hanks to Frédérik Sisa, for asking me to answer a few questions about barefoot running on his site, The Front Page Online. I want to highlight a point that I make in the interview, because I think it’s under-appreciated and under-discussed in the barefoot community. For example: If you haven’t been barefoot in a while – especially if you want to explore barefoot running – you probably are not used to using your muscles in the way that barefooting will demand.
use less effort. Most people think that calf or Achilles pain is simply part of the transition process from running in shoes to running barefoot, that the cause is previous underuse, and that the solution is to get stronger. I disagree. More often than not, calf or Achilles pain is from using those muscles/ tendons more than necessary, not that they’ve been weakened by wearing shoes for some amount of time.
Sometimes this means that the transition to barefoot may require strengthening. More often it means simply paying attention to your body, finding the comfortable way to move that doesn’t require extra effort (that is, I would focus on moving with less effort before trying to get stronger).
If, when you land, you reach out with your foot (overstriding), you use your calf and Achilles to decelerate. Sure, getting freakishly strong may make that easier to do, but the correct solution is to “stop putting on the brakes” when you land by stopping your overstriding and, instead, placing your foot more “underneath your body”.
The key point I want to emphasize is
Similarly, if you remove your foot from
Page 146
Spring 2014
Barefoot Running Magazine
the ground by pushing off with your toes, you’re essentially doing bodyweight calf raises every time you take a stride…and even a short run would be more than your body can handle. Again, the solution isn’t to hit the weight room and improve your calf raise strength. It’s to LIFT your foot off the ground (instead of pushing) by flexing at the hip. If you imagine what would happen if a bee were to sting your foot…you wouldn’t try to push away from the ground, you would reflexively (faster and easier) pull your foot from the ground with a hip flex. In order to use less effort, you’ll probably have to start with less running. That’s fine. By the time you figure out how to make things easier, you probably will have gained any extra strength that you may need, if any. Remember my barefoot running mantra: “How can I make this lighter, easier, and MORE FUN?”