“Biomechanical advantages of barefoot running over shod running in athletes.”
Introduction
Running is a popular activity around the globe. Recreational runners have been shown to be susceptible to injuries; epidemiological studies have shown that 35–56% of all runners develop overuse injuries during one-year period (Braunstein et al., 2010). Knee and the ankle joints are most commonly injured and are linked with one-fifth of running-related injuries (Sinclair, 2014). One of the main reasons behind these injuries is the complex structure of the foot. The human foot involves 26 bones, 33 joints and 19 muscles. The bones are arranged in a way that forms medial longitudinal arch, which makes it ideal for its function of supporting the weight of the body and spreading the forces during the gait. Besides the structure of the bones there is a complex arrangement of both intrinsic and extrinsic muscles, which connects with the somesthetic system of the body to control balance and movement. There is a vicinity of 104 cutaneous mechanoreceptors situated in the foot sole (Franklin et al., 2015).
Recently, unshod …show more content…
Runners habitually used shod equipment and were be naive to unshod running. Participants were recruited from the track and field teams of various universities in New York City and they were free from any pathology during the time of data collection. 20 subjects participated (age: 24 ± 1.8 years; height: 176 ± 4.6 cm; weight: 167 ± 7.8 lbs.; BMI: 23.32 ± 1.08 kg/m2). All running tests and experiments were conducted at the Sports Biomechanics Laboratory. All runners completed an informed consent prior to the study and volunteer to participate in the study. Runners with any kind of foot deformities and foot surgery in past year were excluded. Few of the athletes denied participating in the study due to various