It now seems that barefoot running is picking up steam. I first started experimenting after I read the book “Born To Run” last year, and am still working at building up my calf and achilles muscles as well as my distance. As anyone who has read about or tried barefoot running, you know that once you get past the adjustment period, it’s more comfortable and less painful than running in shoes. Aside from the dangers of glass, rocks, and the like, the posture adopted while running barefoot is, especially for me, much more comfortable due to the lessened impact on the heel, which had always caused me pain.

So I was very happy last night when I caught a segment about barefoot running on NPR on my way home from work. As I’ve learned first hand, and as the anthropologist in the NPR segmente found during his studies, “runners in shoes usually landed heel first. Barefoot runners landed farther forward, either on the ball of their foot or somewhere in the middle of the foot, and then the heel came down — much less collisional force.”

I am happy to see that with each passing week that it seems that more research, stories and dialogue are coming into the mainstream about barefoot running. So I’m happy to share this NPR segment from last night with those that are interested.

Study: Humans Were Born To Run Barefoot

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Originally posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 9:23 AM .