6 Lessons from Barefoot Running to Improve Speed and Reduce Injury

How often do you think about your feet {besides lusting after great new kicks}? Or the important role they play in injury free running?

There are 26 bones connected through 33 joints in the human foot.

Of greatest importance: the big toe!

It provides balance, foot stability and explosive power for your running stride. Proponents of barefoot running point to this as one of the major benefits of letting our feet be free! Gaining foot strength can improve your entire stride, which increases speed and reduces injury.

While I never found  myself interested in going entirely unshod {ouch glass, eww city streets}, barefoot running can provide us with tools and techniques to get stronger and stay injury free. 

There are some great lessons from barefoot runners that will make all of us better runners, so before you toss aside the whole fad let’s take a look at how barefoot running teaches us to improve our running form.

Land Softly

If you can hear your feet hitting the ground, you’re landing with too much force. Your foot should only connect with the ground for a few seconds on each stride.

Practice running with a metronome to increase your pace to 180 steps per minute which will decrease time on the ground and if it sounds like the Hulk is crashing through the streets when you run, start repeating the mantra “light as a feather, stiff as a board”.

Strengthen Your Feet

We spend a lot of time talking about lunges, calf raises and squats to strengthen our hips and glutes. Yet the entire process of running relies on feet that can carry us for miles!

Eric Orton helped drive this point home for me during running camp. A few quick exercises will help to build strength that provides better control of the entire running motion and stretches tight muscles to prevent common issues like plantar fasciitis and calf strain.

•  Roll your foot over a tennis ball or PT ball each day to stretch the muscles
• Practice moving your big toe without moving other toes.
• Single leg balance moves in bare feet will also help to strengthen the hips and core, reducing the need for your feet to absorb the impact

All of this will go a long ways towards preventing ankle pain while running.

Land on the Fore to Mid Foot

Many runners become confused after hearing talk about heel striking, forefoot, mid-foot…where to land?! The answer is fairly simple. When you start running think about landing with a relaxed foot that is parallel to the ground or slightly toward the toes.

This means you will need to land under your body, which prevents heel striking and allows for the slight forward lean which is ideal posture. In either case you will roll forward and yes once again rely on that big toe for the push off.

Watch this video to describe the most important pieces of running form >>

Foam Rolling Calf Muscles

An overlooked cause of runner’s knee and IT Band pain is tight calf muscles! Tightness in the lower leg can cause the knee to be misaligned which creates the friction that results in pain, so massage or foam roll those calves.

Connection to Earth

A number of recent studies have shown that simply going barefoot can help give you a sense of connection and grounding, which has a healing effect. Maybe just a few moments of feeling that soft green Earth will also remind you of being kid again when running was nothing more than joy.

For us non-barefoot runners, the practice of simply taking your shoes off to walk around the grass or stand for a bit is known as grounding. Lots of research on it’s benefits, so why not let your feet free for a bit.

Disruption of Patterns

One of the biggest benefits from transitioning to barefoot running is quite simply the disruption of old habits. During the transition, runners have to be conscious of their form, slow down and in general reconsider their training. Most of us rarely take the time for a full reboot, we simply lace up and go.

After your next race, consider spending a few weeks doing nothing but strength work and then as you ease back in to running use that time to focus on your stride and developing all the habits you’ve put off like a dynamic warm up, hip stretches and post-run fueling.

If all of this has left you pondering the question of the decade:

Should you run barefoot?
I say do what works for you and be open to testing out new things…just know it’s not a panacea.

“Let’s get this straight: there is no evidence that modern running shoes prevent running injuries or make you a faster runner…why? Because the studies simply have not been done.” – the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Barefoot Running.

If you are experiencing frequent injuries then it’s time to make a change. That could involve seeing a physical therapist to evaluate your stride, implementing more strengthening exercises or testing out barefoot running. There is no 100% right or wrong answer here, but worth a try!

Barefoot Running Book

If you’re looking for a great book to dive more in to barefoot running, here is one that I found extremely helpful. It’s called Run Barefoot, Run Healthy and here are a few of the reasons I liked it.

He does a great job of even detailing why Vibram’s are not the equivalent of barefoot running and how they could still lead to injury. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that each step we take away from consistently using more structured shoes is probably helping us all to improve our form, but his point is that your feet need to truly be in touch with the ground to have all of the sensations and really feel the Earth.

”Running barefoot reduces impact on your body.” If you suffer from chronic injuries then barefoot running could be one of the next things that you try. By default you will correct your stride because it’s going to hurt to slam down on your heel repeatedly.

Personally I’m still more in favor of just going to a show with a lower heel drop.

How often do you focus on working your feet?

Ever tried barefoot running?

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