[masraum]

Weird, I'd never heard of these until last night when I randomly happened upon them on the campmor.com site while looking for some new sunglasses.

Here's an interesting article about running barefoot.

Running Barefoot Blunts Foot

...A study of people who habitually run barefoot shows that these runners’ feet strike the ground in a way that tempers impact forces and smoothes the running movement, a study appearing online January 27 in Nature finds....

Although the results suggest that barefoot running might have benefits, it’s too early to say whether this running style is less likely to cause injuries, the researchers say.

says study coauthor Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University. “From an evolutionary perspective, it’s normal and, if done properly, it is very fun and comfortable. We evolved to run barefoot.”

Earlier studies have suggested that people running barefoot land on the front or middle of the foot first, before lowering the heel and transitioning body weight to the back of the foot.

“This study is unique in that they actually went and found people who have been running barefoot and are world renowned as barefoot runners,” comments biomechanist Reed Ferber of the University of Calgary in Canada. Previous studies focused on people asked to run barefoot for the first time during laboratory experiments, he says.

In additional experiments conducted at Harvard, Lieberman’s team used a scale called a force plate to precisely measure force from running. The average initial impact force in habitually barefoot U.S. runners who land on the forefoot first is approximately one-third the force in shod U.S. runners who land on the heel, the researchers found. “A rear-foot strike is like someone hitting you on the foot with a hammer with about one and a half to three times your body weight. It would hurt without a shoe,” Lieberman says. “A forefoot strike is like having no one hit you at all.”

The team found that the ankles of these barefoot U.S. runners are more flexible than those of the heel-striking shoe wearers. That flexibility may be protective against stress injuries common in running. “The stiff landing hurts,” says Lieberman.