Foot-Ware Exercise

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relation in the performance of adolescents and different types of foot-ware conditions such as running shoes, spikes, and barefoot. Researchers hypothesized that running barefoot would alter the running times in a short distance 30-meter run compared to runners that wore running shoes or spikes. The researchers studied a total of thirty-three adolescents around age eleven, nineteen boys and fourteen girls, with approximately equal training experience. Prior to performing the tests, participants were evaluated on their age, body mass, stature, and foot length, as well as the measurements of their running shoes and spikes. The runners each had to perform the 30-meter sprints with the three different
running conditions: running shoes, spikes, and barefoot. Two transmitter-photocells were in the starting and finishing lines to measure the speed of the participants. The researchers concluded that participants in spikes performed only slightly different than in running shoes and barefoot. While there were not significant differences in gender to determine a substantial correlation, the best performance on the sprints were from the female athletes in spikes. There was no significant correlation found between the participants’ anthropometrical characteristics and their performance; however, it was found that finishing times of those in running shoes and spikes had very short feet. Overall, researchers found no significant evidence to draw major conclusions in the difference of performance of the participants in running shoes, spikes, or barefoot.