Barefoot running for dancers?

Subliminal

Subliminal

Well-Known Member
Hey folks! Can't remember if this has come up on this forum or not.

So if you haven't heard, barefoot running is becoming more popular. There was a recent theory published stating that humans didn't really evolve to run like we do now; with more of the rear of the foot striking and with lots of cushioning on our feet. Striking with the front (ball?) of the foot allows the joints to act as kind of a spring. Less padding allows you to feel the ground better, so you land softer. This is supposedly much better for your joints too. (You can easily Google it for more information and the pros and cons.) Barefoot runners in urban areas often wear light coverings on their feet to prevent injuries from glass and such.

Anyway, so what I've heard is once you start, your feet become much much stronger. Not just in toughness, but also the muscles most people don't use (but dancers might!) become more defined. So I'm thinking this might be a good thing for any dancer.

Has anyone else tried this, or have any opinions on the subject? I am thinking about trying it. I had to stop running as a teen... my knees did not like it. This might work for me...
 
i've been into running on the balls of my feet since 2007 or 2008, driven by intentional changes i made to strengthen my feet for both standard & latin, and to cultivate a different alignment for my knee & hip health. i do it as a matter of course, now...and you don't need to be barefoot to do it.

i love it. has done me a world of good. i never heel-toe my running anymore.
 
i am the owner of multiple pairs of the five-finger "barefoot" running shoes. in fact, i just had to replace one pair after wearing through the toes. there is no other single thing that i have done that has led to more improvement in body centering, foot strengthening, back relaxing than wearing these shoes. that said, i walk in them, i do not run in them.

my experience, in case you cannot guess, is 1000% positive. go for it! (IMHO)
 
little watcher said:
i am the owner of multiple pairs of the five-finger "barefoot" running shoes. in fact, i just had to replace one pair after wearing through the toes. there is no other single thing that i have done that has led to more improvement in body centering, foot strengthening, back relaxing than wearing these shoes. that said, i walk in them, i do not run in them.

my experience, in case you cannot guess, is 1000% positive. go for it! (IMHO)
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I have been told (no personal experience) that the "monkey toe" shoes are great.
 
Not so much that you run on the balls of your feet, but you will land with the whole outside half of the foot, and roll in a little across the balls, to absorb the shock of your footfall. It may be uncomfortable at first while you adjust your stride for a gentler impact, and you strengthen your feet. You can spend a lot of money on "barefoot-like" shoes, or just get a pair of canvas pumps with minimal cushioning.
 
just get a pair of canvas pumps with minimal cushioning.
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Back when I was young, this was pretty much what we had to work with. Even track shoes didn't have much in the way of internal structure. Two words: shin splints.

Back in the Dan'l Boone Davey Crockett days we all "knew" that "Indians" had a different walk / run because they wore moccasins and not boots or shoes with heels.

When I walk barefoot in my house now, I land more on the fore foot, toes spread, with my weight forward. I also learned years ago that "tipping forward", creating short but nearly effortless strides when going down hill on hikes makes for very efficient down hill running.

I've tired the "toe" socks, and don't expect that the toed shoes would be any better fitting.
I don't see myself running on pavement and gravel barefoot any time soon.
 
Same here, was on the track team in high school, but I never got shin splints. Landing lightly had two components. Don't land on your heel, and try to run flat. That is, I had chain I would wear on my neck, and my goal when I ran was for the chain not to bounce, but to stay flat. Just like in ballroom, you don't want to be lurching forward when you run. Oddly enough, I do a better job rolling through the foot walking barefoot at home than I do with a partner in dance shoes.
 
Subliminal said:
..There was a recent theory published stating that humans didn't really evolve to run like we do now...
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As a biologist I would say: seems that this theory wasn´t framed by biologists, at all. First: a species is always polymorphic concerning populations, which means that nature disposes always different solutions simultaneously. Secondly: every individual always has different walking methods built-in for different purposes: running, long-distance walking, stalking, sprinting... Note, our ecological niche is long distance walking: we are much better in it than lions, antelopes, zebras!

By the way: last year I´ve been to the tango fest at Sitges (Spain) and in the afternoon the croud used to dance barefoot on the beach: Wonderful !! I´m the guy with the striped shorts.

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Joe said:
Why don't people walk that way too, if it's so great for running?
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my youngest seems to do this...or he at least very quickly moves to the balls of his feet and kinda springs up on them when he walks. i've tried this and it feels really good... tho i look ridiculous. for some reason, he just looks catlike when he does it...and has the best feet i've ever seen, with dancer/surfer/yogi grace.

he also has those 5-toed shoes and loves them.
 
opendoor said:
As a biologist I would say: seems that this theory wasn´t framed by biologists, at all. First: a species is always polymorphic concerning populations, which means that nature disposes always different solutions simultaneously. Secondly: every individual always has different walking methods built-in for different purposes: running, long-distance walking, stalking, sprinting... Note, our ecological niche is long distance walking: we are much better in it than lions, antelopes, zebras!
Click to expand...

Or by a paleoanthropologist! Our 'default' methods of walking/running (ie what we do when we're not thinking about it) have a lot to do with our being the only full upright-walking primates and the way our knees and hips have evolved to deal with that (I hate making that sound like cause and effect; the changes didn't occur to facilitate walking, individuals with more advantageous structures out-competed those who didn't have them. We didn't evolve TO DO anything, we evolved, and changes that were either advantageous or at least not detrimental survived to be passed on.) Part of being full bipeds is humans have a very distinct heel strike when they walk, because the rest of their body isn't (or shouldn't be, if it's an ideal type) canted forward. We're not toe-walkers like quadrupedal ungulates or knuckle-walkers like most other great apes. Our pelvises aren't built to handle that.

A good rule of thumb is if you have to retrain your body to do it, it's not "natural." If it were, we wouldn't have to fight how we're built to do it.
 
I think I've seen some women at the dances take their footwear off when it was hurting their feet and dance barefoot.
 
But we're talking *running*, not walking. The mechanics are different, the body weight moves forward so quickly it is easy to run on toes (or rather, the balls of the feet). That's what sprinters do - it would be ridiculous for a sprinter to try to heel-toe.

I find running on the balls of my feet less violent than running heel-toe. And the body has good alignment & support for it.
 
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