do ya'll think it would be safe to do bounding drills and stuff like that in nike free's? or should i get somethin with more support. i got like 8976523 pairs of basketball shoes but they feel heavy when im workin out
It is my opinion that the need of support and cushioning is more of a myth than anything. If you look at our ancestors, you will see that they traveled great distances while shoeless. They also lunged, twisted, and jumped in pursuit of potential food. They lived without this "support and cushioning" that the modern shoe companies have made people believe. Case and point, Kenyans. The majority grow up running all the time—to school, in fields, to run errands—the majority of it being barefooted. Any significant problems? Nope. In fact, they tend to have extremely healthy lower legs. Being in an elevated "cushioned" shoe takes stress off of the foot, and therefore leads to atrophy of the muscles of the lower leg. Now I'm not saying that one should jump right into barefoot training, but in the quest of developing as much strength as possible, why not strengthen what connects you to the ground and propels you forward?
I agree with wsgeneral. I wish I could find them right now, but I have seen literature defending barefoot training. I don't do all of my training barefoot, but I love doing some things barefoot on our nice, soft football field
well yea i do all my bounding and stuff on the grass, the only thing i dont do in the grass is standing triple and long jumps cause landing in the pit is required
Why? Do you think that barefoot training will lead to injury? Achilles tendonitis and planatar fascitis are ususally associated with tightness in the foot and lower leg. Tightness is a result of poor flexibility, no? If one were to run barefoot, that person would recieve an exceptional lengthening of the muscles in and around the lower leg/foot therefore alleviateing the problem. I've spent the past two years training in racing flats and barefoot with little consequence other than exceptionally healthy and strong feet. In "The Lore of Running" Tim Noakes writes about science regarding the shoe. His findings were that as the shoe got heavier and more cushioned, the athlete tended to hit the ground harder (using a force probe in the Tibia) and strike heel first, which would result in braking and bigger stress on the body which could in turn lead to injury.
Why not plyometrics? Is the goal of plyometrics not to develop the rate at which the muscles stretch and fire to produce movement as well as develop stiffness upon landing so the "spring effect" can be utilized? I recall reading that roughly 50% of the energy going into a stride is provided by the spring effect, the other half comes from the athlete pushing—this amounts to 50% of free energy. Why not develop it so you get 52% (or more) free energy? You ask, "why you cant develop this effect in regular running shoes?" The soft midsole of modern shoes disappate energy before it can reach the muscles and tendons surrounding the athlete's foot. You are missing out on valuable enery transfer when you use modern cushioned shoes.
well yea i do all my bounding and stuff on the grass, the only thing i dont do in the grass is standing triple and long jumps cause landing in the pit is required
so why do u need shoes for sand when u dont need em for grass??
wsgeneral - 14 July 2006 10:08 AM
Why not plyometrics? Is the goal of plyometrics not to develop the rate at which the muscles stretch and fire to produce movement as well as develop stiffness upon landing so the "spring effect" can be utilized? I recall reading that roughly 50% of the energy going into a stride is provided by the spring effect, the other half comes from the athlete pushing—this amounts to 50% of free energy. Why not develop it so you get 52% (or more) free energy? You ask, "why you cant develop this effect in regular running shoes?" The soft midsole of modern shoes disappate energy before it can reach the muscles and tendons surrounding the athlete's foot. You are missing out on valuable enery transfer when you use modern cushioned shoes.
so u think barefeet training will prevent injury.
how much energy does the cushioning of shoes "dissapate" during plyos.
the point of plyometrics is to do what u said, but also in the safest manner, if we lose a little energy so be it, at least were not getting injured from the amount of stress i take during one of my plyometric sessions..
doing depth jumps and jumps only absorbing impact are going to lead to stress injurys because of the shock on the joints and surrounding tendons, u cant prepare ur body for that.
bounding drills barefeet are dangerous as well because u can be prone to slipping on the grass when all u have is the slickness of your feet when u start to sweat and what not.
plus doing drills in barefeet will decrease performance DISPITE your increased gct and dissipation of energy….try doing five bounds consec. with shoes and then without shoes. see what happens
im gunna stand firm with keeping the shoes on until cooling down. unless u have research stating that this energy return is so great that im an idiot for doing depth jumps in shoes….
well, i didnt mean i needed shoes for the sand, wut i meant was i start my standing triple jumps from on a cynder run way. im not worried about landing in the sand jus on the hard runway surface
All I know is the only major injury I have received from running was when I started to incorporate light tempo and skips barefoot. Of course, I was also doing high volumes of sprints (football team), but I had done this plenty of times before without problem. A few weeks after the barefoot work, boom, broken medial sesamoid that still hurts almost a year later.
i dont quite see where our ancestors would have build up the kind of stress sprinters do during training and even competition. i guess sprinting just doesnt do it if your not running on a track but x country. just not safe enough, eh?
and because the athlete striving to unfold his full potential will very often be at his limits, id guess hed welcome manners to overcome limiting factors in any way.
what these factors are related to our foot is probably pretty specific, dunno : )
however i ruptured my plantar aponeurose last summer during sprinting, a summer where i did practically everything barefoot (hiking, shopping, blabla).
on the otherhand it was one of my first sessions and the foot may have been stressed unproperly due to a biceps femoris problem on the other leg…and i was quit heavy.
conclusion:
i dont want to speak for you guys, but i think running barefoot is the shizzle! : D
sprinting? sure, but on grass in ext. tempo.
anything with high intensities? go ahead and try, i probably wont. worst thing that can happen is an injured foot, and i could imagine that barefoot work could cause problems
Our ancestors were barefoot because they had to be, not because it was optimal. They also didn't sanitize basically anything, drank bacteria filled water, ate raw meat/eggs, and had pretty short life spans . I think there is a reason why, when people figured out wearing something on your feet protected them, they kept with it rather than getting rid of it.
well yea i do all my bounding and stuff on the grass, the only thing i dont do in the grass is standing triple and long jumps cause landing in the pit is required
so why do u need shoes for sand when u dont need em for grass??
wsgeneral - 14 July 2006 10:08 AM
Why not plyometrics? Is the goal of plyometrics not to develop the rate at which the muscles stretch and fire to produce movement as well as develop stiffness upon landing so the "spring effect" can be utilized? I recall reading that roughly 50% of the energy going into a stride is provided by the spring effect, the other half comes from the athlete pushing—this amounts to 50% of free energy. Why not develop it so you get 52% (or more) free energy? You ask, "why you cant develop this effect in regular running shoes?" The soft midsole of modern shoes disappate energy before it can reach the muscles and tendons surrounding the athlete's foot. You are missing out on valuable enery transfer when you use modern cushioned shoes.
so u think barefeet training will prevent injury.
how much energy does the cushioning of shoes "dissapate" during plyos.
the point of plyometrics is to do what u said, but also in the safest manner, if we lose a little energy so be it, at least were not getting injured from the amount of stress i take during one of my plyometric sessions..
doing depth jumps and jumps only absorbing impact are going to lead to stress injurys because of the shock on the joints and surrounding tendons, u cant prepare ur body for that.
bounding drills barefeet are dangerous as well because u can be prone to slipping on the grass when all u have is the slickness of your feet when u start to sweat and what not.
plus doing drills in barefeet will decrease performance DISPITE your increased gct and dissipation of energy….try doing five bounds consec. with shoes and then without shoes. see what happens
im gunna stand firm with keeping the shoes on until cooling down. unless u have research stating that this energy return is so great that im an idiot for doing depth jumps in shoes….
To begin, I'm not advocating an immediate jump to barefoot training. Just how I wouldn't put a neophyte in the weightroom and test his 1RM Clean and Jerk. One must methodically work from a high heel to a lower one. I am also not advocating barefoot training alone, while I think it would be beneficial it may be unnecessary as you can get a great deal of strenthening with just racing flats instead of the Asics Keyano.
First Answer: I have no exact figure, as it varries between shoes and athletes, but a signifcant amount.
Second Rebuttal: In the safest manner? Well according to Noakes's work one strikes the ground harder (Forces were measured in the Tibia, not the ground) and with less proprioceptive awareness, therefore cushioned shoes are likely more harmful to the legs. You can indeed prepare for landing shock, just as you can prepare for a 100m dash—METHODICALLY! Part of plyos that people often take for granted is that the athlete already knows how to land and absorb forces so they immediately jump into land and respond plyos as opposed to just jump and stick type drills.
Third: You can slip in shoes as well, my friend. You can be prone to slipping. This problem is alleviated by checking the area on which you are about to do plyos, which should be done regardless of if you are going unshodded or not.
Next: Drills shodded can have adverse effects on your running gait. They encoruage heel striking, and when you couple them with drills like A's and B's you emphasize heel striking (and thus braking) even more. I've tested the 50m bounds for fewest foot contacts while being both shodded and unshodded—several times over the past two years. Consistantly I was taking fewer ground contacts unshodded.
I've cited Noakes's research regarding shoes, can you give me any research showing superiority of cushioned shoes? People often think that just because they are sold in stores that it is the way to go, but there is little if any research regarding the efficacy of cushioned shoes.
All I know is the only major injury I have received from running was when I started to incorporate light tempo and skips barefoot. Of course, I was also doing high volumes of sprints (football team), but I had done this plenty of times before without problem. A few weeks after the barefoot work, boom, broken medial sesamoid that still hurts almost a year later.
Assuming that you jumped from elevated heeled shoes to straight barefoot running, I would argue that you lacked a logical and methodical progression. Sure barefoot running could be to blame for SOME of the added stress, but not solely the problem. The theory of progressive overload says that in order to achieve favorable adaptations as system must first be stress then be allowed adequate time to recover. Odds are a step was missed along the way.
Our ancestors were barefoot because they had to be, not because it was optimal. They also didn't sanitize basically anything, drank bacteria filled water, ate raw meat/eggs, and had pretty short life spans . I think there is a reason why, when people figured out wearing something on your feet protected them, they kept with it rather than getting rid of it.
How is a completely unnatural contraption of a shoe optimal? While they didn't sanitize much, their deaths by infectious diseases like cancer and preventable illness like diabetes and syndrome x were very low. Paul Chek has said that in the 1840s one of every 50-55 died from cancer, now one of every 3 or 4 do. If today's environment is optimal I dont know how. We now consume our water, which often contains traces of benzene, harmful trace elements, and even fecal matter, out of plastic (a miraculous invention) bottles that are slowly killing us with xenoestrogens. To cook our eggs now, unlike our barbarian ancestors, we fry them up in Teflon (a material linked to cancers) pans, while downing a can of Diet Cola chock full of excitotoxins like aspertame that are now linked with the formation of formaldehydes in the brain, liver, and kidneys. Maybe in all of our modernness we missed something.
Higher intensity plyos and boundings are usually done on the track, ?? not on soft grass ?? not to speak about technical session. I would never consider long- or triple jumps or hops done barefooted as good, or being more efficient. However, I always disliked heavy cushioned shoes, in everything ?? I always prefer light ??normal? shoes; there??s still the feel of lightness as well as proper mechanics for the jumps. When intensity rises in the jumps, and you continue barefooted, you will subconsciously alter your mechanism from a proper heel-whole-foot strike towards more pressure on the toes, thus more braking and less force production.
. I think there is a reason why, when people figured out wearing something on your feet protected them, they kept with it rather than getting rid of it.
