Barefoot Running

[KnottedYet]

Susan, don't forget this is a popular media article. Not a scientific article. Read the science, none of it says humans weren't meant to walk or run barefoot.

No one is saying that.

I hate the way the barefoot thing is blown up in the popular media, and the religious fervor with which people distort the science.

Of course the article is misleading. Hyperbole sells! This is NOT a scientific paper!

The author's valid point is that there are some folks right now (now, like, right now, 2010) who should NOT be running barefoot. That certainly doesn't mean all through human history no-one ran barefoot, nor does it mean that all through human history there weren't poorly running cavemen who would have benefitted from a pair of Nike Pegasus running shoes. The point I think he missed, however, is that asphalt is not the optimal surface to run on in any case. Hence the need for shoes for a lot of people, and why barefooting on asphalt leads to so many RSI's.

Even the critiques of Lieberman are off, they are attacking straw men (things Lieberman never said). Lieberman's work was about biomechanical strategies of gait, and look at how his work got distorted! He even has disclaimers all over his website trying to get out from under the distortions people have heaped upon his work.