From the category archives:

Research

Does Running Barefoot Make You Blind?

August 10, 2010

I am really starting to wonder about this. It’s is the only explanation I can come up with to explain what I am seeing. First, we had all the barefoot websites claiming that running shoes cause osteoarthritis based on a study that was not even about osteoarthritis. Then we had them all claiming that barefoot [...]

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Do running shoes cause osteoarthritis?

April 24, 2010

Do running shoes cause osteoarthritis? According to a lot of barefoot running websites and blogs they do. Where do that get that information from? They either seem to have made the claim up or based it on the press release that accompanied the Kerrigan et al study. Which is just another case of intellectual dishonesty [...]

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“Barefoot Runners Get More Stress fractures”

March 18, 2010

Well they don’t really, but why can I not make up that headline like that as the barefoot running community do it all the time (see Intellectual Dishonesty). Surely if they do it, why can’t the rest of us do it? Mainly because we are not that irresponsible and dishonest.
But, here is my logic behind [...]

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Minimalist shoe vs conventional shoe for plantar fasciitis

March 7, 2010

I got am email asking me what I thought of the recent study in the Physician and Sports Medicine about those with plantar fasciitis improving more in barefoot or minimalist shoes (Nike Free) compared to conventional shoes. Here is the abstract:
Plantar fasciitis is a common injury to the plantar aponeurosis, manifesting as pain surrounding its [...]

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Motion control shoes may reduce the injury risk in runners

March 4, 2010

I wonder how the barefoot running community will respond to this one? Despite claims by the anti-running shoe lobby, there is NO evidence that running shoes do any harm (see: Intellectual Dishonesty), now we have some research that shows that motion control shoes do some good. How will they respond to that?
Here is the abstract [...]

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The lack of evidence for running shoes? – you can’t have it both ways!

February 27, 2010

Who can remember the media flurry and hype on barefoot running sites when Craig Richards published his systematic review last year: Is your prescription of distance running shoes evidence-based in the British Journal of Sports Medicine? Here is the abstract:
Objectives: To determine whether the current practice of prescribing distance running shoes featuring elevated cushioned heels [...]

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Why does the barefoot running community continually fall for this nonsense?

February 21, 2010

I have already gone over how the barefoot running community generally misrepresented and misreported the Liebermann research and how they misrepresented and even lied about the Kerrigan research, so now let’s take a closer look at the online article that they all seem to quote as ‘evidence’ (and we all know that the barefoot running [...]

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The problem with n=1 and ‘evidence’

February 16, 2010

You often see barefoot runners responding to comments about the lack of evidence for barefoot running by doing one of two things:

They point to evidence. However, when you look at it, it’s not evidence (they are really good at doing this intellectual dishonesty. For example, see how they fell for some of the research: [...]

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What has happened to injury rates? Are running shoes to blame?

February 9, 2010

You can often read comments or statements to the effect that running shoe technology has allegedly improved massively over the last 20-30-40 years, yet when you look at the epidemiological studies of running overuse injuries, there has been no change. The barefoot running community tend to use such statements as evidence that running shoes are [...]

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Yet another study they fell for!

February 2, 2010

In the January issue of Nature is a study by David Liebermann et al (Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually versus shod runners). Like the recent Kerrigan study the barefoot running community have fallen for this one as well (see Hook, line and sinker to see how intellectually dishonest they were about that [...]

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