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| Source: Runningquest.net |
For those of you interested in an enjoyable and thought provoking read, I suggest Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.
A disclaimer: I am an infectious diseases physician and not an orthopedist or sports medicine specialist.
After my perusal of the peer reviewed medical literature, there is reason to suggest that running barefoot can result in gait alteration, shorter strides, decreased impact and strengthening of the feet musculature(relieving stress on the arches). There is no credible, peer reviewed data confirming that barefoot running has actually resulted in fewer, orthopedic running injuries. High quality studies to address this last point apparently have not (yet) been done.
For a thorough, scholarly and scientific review on the matter, I refer you to this paper in the Journal of the American Podiatric Association.
Well, I am off for my morning run now, with my feet still properly shod......
