Foot Strikes

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Research Plan:The authors conducted an experiment to determine if wearing shoes affect the way a runner lands on his foot. Three types of foot strikes were studied, each having a different amount of collision impact when it strikes the ground. One type of foot strike is "a rear-foot strike (RFS), in which the heel lands first"(Lieberman, Venkadesan, Werbel, Daod, D'Andrea, Davis, Mang'Eni, & Pitsiladis, 2010). (Lieberman et al., 2010). Because the foot lands on the heel, all the pressure also goes to the heel. A "fore-foot strike occurs when the ball of the foot lands before the heel comes down" (Lieberman et al., 2010). This type of foot strike causes the least of amount of impact and is therefore considered the safest. A "mid-foot strike (MFS), in which the heel and ball of the foot land simultaneously" (Lieberman et al., 2010). This type of foot strike is equalizes the pressure throughout the foot. The study conducted suggested barefoot running is better than running with shoes because runners who run barefoot generally use a FFS, reducing the pain and pressure of the foot when it collides with the ground. The front foot strike is beneficial because it "avoids heel strike" (Saremi, 2012) which could be beneficial. The scientists involved in the study were by Daniel E. Lieberman, Madhusudhan Venkadesan, William A. Werbel, Adam I. Daoud, Susan D’Andrea, Irene S. Davis, Robert Ojiambo Mang’Eni, and Yannis Pitsiladis. To carry out the experiment, runners were asked to run on a track at speeds of a comfortable endurance pace. Runners were placed in five groups. Groups included were contained habitually shod runners from the United States of America, runners from the Rift Valley Province in Kenya, US runners who switched to going bar...

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...od and unshod runners. The subjects are also diverse. The participants in the experiment were shod and unshod runners in the United States of America and some are from the Rift Valley Province from Kenya. The runners in the second article's experiment were solely unshod runners from the Daasanach tribe in Kenya. For the results, the first article claims the unshod runners were more likely to use a fore-foot strike whereas the second article states the majority of barefoot runners used rear-foot strike or midfoot-strike. Both articles are interesting because even though the experiment was similar, the results were different. It was interesting as the articles were helping to solve the question of if there were benefits to running barefoot. Both articles also suggested running barefoot is what humans were meant to do as earlier humans were barefoot endurance runners.

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