Barefoot Running

[Susan]

Oh yes, of course you are right. But it's sad, thats what I meant in my first post, I wish there were more "neutral" discussions and articles about this and not only this. It would be much easier and more fun to read, discuss and think about things like (barefoot)running or nutrition (and a LOT of other things) if there was more plain facts and information instead of this... like you called it "religious fervor".



Now you have mentioned it I will have to search for Liebermans website

[KnottedYet]

Have you done any searches on Scholar Google?

It's fabulous! http://scholar.google.com/

Peer-reviewed journals tend to be a bit more objective, but they can get all religious-fervor-y, too. Buyer beware. Bryan Heiderscheit's work (University of Wisconsin) is beautiful and elegant, and most of his recent papers are available free/pdf. I talked with him at a seminar, and I was ready to throw my career to the wind and start over if I could just be one of his students.

If you want to read a bunch of podiatrists (who all run barefoot and have no issues with it, but are constantly under attack and seen as "the enemy" by fervent barefooters) grumbling and grousing, check out http://podiatry-arena.com/ The fellows on Podiatry Arena are a bunch of crabby squabbling naughty boys, but they link some great papers and give some very good clear explanations (while shooting each other down) of findings.

[HillSlugger]

Quote:
"Consider this: Every cheetah is a world-class sprinter. No exceptions. By contrast, the degree of interindividual variation in distance running ability in the human population is incredibly vast."

Cheetahs in the wild still need to run down their own food; humans do not. This kind of running is still subject to natural selection for cheetahs; it is not for humans. This argument is specious.

[KnottedYet]

Quote:
"Consider this: Every cheetah is a world-class sprinter. No exceptions. By contrast, the degree of interindividual variation in distance running ability in the human population is incredibly vast."

Cheetahs in the wild still need to run down their own food; humans do not. This kind of running is still subject to natural selection for cheetahs; it is not for humans. This argument is specious.

It sure is.

But it's juicy hyperbole, and just the fact that it's such a stupid thing to say has probably spurred people to read the article. "Hey, Joe, look at what this dork said!" The hit count goes up, and the dude writing with the subtlety of a sledge hammer gets to write more articles...