't have large upper bodies since that does nothing for you running.

nm

"This might make your day for all of you."

Sums it up pretty well. It is indeed what we were born to do, as proven by the fact that we store our main energy supply as fat instead of carbs like…..vegetables.

"i've met kenyan marathon runners.. they are a lot stronger looking than that pale finnish guy. obviously they won't have large upper bodies since that does nothing for you running."

I would qualify that to say it does nothing for a distance runner. Sprinters are another matter entirely.

"We must have a different definition of 'strong looking.'"

There is often a difference between looking strong and actually being functionally strong. I've seen a lot of knuckle draggers who can bench 225# strut up to the pull up bar and drop off after 2-3 pull ups. I have also seen a 5' 4" 112# 60 year old woman march up to that same bar and rack off 3 sets of 12 body weight pull ups. Who would have guessed? Similarly in climbing. A lot of climbers don't have much muscle mass, but what they do have is incredibly strong, and conditioned to stay strong, pitch after pitch, with enough left over for the descent and hike back to TH, often over technical terrain. In the dark. Carrying their climbing gear. Good runners are often the same, much stronger than they look. Don't be seduced by all those sculpted, well oiled muscles you see bulging out at you from the covers of muscle mags. Functional strength is where the rubber meets the road. My 2 cents.

Years ago I was doing a running clinic at a Y in NM. The question was asked about how strong a marathoner needed to be. Frank Shorter was on the panel and answered the question. Strong enough to military press your own body weight. My response was that I did among other things 500 crunches and 100 push-ups in no more than 2 sets 4 days a week on top of 100+ miles of running a week. Another on the panel (a Kenyan) preceded to press about 125 lbs. over his head a dozen times to demonstrate. I don't think he weighed more than the bar and plates he was lifting.

As to the argument about intervals vs. long distance running, it's a false dichotomy. They develop different types of fitness as well as running economy. They both have their place and can have great impact on performance. When people break down from long endurance training it usually is a result of combining two much time and too much intensity in the same workouts. Too many run too far at too high a heart rate. This guarantees they will end up overtraining and getting injured or sick.

In the last few years research has begun to show that marathon runners in particular can develop heart issues. More than are typical; in other words, studies are indicating a correlation. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. (Which I've found to be true in terms of Bev-mo's five cent wine sale…)(geeze, I'm starting to thread drift in my own post!)

nm

,Dave,
Don't assume that the "super Kenyan" was at his limit at 125 lbs. my point was that he was simply demonstrating that strength is essential even for distance runners. And I know that you think that interval training is the best. What I am saying is that it is different, not better or worse. I'm not going to get into a long argument on cardiovascular fitness here, I have no interest in that. But 40 years of coaching elite athletes has exposed me to some of the most sophisticated training methodologies in the world. Take what I have written for what you will. I am now more interested in other topics, I just dropped in on a whim.
BJ

nm

"Functional strength"?

As in opening garage doors, carrying groceries, taking out the trash, and walking up stairs?

What does this even mean? Some basic level of fitness required to be a "fit" human?

I can get that without squats, deadlifts, and presses.

Anything is "functional" insofar as it achieves its function.

Is it any surprise that a crossfit athlete would define functional strength in terms of performing crossfit exercises and a surfer would define functional strength in terms of the ability to surf?

What are we even talking about?

nm

You have it backwards Dave.

What if putting my son on the top bunk actually mimics an overhead press?

In that case, I'm good. I haven't dropped him in twelve years and counting.

You had me worried I was going to have to start overhead pressing.
Now I can surf tomorrow morning instead.

:)

nm

""Functional strength"?

As in opening garage doors, carrying groceries, taking out the trash, and walking up stairs?"

As in being able to climb mid 5th class over mixed terrain far from help, pitch after pitch after pitch, with 25-30# of gear on your back, and still have enough left in the tank to get back to TH in one piece day or night, or being able to run a hilly trail hour after hour, etc, as opposed to being able to squat 300# or bench 225 in the gym and not be able to use it to achieve any functional purpose beyond lifting. I guess my point is that strength for the sake of strength, without the skill set to apply it to an activity like running, climbing, swimming, whatever, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

This whole thing started out as a result of posts exalting absolute strength and sort of belittling "skinny runners". Maybe I'm just a little sensitive on the subject, as a former "skinny runner/climber" who couldn't squat "squat" or come remotely close to benching 225#, but could run pretty fast at any distance from 2 miles to 26.2 miles, climb as described above, and carry a 70# pack off trail in the mountains when the situation required it.

"I can get that without squats, deadlifts, and presses."

+1

Precisely

nm

well we were talking about endurance sports.. so big biceps don't help a marathoner.

i'm 5'7 125 and can do 25-30 pull ups with no kipping. I can also do more than most people with only a half inch edge to pull on (like door molding).

i've climbed 5.12.. done 20mi days with full pack, just did 32mi day hike a few months ago. ride 100mi.

Being able to squat more is helpful for any kind of activity. General strength gains improved my bowling score of all things. I went from the 30s to the 130s.

As for big guys who can't so pull-ups. Well, you have to train pull-ups just like anything. They probably have not trained them.

All of this was an experiment for me. Someone said that 2x a week HIIT plus general strength would be enough to keep me in condition for most activities that don't require specialized training. I don't think backpacking and hiking involve specialized training. It's just walking. It surprised me. It works.

All this back and forth arguing is silly. If you look at the top athletes in the world, each trains for their specific event. Aside from certain genetic dispositions, they train their bodies to develop they way they do. Someone who trains to lift enormous weights is just not going to look like someone who trains to run an ultra-marathon. The demands of each event are different. Running an ultra-marathon requires very different physiological and psychological criteria from lifting 442 kg. The training is different, too. And no matter what anyone says here, a champion weight-lifter is NOT going to be able to run a champion ultra-marthoner's time, and vice versa. And a Crossfitter, who has very good general fitness, is not going to be a champion in either event. There is no perfect one-size-fits-all way to train.