The Barefoot Running Book - Jason Robillard [6]
Part 1—Introduction and History
Look, if anyone displayed brand-loyalty, it was me. I LOVED my NIKE AIR MAX TriaxTM runners. I wouldn’t buy anything else. Why? Because they felt good. I liked the cushioning. I liked the ride. I also felt they protected me from the hard road by interposing a layer of air between the sole of my foot and the pavement. So why was I sidelined with a heel injury for over two months? I listened to the manufacturer and changed my runners every 400 miles. Come to think of it, why do I see so many runners with lower extremity injuries in my office? The traditional answer to these questions has always been overuse often compounded by an underlying mechanical abnormality such as over-pronation or flat-feet.
The treatment, along with modification of training, physiotherapy, stretching etc. has always included a close look at the runner’s footwear, often with recommendations about motion control, stability, cushioning, orthotics or custom molded insoles. A growing body of literature in the field of sports medicine, however, is causing a bit of a stir … no, call it PANIC in the running world. Everything you and I always believed about running shoes and running injuries may be wrong! Here’s the scoop: The modern running shoe itself may be the major cause of running injuries! Stated another way, the modern running shoe, presently thought of a protective device, should be reclassified as a “health hazard.” (NIKE, please tell me it ain’t so!!!)
Now relax, get back on your chair and take a deep breath. We’ll take this one step at a time and since we’re going to be talking about shoes and feet, I may as well start at the beginning … the very beginning. Until quite recently in our history, most humans lived out their lives unshod. S.F. Stewart in his “Footgear—Its History, Uses and Abuses” states that “… all writers who have reported their observations of barefoot peoples agree that the untrammeled feet of natural men are free from the disabilities commonly noted among shod people—hallux valgus, bunions, hammer toe and painful feet.”
So why was footgear developed? One of the earliest examples of footgear known to us takes the form of sagebrush bark sandals found in caves and rock shelters near Fort Rock, Oregon under a layer of volcanic ash dating back 10,000 years. The foot surface is smooth and they were held on by bast straps over the instep. Similar sandals were used throughout the volcanic cordilleras of Meso and South America and the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The early Polynesians used sandals to cross old lava flows and when fishing on the razor-sharp coral. It seems, therefore, that the prime function of the earliest sandals was protection of the sole.
Although the early Pharaohs are all represented as barefoot, by the first millennium BC sandals in Egypt were common in court and were worn by soldiers. In Mesopotamian kingdoms sandals were evidently a status symbol with the king known to have worn a wedged sandal in contrast to his flat-soled courtiers. Very thick-soled low boots are known to have been worn by Greek tragedians to increase their height. Comedians wore socks or soccus—hence the expression “high tragedy and low comedy.” Thus, the secondary function of footgear appears to have been symbolic.
From the time of the Greeks, footgear gradually evolved to meet both symbolic and functional needs. For example, tradition tells us that about the beginning of the present millennium Count Fulk of Anjou introduced long, pointed toes to cover up some deformity of his feet, and courtiers quickly adopted the fashion. The Mongols, who on horseback ravaged the Middle East between Damascus and Moscow from the 12th to 14th centuries, are credited for the introduction of the block heel presumably developed to better grip the stirrup plate. But in the French court of Louis XIV, the rugged Mongolian heel underwent a radical cosmetic transformation eventually leading to the ultimate idiotic expression of modern fashion—the stiletto heel.
European peasants wore clogs carved