Smith

Well shoot, nothing like having the wind taken out of your sails. Keep up the awesome work and thanks for your dedication. Also, congrats on the Runner’s World article a while back!

I try to remind my students regularly that correlation does not always equal causality, and that while we spend quite a bit of time discussing the characteristics of a population “on average” there are always outliers. (I’m a demographer by day and teach Intro to Sociology by night…) You can wind up in quite a bit of trouble if you presume, for example, that all people from France have exactly the same values, motivations, and lifestyles. It may be true that many French residents enjoy good wine and cheese, but it is just as true that there are lactose-intolerant non-drinkers in France.

In the same vein, there is a wide spectrum of running styles and body types. Just because a technique works for “most people” does not mean it works for all. I particularly liked the quote “If you are advising or treating individuals according to the average effects, you may be doing the wrong thing.”

By the way, McDougall quoted Benno Nigg in his article – he’s one of the leading biomechanists in the world and was heavily involved in the development of the pronation control model. He now apologizes for this and says pronation should not be much of a concern. There was more than just anecdote in Chris’ article.

I also find it interesting how many of the naysayers who say they tried barefoot running and had many injuries ignore the fact that our running in shoes is a learned behavior (conscious or not), one that needs to be “unlearned” before running properly.

It will be interesting to see what happens with kids like yours who are given more “minimal” type shoes as they grow up, and if their running form changes over time.  A long-term, prospective study like that (which I’m sure parents would be happy to participate in if the shoes were provided…) may provide the best evidence regarding how more built-up shoes change our running form.

I’d have less problem with McDougall’s approach if he were a bit more nuanced and open in his statements.  Granted, this may make him a less entertaining writer, but at the end he needs to decide what he wants to be – a storyteller, or a researcher.  He walks the line between both and it hurts his credibility, especially as the latter.  As I wrote in my own review, maybe he is the Steve Jobs of the footwear industry, and maybe he’s just ahead of his time.  But Jobs was wise enough to step away for a bit when he realized the world wasn’t ready for what he was preaching.  It’s not clear McDougall would do the same.

It’s been my experience that most people who get into running later than, say, 30 or so, do so because they want to lose weight. And, if that’s true, then it follows that a fairly high percentage of beginners will be moderately to severely overweight. Imagine the impact that will have to be absorbed by the legs, hips, connective tissues, etc… when a 240lb+ person, who possibly hasn’t seen anything faster than a walk in a good long time, goes out to hit the roads for the first time. Perhaps I’m shortsighted or simply unreasonable here but I can’t imagine that a minimalist shoe would be the way to go in a situation such as this. I’ve spoken with my shoe guy, who sells just about everything, about this a few times and he’ll tell me story after story of overweight people who wanted the latest cool stuff on their feet, only to abandon running within a few weeks due to injury. 

Again, this is merely “it seems to me” type logic with a little bit of “some guy said” thrown in, and I’m totally open to being wrong, but I’d be surprised if a minimalist approach would benefit 50% or more of those who purchase running shoes. I don’t fault the science or theories, just our own capacity to stay away from couches, cheeseburgers and supersized portions of pasta. I’d like to say that, in a perfect world, we’d have an undisputed one size fits all solution but that would make blogs on running pretty boring.

Thanks for the comment. I will throw one thing out there though – there have been studies that have found no link between BMI and injury risk in runners, and the speculation was that it’s because they runner more slowly and probably lower mileage than more fit runners. What’s more, impact is increased with a heel strike in a cushioned shoe over a forefoot strike in a minimalist shoe, so the idea the big runners need big shoes may not hold water. I know big guys who run barefoot without a problem, so this may be just another example where what seems like common sense may not be entirely accurate, and there are anecdotes pointing both directions. McDougall himself is a pretty big guy, and was even larger when he wrote Born to Run than he is now – he’s lost a lot of weight over the past few years.
I will also say that a lot of the speculation that suggests that injury rates remain high because modern runners are out of shape may be off a bit as well. Many of the injury studies that are out there are looking at experienced runners and not beginners. Seems to me that a fit runners are not escaping the injury bug.
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I’ve been thinking about placebo lately, and it’s effects on running form. I think it’s particularly pronounced in anecdotal evidence.  For example: heel-toe drop.  So many shoe reviews note heel-toe drop, but then state that the shoe “feels flat” or the heel “feels high.” Is anybody studying whether actual vs. stated heel drop causes runners to change form. Could we tell Group A that their shoes have 10 mm of drop and document heel stiking, but we tell Group B (wearing the same shoes) that their footwear has only 4 mm and we see more forefoot striking? I think we might, especially if the study subjects were informed about minimalist running and were expecting a certain result. The human body has an amazing ability to sense subtle differences and adapt.  Barefoot running teaches us that.  But the human brain also has an amazing ability to fool itself and the body. We can see this in the runners in FiveFingers who continue to heel strike, but are convinced that minimalism alters their form.

My biggest worry about anecdotes, though it applies to controlled studies a well, is the conflation of cause and effect.  Correlation does not equal causation.  Inevitably, we forget that.  We think that the only part of our training that we alter is our footwear, and we attribute to that change a decrease in injury.  Outside of a laboratory (and even inside a lab, for that matter), it is difficult to truly isolate a variable.  With a change in shoe, such as from stability trainer to minimal flat, likely comes a change in training intensity, mileage, periodization of mileage, socks.  Therefore I will always give greater credence to anecdote, if adequately documented.  An experiment of 1 still needs good experimental design, or the results lose value.

As always, Pete, another excellent, thought-provoking post.

And if a runner is wearing the Beast and is not injured, by all means keep doing it. I just don’t buy that there is any good evidence that every person with a flat foot should wear the Beast, and in fact there is published evidence that people who should be wearing the Beast according to prevailing wisdom get hurt in them. I’m a proponent of variety, and for too long we,ve been told that we need shoes of a certain type, and there is no good data to support that model. In the absence of such data, anecdote has a role, as does personal experimentation. I absolutely believe that science is important, and there is a lot of good science supporting the fact that a more barefoot-style stride can have positive benefits on the loading of our joints when we run. At the end of the day, doing what works for you is all that really matters.