The Barefoot Running Book - Jason Robillard [14]
I recommend all runners learn to run barefoot prior to adding minimalist shoes to their training routine. Learning to run barefoot first will allow you to learn good form and strengthen your feet, legs, and other anatomy to help prevent injuries. While it is possible to learn to run in minimalist shoes first, the lack of tactile sensation with the ground will interfere with the process. Being able to feel the ground is a valuable training tool.
There are other excellent methods to help you learn to run with efficiency. Good Form Running®, Evolution Running®, ChiRunning®, and Pose® are four such methods. All four use slightly different methods to teach similar skills. Once you have learned good form through barefoot running, it can be beneficial to study each of these four methods. Each contains drills and exercises that you can use for experimentation. My own running form is a hybrid of my own experimentation coupled with elements from each of those four methods.
Recently Dr. Scott Hadley, founder of TrekoClinics.com, summed up the reasons for and history behind barefoot/minimalist running in his article titled, “This is Your Body on Shock: stretch reflexes, shock absorption, and barefoot/minimalist running.” That article, used with his permission, follows:
In 1898, a neurophysiologist named William Sherrington published his findings on stretch reflexes. The basic idea of a stretch reflex is this: when a muscle is lengthened rapidly, a signal is sent to the central nervous system which triggers that muscle to contract. The “knee jerk” reflex is one example that you have probably seen when your doctor hits your knee with a little rubber hammer. The rapid stretch of the quads triggers a reflex that causes the muscle to contract—and the knee jerks.
In 1956, another neurophysiologist name J.C. Eccles reported that the stretch of one muscle not only causes reflex activation of that muscle, but other muscles are activated too. Eccles thus defined two types of stretch reflexes. A homonymous stretch reflex occurs when the stretch of a muscle causes that muscle to contract. A heteronymous stretch reflex occurs when the stretch of a muscle causes a different muscle to contract.
During the past 60 years, heteronymous stretch reflexes have been investigated extensively by neurophysiologists. Through surface EMG recordings in human subjects, dozens of heteronymous reflex patterns have been identified. It is thought that these reflexes allow the central nervous system to monitor and control gait and other complex human movements at an automatic, subconscious level.
Essentially, our body movements are in large part controlled by a series of stretch reflexes between muscles. When walking and running, the nervous system reads ‘stretch information’ from several key muscles and uses that information to activate or inactivate other muscles in a coordinated sequence. This is how we can walk, run, and perform other complex movements without thinking about it.
Let me give you a few examples of the role of stretch reflexes during running. When the foot hits the ground (initial contact), the first muscle to contract is the soleus of the calf—if you are landing properly without a heel strike. Forward momentum causes the soleus to stretch rapidly, and the soleus reflexively contracts to prevent the knee from buckling. While the soleus contracts, it also lengthens to allow the knee to advance over the foot (this is called an eccentric muscle contraction for you physiology buffs). Stretch reflexes from the lengthening soleus act as a powerful neurological switch that activates the quadriceps and hip extensors to prevent the leg and trunk from collapsing under the forces of landing on one foot. In fact, if the soleus doesn’t stretch properly, the hip extensors can be up to 75% weaker due to a lack of heteronymous reflexive control.
The muscles