If you're thinking about taking up running to burn off those holiday pounds, you might want to set aside the running shoes. A study published in American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation reports that average running shoes mess up your hips, knees and ankles more than running barefoot or even running in high heels!
Here's why: When you run barefoot, you naturally run on the balls of your feet. That allows your foot and ankle to absorb the shock. But when you wear running shoes, the cushioned support forces the heel to strike the ground first. The shock not absorbed by the shoe gets transmitted to the ankles, knees and hips. Hello joint and cartilage damage.
The scientists report: "Increased joint torques at the hip, knee, and ankle were observed with running shoes compared with running barefoot. Disproportionately large increases were observed in the hip internal rotation torque and in the knee flexion and knee varus torques."
- An average 54 percent increase in the hip internal rotation torque
- A 36 percent increase in knee flexion torque
- A 38 percent increase in knee varus torque were measured when running in running shoes compared with barefoot
Running barefoot is not as crazy as it sounds. There's been a big movement in recent years to go footloose and fancy shoe free, sparked in part by Christopher Mcdougall, who wrote Born to Run. Here's a nice article from Runner's World that gives some insight into whether you should be running sans shoes or not.
AP Photo/Frank Augstein
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