It seems to me that there are two schools of thinking emerging. One school says that you should stop heel striking and go straight to full-on barefoot running with a pair of minimalist shoes with no heel elevation.
The alternative school says that moving away from heel striking is a journey along a number of points with gradual reduction in cushioning and heel elevation of shoes where the ultimate destination is barefoot running but you may not choose to go that far.
The shoe manufacturer who most strongly subscribes to the latter school is Inov8. They show this transition through different running styles in the diagram below.
(Click image to see full size)
Inov8 are well on the way to having a range of shoes to satisfy the needs of runners looking for shoes with a complete range of options of heel elevation and cushioning.
This is quite different to Vibram Fivefingers and Terra Plana who are much more purist in their thinking. They passionately believe that barefoot is best and only offer shoes with no heel elevation and minimal cushioning.
I don’t claim to have the answer on which approach is correct but I would be interested to read your comments.
I started running in October 2010 and used some Asics running shoes but soon found that my knees started swelling slightly. I initially bought some Terra Plana Aqua shoes and used these daily for work/running. My calves were very painful for about a week and then they eased as my running style adapted. Since January I’ve done all my running in Terra Plana Evo II shoes but wore the heel out in only 160 miles. I found this kind of strange especially as I do have a generally mid foot strike except for when I get tired on a long run and my form deteriorates slightly. You can see photos of the shoes on my blog http://runner795.blogspot.com – Terra Plana have been excellent about the shoes and replaced them within two days of bringing the problem to their attention under their sustainability guarantee.
Hi Runner795,
Good to hear you got a good outcome with you Evo problem.
If you revert to heel striking when you get tired then you need to be a bit carefull. Apart from wearing out your shoes you run the risk of hurting yourself as your heel is striking without any cushioning from the Evo. I’m suprised the discomfort doesn’t jolt you into reverting to forefoot striking.
Thanks for your comment. I don’t revert to a full heel strike, it’s more of a scrape if you get my drift and as soon as I’m aware of it I pick my feet up again and improve my form. Last weekend I started running longer (10 miles) for my LSR and intend to keep this up so it’ll be interesting to see how the shoes wear.
I went pretty much immediately from Asics to Terra Plana Evos. I think the transition would have been unhelpful: I would have simply worried about what part of the transition I was in, and would have been self-conscious about performing at that particular transitional level.
Instead, I simply decided to take it easy. I went on a relatively long run, but at a leisurely pace. As expected, my lazy calves complained, but that went away after a week or two.
Then I realised perhaps the most important thing about good running form: keep to a standard cadence. I actually have a metronome app on my iPod. I set it to 180 steps per minute, and stick to that whatever my speed. This was initially a challenge, but it’s made a huge difference to my posture and performance. Because I’m keeping to the same cadence, I never get the opportunity to shuffle back towards my heels and so forth.
Hi Nick,
Good to hear that you have a had a positive experience. I was talking to Lee Saxby about this and he sees barefoot running as a bit like being pregnant, either you are or you aren’t and there is not inbetween bit.
He would argue that the critical part of barefoot running is the sensory feedback (Proprioception) and a moderatley cushioned shoe just gets in the way. So he fully endorses your approach (all also makes a big thing about getting cadence right).
If you look at my latest post you will see that I ran the Brighton Marathon in Newton’s which are a cushioned forefoot striking shoe, but it was something I thought long and hard about!