It can be said with some degree of certainty that years of wearing shoes with lifted heels has adapted our legs and feet to the presence of a heel, and the vast majority of runners are now heel strikers (see Hasegawa et al. 2007; Larson et al., 2011). As a result of musculoskeletal acclimation to thick-heeled running shoes (particularly in places like the Achilles tendon and calf muscles), some degree of heel lift may be a necessity for many runners in order to avoid injury, at least as they transition to more minimal footwear. It is for this reason that I have included a range of shoes in terms of their heel www.philshotton.co.uk lift in the selection below. Some people may do fine migrating immediately to a zero-drop shoe (i.e., no heel lift), Nike Air Max 90 Femme whereas others may need to take some time to transition if that is their desire (and I’m by no means urging everyone to go minimalist – it’s a personal decision that carries some potential injury risks – see my post on the Pros and Cons of barefoot running for more on this).When it comes to choosing a running shoe, I’m a firm believer in the adage that we are each individuals with our own needs, or as more eloquently stated by Burfoot in the above post (quoting George Sheehan), “We’re all an experiment of one.” Given this, I’m a strong proponent of greater variation in footwear choice for people who vary widely in their Nike Air Max 90 Heren footwear Nike Air Max 90 Femme preferences/needs. My basic philosophy is that, to again quote Burfoot, this time from the Summer 2010 Outside Buyer’s Guide, “All runners should run in as little shoe as possible.” I’m an advocate for minimalism, but I don’t see my role being to tell anyone what they should wear (some people admittedly seem to do just fine in shoes like those pictured above). I view transitioning to minimalist shoes as one Nike Air VaporMax Donne option that a runner has should they desire to try it – if you are running fine in more traditional shoes it’s probably best to just stick with what is working! I would answer this very simply by saying that running in a minimalist shoe is a means to an end. The end is improved running form that will hopefully allow you to run efficiently and injury free throughout life. Truly minimalist shoes are intended to help you develop your form by allowing your feet and legs to work the way they were intended to without extensive www.tamarastein.co.uk cushioning and/or controlling devices. In other words, the goal is to mimic how you would run if you were barefoot – shorter stride, faster cadence, midfoot/forefoot footstrike (or less pronounced heel strike). Watch the video below to see the running gait of some of the elites from the 2010 Boston Marathon as an Nike Air Huarache Dames/a> example (and yes, there are some heel strikers here)The stride-altering benefits mentioned above can also be realized (quite cheaply, and probably more effectively I might add!) by simply running barefoot (I have tried running barefoot myself a few times – see video below), but for reasons of both practicality and personal taste (and some injury risk), running barefoot is not going to appeal to every person – hence the value of a minimalist shoe. Though they may not perfectly simulate barefoot running, the reduced heel-forefoot differential and more minimal cushion in a minimalist shoe can help you to avoid the pronounced heel strike and overstriding gait that characterizes so many runners in modern running shoes.My Nike Air Max 95 Femme goal in this post is therefore not to tell you what to wear, but to highlight some of the options that are out there Nike Air Max Classic BW Womens if you are looking to explore a non-traditional (in the modern sense), more minimalist shoe. Some might disagree with my classification in some cases, and that’s fine, but I’ll start by giving a short overview of what I personally look for in a reduced or minimalist shoe so Nike Air Max 270 Femme that you know where I am coming from. I have written an entire post on how I define minimalist footwear, but to state my view succinctly, I view a minimalist shoe as one that more closely approximates the barefoot running condition. If we view running footwear as a spectrum, on one end you have no shoe at all, or barefoot. In the barefoot condition cushioning and stability are provided by the inherent strength and control of the feet and legs, exteroreception/ground feel are maximized, there is no added weight on the lower extremity, the heel and forefoot are Nike Air Max 90 Mens placed at the same level on the ground, the splay of the foot is not restricted when it contacts the ground, and flexibility is limited only by the structural limitations of an individual’s feet. Thus, more minimal shoes Nike Roshe Run Mujer will: