My Forum

Ian,

Good luck with your  study. I agree with Ken Bob when he states that barefoot is best. There is one critical piece that all of the shoe manufacturers miss and that is that even the most minimal shoes act as an insulator to the foots proprioceptors. As simple test would be to run a pencil along your hand or foot and then repeat the test with a piece of paper over the hand or foot. You will feel a significant reduction in proprioceptive feedback.Now multiply this lose of sensation by the thickness of your  shoe.The minimalistic shoes are great at providing full range of motion for the foots incredible structure but fall sadly short when it come to providing the neuro muscular feedback that it is needed to activate the entire giat related musculature. Of coarse there is an incresed injury rate when you take the the feet with 40 weak dysfuncional intrinsic foot muscles that have been cushioned and supported sinced birth and throw them into a senario where they are being asked to perform with limited proprioception and musculature to rely on. The injury rates would be much less with no shoes  rather than minimalistic insulators on. As Dave Lemke says"Activating the foot  proprioceptors "completes the circuit" and activates the peroneus longus,anterior tibialis,VMO's,hamstrings,gluts and paraspinals. It literally completes the upright posturte circuit and brings about posture without effort." 100% of subjects tested recorded "increased muscle load distribution,decreasd asymetrical inefficiencies, reduced fatigue,decreased pelvic torsion + improved pelvic level = core stability,increased performance."  Our greatest gift that comes with the propriocetion package is something called the stretch reflex.Just like if that pencil that you tested your propriocetion with was a hot stick your brain would subconsciuosly fire all of the arm and shoulder muscles to pull it out of harms way the proprioceptors sence if a muscle or tendon is close to ripping and automatically shorten it to avoid injury. Dave recorded these results by using Barefoot  Science patented propriocetive insoles in the athletes shoes but if you have access to SEMG equpment at your University you will find that you will get these incredible results when running with the naked proprioceptors on the ground. Gait and balance/stability tools are great but the true etiology of what causes this increase in stability, strength,and reduction of injury lies in the SEMG or MRI data. You would see a significant difference in a group of test subjects if you put Barefoot Science insoles into their running and casual shoes so that they received propriocptine feedback with every step. BFS is used by current Elite Olympic ahtletes, 50% of the carded PGA players,world gold strongmen, Special Forces and their doctors/coaches. This product when combined with a flexible daily shoe or walking in the sand/grass for two months will completely rehabilitate not only the foot but all of the gait related musculature. Canada's top barefoot/minimalistic running coach Jeff Stapleton has a 100% injury free success record  in converting his clients to minimalistic/barefoot running when combining technique,drills and Barefoot Science into their transition. http://naturalrunning.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/barefoot-science-inserts-revolutionizing-the-running-world/  http://www.toesalad.com/reviews/barefoot-science-foot-strengthening-system http://noraxon.wordpress.com/  (see motor patterns)

Hopefully studies like yours help will to dem