Barefoot running has become very popular in recent years, thanks in large part to the best-selling novel Born to Run, which cites “natural” running techniques and explores the correlation between foot injuries and the rise of the modern running shoe. At the same time, running studies have found that barefoot running promotes a midfoot-strike pattern, which is preferred to a heel-strike pattern. These publications have led athletes to consider running sans shoes, but a new study shows older adults may not be as quick to transition to proper foot-strike patterns as younger adults.
For their study, researchers at the University of Kansas compared running techniques of two different age groups while wearing a variety of shoes. Researchers asked a group of competitive track athletes to run on a treadmill while wearing normal running shoes, racing flats and while barefoot. After studying foot-strike patterns, researchers uncovered that young runners typically hit the ground with a heel-strike patterns when wearing normal running shoes, but they quickly transitioned to a midfoot-strike when donning the racing flats or going barefoot.
Researchers completed the study a second time, but this time they asked a group of 26 older runners to participate. Most of the runners were in their mid-40s, the oldest participant was 68, and all participants had been running regularly for at least 10 years. Participants ran on the treadmill in their regular running shoes and while barefoot. After studying the older group’s running techniques, researchers uncovered:
- Similar to the younger group, the vast majority of runners ran with a heel-strike pattern when wearing normal running shoes, but:
- Unlike young runners, very few older runners naturally shifted to a midfoot-strike pattern when they ran barefoot on the treadmill. The majority continued to run with a heel-strike pattern.
The findings showed that older runners were exhibiting similar ballistic forces when running with both heel-strike patterns, but doing so without the aid of cushioning left them susceptible to injury. So while barefoot running can help a person transition to the proper technique, they can actually be more likely to suffer an injury if they continue to run with a heel-strike pattern.
“What we would expect is that over time, running barefoot while persisting with a heel strike would contribute to an increased, not a decreased, risk of injures,” says Dr. Scott Mullen, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Kansas Sports Medicine and Performance Center and lead author of the study.
Although Dr. Mullen didn’t look at why older runners didn’t transition to a midfoot-strike as quickly as younger runners, but he supposed that younger athletes likely have greater cognitive and neuromuscular flexibility than runners who have ran with the same technique for decades.
“It will almost certainly take longer for older runners than for adolescents to adjust” to forefoot landing when they go barefoot, concluded Dr. Mullen.
Dr. Silverman comments
This is akin to the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
If you’ve been running with a certain style for the majority of your life, and you’ve remained relatively injury-free, there’s no real reason to shift gears and change things up. As Dr. Mullen said in the article, “don’t change what you’re doing,” and barefoot running has little to offer a person “whose running form is working fine.”
