We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by joekrill » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

sjeohp wrote: post #180

joekrill wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense to you personally, but it's kind of disconcerting that this is the top comment. You've outright admitted to only having "used to run a bit" -- and not very much, at that. But then go on to promote barefoot running as if you're somehow a fully qualified expert who knows enough to talk on the matter and declare barefoot running is _clearly_ the answer. I'm not saying you're wrong or right. This shoed/barefoo…

As a lifelong athlete the on-your-toes style of barefoot running is the best way to run. If you cannot run on your toes you are not built to run. There are rare heel-running sportspeople but running is not their competitive strength. Over long distances it is easy to fall back on heel-running out of laziness, because the impact is absorbed more by joints and less by tired muscles, but that is a failure of fitness and…

But again, what you're saying here is purely anecdotal. Actually, it may not be, but I have absolutely no idea because the way you are presenting it is in a purely anecdotal way.

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

#182

Post by throwanem » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 1:50 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #175

throwanem wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconding long walks. It's easy! You just look around for something interesting, and let your feet carry you toward it - they know what to do, and they will if you let them. Repeat as necessary. When you start to run out of puff, look for interesting things nearer home than not. Stay away from roads and sidewalks, if you can. Trees give shade, and shade is cool and pleasant and helps you husband your energy for findi…

> Chat with people. Say hello. Make eye contact. > Exercise the social skills that help you make > unplanned interactions mutually enjoyable. But please, do not do it with me. I love walking and long walks (just this month I've done three ~40km walks). I fully agree with a few of your points (like keeping phone and earbuds away), but why does not concept of consent apply to chat? When I am walking it is kind of medit…

Well, one doesn't wish to be an importunate jackass, either - and avoiding that is a social skill worth having, too. You work your way up from eye contact, to a nonverbal or verbal greeting, possibly to conversation if there's a subject of sufficient interest to all parties - but probably not, unless you both happen to be walking the same way, at the same pace; you're more likely to get into a conversation at a bar or a café than while actually walking. You pay attention to your intuition for people and don't insist on yourself when you get the feeling it isn't welcome. And you don't belabor someone who's clearly not interested in playing along, save in rare exceptional circumstance such as frank physical distress.

I'm a strong introvert in my own right. I assiduously avoided unplanned interaction for years - I still do, often enough, when I've drawn heavily on my reserves and need to recover. But I no longer always avoid them, and I think I'm better off for that. I like to hope that, on balance, the people around whom I tend to turn up are better off for it, too.

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

#183

Post by Lio » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

ak217 wrote: post #45

WalterSear wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When you run barefoot, or in a pair of ultra-light "shoes" like Vibrams, you learn very quickly not to do that, or you stop running. The "right" way is to land on the ball of the foot, with the knee slightly bent. The knee bends further to dissipate the force of the landing. This is how evolution "meant" for us to do it. There's more to it than that. Please make sure that you are pushing off with your heel. Many peo…

I've been running recreationally since high school, I average about 20 miles/week, an even mix of road/trail. I'm also a bit heavier than a typical avid recreational runner, putting more stress on my legs and feet. Having gone through a variety of shoes, I'd like to caution people about the minimalistic shoe trend, especially if you run mostly on pavement. It's true that overly cushioned shoes can cause heel strike a…

I haven't seen anyone speaking up for treadmills here so I guess I'm going to be the only one to do so.

I don't think treadmills are silly at all.

If you live somewhere flat and you want to train to run up mountains when you go on holiday a treadmill is a useful tool. You don't get the thinning of the air but they can give you access to long steep gradients you wouldn't otherwise be able to train against.

As a cyclist, I use a smart trainer and Zwift for much the same sort of training.

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

#184

Post by freehunter » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 1:58 PM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #112

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…

Is this meant to agree with my point or rebut it? This all started when sndean wrote the following: Eventually you stop listening to everyone, even your coach. Running (and most sports) would do well to follow science and have a cited source following every statement. It's a little absurd when someone tells me I'm going to get injured if I don't do more barefoot running. I've been wearing this same model of Brooks sh…

It's meant to say "chill out man". Far too often someone on HN says something that's just common knowledge or off-the-cuff and someone else responds with "where's your evidence and peer reviewed study?". It's nonsense. Actually it's worse than that, it's rude.

I'm not arguing for or against anyone's specific claims, just telling you that you don't need a scientific study to say that as people get older, their bodies tend to hurt more and areas they've injured but never let heal hurt more than other parts. I don't think rb808 was necessarily arguing that either, just pointing out that bodily damage isn't always immediately noticeable. But you apparently need scientific proof of that?

Some days I think if I said "the sun rose over the horizon this morning" I'd get a follow-up saying "show me your sources or delete your comment". Science isn't a cult or a religion. If you need a peer reviewed study to tell you that improperly healed injuries will hurt more as you get older, you should talk to the elderly more often.

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

#185

Post by wvh » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 2:02 PM UTC

I don't think we're doing it wrong, not more than sitting down for more than 8 hours a day, at least.

I'm an avid runner. I agree when the barefoot movement talks about using your legs, knees and ankles as springs, and that too cushioned shoes let you beat the road without having to adapt, replacing some short-term discomfort by perhaps long term injury caused by bashing your stiff legs on the road for long distances.

But I also sit down most of the day on weekdays, and even though I stretch, that spring is mostly gone after a long workday. I run too heavily then, and I really prefer to have some protective footwear to compensate for my inflexibility on those days.

Another problem is that our prehistoric selves didn't run on hard asphalt for hours, which many of us have to do in our current environment.

So, even for those of us who are fit and athletic, this is more about getting the balance right considering our lifestyle and environment. We might have evolved to run, but not on asphalt and not after sitting down the whole day.

Don't clock up miles barefoot if/when your core physical strength or muscle flexibility don't allow feline agility. You're at least as likely to get injured. Adapt to the situation and listen to your body.

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

#186

Post by westiseast » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 2:05 PM UTC

joekrill wrote: post #169

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…

No offense to you personally, but it's kind of disconcerting that this is the top comment. You've outright admitted to only having "used to run a bit" -- and not very much, at that. But then go on to promote barefoot running as if you're somehow a fully qualified expert who knows enough to talk on the matter and declare barefoot running is _clearly_ the answer. I'm not saying you're wrong or right. This shoed/barefoo…

I agree.

Evidence out there seems to suggest that trainers are bad by overcushioning the feet or placing the body in a bad position, but...

For example, I'm sure our neolithic ancestors ran long distances because they had to. There's nothing implicit in this about whether it's good for us, and we don't know how many of them got eaten or died because they had bum knees!

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

#187

Post by joshmarlow » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

notheguyouthink wrote: post #171

johnny99 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think we as humans really need to learn a line between medical treatments and help-your-self. Medicine is dolled out far too easily, when as you mentioned, activity that our body is meant to do is so much more effective. The simply things in life like exercise are so amazing for us. At work I have back problems, yet they completely go away as long as I keep my core in check. I did this by simply buying a pull up ba…

I'll add my own anecdote here. I'd been having arm/shoulder aches for several years due to typing/mousing and when I started indoor rock climbing, it basically entirely disappeared. I'm assuming stretching/strengthening other arm muscles is what addressed it.

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

#188

Post by mdorazio » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 2:25 PM UTC

joekrill wrote: post #181

sjeohp wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a lifelong athlete the on-your-toes style of barefoot running is the best way to run. If you cannot run on your toes you are not built to run. There are rare heel-running sportspeople but running is not their competitive strength. Over long distances it is easy to fall back on heel-running out of laziness, because the impact is absorbed more by joints and less by tired muscles, but that is a failure of fitness and…

But again, what you're saying here is purely anecdotal. Actually, it may not be, but I have absolutely no idea because the way you are presenting it is in a purely anecdotal way.

Is this not basic physics looking at pivot points? If 160+ pounds is landing on your heels, the shock of that must be absorbed entirely by your knees and hips. If the same weight lands on the the front of your feet, you have the added absorption offered by your toes, ankles, and achilles tendon. That's not exactly anecdotal.

As for the long-term health effects of one or the other, that's still being debated and might be dependent on the joint health of the individual runner. See [1].

[1] http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Citation/2013/12000/Forefo...

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

#189

Post by TylerH » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 2:26 PM UTC

westiseast wrote: post #186

joekrill wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense to you personally, but it's kind of disconcerting that this is the top comment. You've outright admitted to only having "used to run a bit" -- and not very much, at that. But then go on to promote barefoot running as if you're somehow a fully qualified expert who knows enough to talk on the matter and declare barefoot running is _clearly_ the answer. I'm not saying you're wrong or right. This shoed/barefoo…

I agree. Evidence out there seems to suggest that trainers are bad by overcushioning the feet or placing the body in a bad position, but... For example, I'm sure our neolithic ancestors ran long distances because they had to. There's nothing implicit in this about whether it's good for us, and we don't know how many of them got eaten or died because they had bum knees!

Well, it's definitely worse for us because even with an inch of padding, our knees still take a huge amount of force when striking that way, even if we don't notice it per strike. Heel strikes on locked knees are a bad way to run, period.

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

#190

Post by ForRealsies » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 2:29 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #175

throwanem wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconding long walks. It's easy! You just look around for something interesting, and let your feet carry you toward it - they know what to do, and they will if you let them. Repeat as necessary. When you start to run out of puff, look for interesting things nearer home than not. Stay away from roads and sidewalks, if you can. Trees give shade, and shade is cool and pleasant and helps you husband your energy for findi…

> Chat with people. Say hello. Make eye contact. > Exercise the social skills that help you make > unplanned interactions mutually enjoyable. But please, do not do it with me. I love walking and long walks (just this month I've done three ~40km walks). I fully agree with a few of your points (like keeping phone and earbuds away), but why does not concept of consent apply to chat? When I am walking it is kind of medit…

>"Unplanned interactions" is very annoying thing

Most on HN would find the most fulfillment in improving their social muscle, not their calves.