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We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

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Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#141

Post by sn9 »

Retra wrote: post #104
sn9 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really commercial products that have to demonstrate they're providing a benefit compared to what's been the norm for millions of years. And they've never done so to my knowledge. That said, if you've been particularly sedentary or aren't used to walking barefoot, you should definitely be careful in the transition. Individual physical histories, mobility, etc. have to be taken into account when recommending advic…

People stepped on glass an nails many times in the past. Is this not part of your knowledge? Perhaps I'm biased, as I have a scar running up my foot from having run barefoot as a child. Furthermore, I can honestly attribute none of my current good health to it.

You're supposed to look where you're going. Like keeping your eyes on the road.

I've got lots of scars from being a child who doesn't pay attention to his surroundings. That's normal.

You can't exactly run an experiment to see how your life would have been different had you run around in cushy sneakers that didn't let your feet move as intended, but you can certainly see the ways in which shoes which significantly modify the way your feet are used can deform your feet and posture.

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#142

Post by anonymousDan »

These claims about how we're running in the wrong way because we should be running barefoot all seem to rest on the premise that that is how we evolved. The problem I have with that is they neglect to mention there weren't any concrete roads or sidewalks around when our running abilities evolved either, so who's to say our anatomy was ever designed to work on such hard surfaces? Sure if you can manage to run barefoot on only natural surfaces it might make sense, but this is never mentioned by anyone.

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#143

Post by kiriakasis »

sgk284 wrote: post #114
WalterSear wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ball of my foot may be the last thing to leave the ground, but when I run barefoot style, I'm pushing off with my heel.

Your heel doesn't have leverage to lift your body off of the ground. If your heel is leaving the ground it's either your knee lifting it or your toes pushing it. In the gif you linked, and in proper running form, you push with the balls of your feet. Your ankle / heel system is solely a fulcrum that doubles as a dampening spring.

"pushing" isn't the only way to apply force. from the gif the ball of the feet start and end the "pushing", but this is unrelated to how much lifting you do with the heel

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#144

Post by kiriakasis »

keenerd wrote: post #94
WalterSear wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, "pushing off with your heel" is not a thing. It's impossible to finish the liftoff from the heel while running. So what is going on in this picture? https://i.makeagif.com/media/3-05-2014/hQcYHP.gif I see the maximum force being applied just as the heel leaves the ground. Maybe the maxima is >just< slightly after, but the heel is still involved.

You can't draw any useful conclusions from that. It is only depicting vertical force. Pushing up, not pushing off. Pushing off refers to forwards, longitudinal force. Walking and running are commonly modeled by inverted pendulums, and the best time to increase the energy of the pendulum is at the extreme of the range of motion. The middle of the swing is the worst time to add energy to the system. Or think of it phys…

yes, i they were focusing on the vertical force because it is the more likely to cause injuries and , when jogging, most of the total force.

i think everybody agrees that the forward sprint is in the end of the step, from the ball of the foot

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#145

Post by WalterBright »

johnny99 wrote: post #140
rosser wrote: post #9

The Fine Article doesn't really go into how we're doing it wrong, beyond a passing mention of barefoot running, and some dissing of treadmills (which is hyperbolic and orthogonal to reality; you can run "correctly" or "badly" on a treadmill or on the street or trail). I used to run a bit. Did an informal "couch to 5k" over a couple of months, before I'd even discovered that was a thing. The single most effective thin…

I've run consistently for the past 30 years, most often in the spirit of the article: long, slow, meditative runs. What my cross country coach in high school called Long Slow Distance ("limber up gentlemen, we'll be doing LSD today!"). Tried a fitbit for a while, found that reducing it to numbers took the joy out of it. I'm back to where I started: no accelerometers or earphones, outdoors, ideally on a trail. I don't…

Yes, I don't run for time, either, nor do I run with earphones on. I just jog, and my mind drifts off to work on some problem or other.

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#146

Post by simonswords82 »

johnny99 wrote: post #140
rosser wrote: post #9

The Fine Article doesn't really go into how we're doing it wrong, beyond a passing mention of barefoot running, and some dissing of treadmills (which is hyperbolic and orthogonal to reality; you can run "correctly" or "badly" on a treadmill or on the street or trail). I used to run a bit. Did an informal "couch to 5k" over a couple of months, before I'd even discovered that was a thing. The single most effective thin…

I've run consistently for the past 30 years, most often in the spirit of the article: long, slow, meditative runs. What my cross country coach in high school called Long Slow Distance ("limber up gentlemen, we'll be doing LSD today!"). Tried a fitbit for a while, found that reducing it to numbers took the joy out of it. I'm back to where I started: no accelerometers or earphones, outdoors, ideally on a trail. I don't…

Are you me?!?

I too went all in on the numbers, heart rate monitor, detailed running plans, 5k competitive park runs every weekend. I thought I should run at least x times a week or I'm doing it wrong.

Holy cow, did it suck the enjoyment out of it. Having MapMyRun shout in my ear every kilometer meant I couldn't just zone out and enjoy the run.

Then I fell down some stairs at a tube station in London and popped my patella. Fortunately it popped straight back in, and it healed on its own but it took months and it was over winter so I stopped running.

When I got back in to it I decided it was time to go "au naturel". No head phones, no shouty applications, just me and the road. I've kept it up, and don't ever plan to go back to my former approach. I've also found that if I switch up cycling and running there's less strain on my healed knee whilst still allowing me to exercise 2 - 3 times a week. I always recommend to people now that if they can they should cycle and run.

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#147

Post by MagnumOpus »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #130
freehunter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone says "I'm paying for X behavior from my 20s" when they reach middle age. In reality, it's just that's when the body begins to wear down and people naturally want to blame it on something so we invented a euphemism for it. It's not science, there's no evidence. People in their 50s start to hurt more, and injuries that never healed right can be ignored when you're young, but start to hurt again later on. It's…

> In reality, it's just that's when the body begins to wear down and people naturally want to blame it on something so we invented a euphemism for it. The body "wearing down" is not a thing. You're talking about repetitive stress injuries. The body is built to work as long as you need it to, and replenish itself daily.

> The body "wearing down" is not a thing... The body is built to work as long as you need it to

This is so obviously wrong that I wonder if you are deliberately trolling. You can just look at wrinkling skin, decreased peak performance and all the other pieces of evidence that the regerative abilities of the body degrade after age 30-40. Or you can look at the thousands of papers in the areas of cellular senescence and its many consequences: DNA damage, lipofuscin accumulation, glycoxidation, lipid peroxidation of the inner mitochondrial membrane, atherosclerosis and probably dozens of other processes that translate to the "body wearing down".

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#148

Post by titzer »

Something that I noticed recently is that if speed isn't a major goal, breathing through the nose is a lot more healthy. In through the nose, out through the nose.

First, it filters incoming air of particulates like dust and pollen--gross stuff you don't want in your lungs. Over an hour of running, you can easily breathe 600L of air, in a city, that's a lot of pollution.

Second, it calms you. Breathing through the nose is a meditation exercise that automatically calms your mind.

Third, it reduces dehydration. Most of the water not lost through sweat and through the skin is lost through evaporation from the mouth. Through the nose instead, the same filtration system that keeps dust particles out serves as a condensation site for some of the moisture that would otherwise exit from your lungs.

Problem is, you can't run super fast breathing through your nose because of the limitation in breath volume from the restricted pathway. The article is right; IMO you should not run faster than what you can manage through nose breathing alone.

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#149

Post by soufron »

I used to buy into the "running naturally" argument sold from Vibram, but it's the same pseudo-science that justifies buying juicers and shit. I was used to run for years. I used vibrams for 3 or 4 months and ended up completely destroyed, unable to run for a while. This was like 10 years ago, and more and more people have been calling on their bullshit since then.

Re: We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong

#150

Post by rocqua »

soufron wrote: post #149

I used to buy into the "running naturally" argument sold from Vibram, but it's the same pseudo-science that justifies buying juicers and shit. I was used to run for years. I used vibrams for 3 or 4 months and ended up completely destroyed, unable to run for a while. This was like 10 years ago, and more and more people have been calling on their bullshit since then.

I had the same experience. I originally bought vibram to overcome my previous issues with running, it didn't work at all.

Now, a few years later I might've found a better solution. Take it slow and give your legs time to recover.

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