Rant on running shoes

On Friday I had everyone do strides on the grass barefoot. People were asking me why did they have to do them barefoot. Well, if you read my post on running mechanics you will know it is important to get the foot underneath the body. When companies first produced running shoes the extra weight on the foot would cause peoples feet to swing out further then usual, so when they brought there foot down they would hit on the heel instead of the ball of the foot. This lead to people landing softly, and lead to people leaning forward when they ran. People also started having heel issues becasue no one every landed on their heels before. What did the running companies do? They made the padding on the heel THICKER. That way people didn't hurt their heels anymore when their heel hit the ground. Look at the heel of your running shoe, I guarantee it has a HUGE thick heel pad. Now people could run with BAD form and not hurt themselves. Of course the thick heel pad caused shoes to be HEAVIER, which caused runners feet to swing out further.

Imagine if their was a company that made a grill and people kept getting burned on it. Instead of making it safe, they invented a pill that caused the brain to ignore pain. This is essentially what the running shoe companies did. Their solution made the problem worse but easier to ignore??? How does that make sence? Some companies have used air as the padding as a way to keep the protection without the extra weight.

Anyways, when you run barefoot you naturally run the way you are supposed to. This is why I had everyone run that way. Which countries dominate distance running? Not the countries where kids have running shoes. So what is the solution? Run barefoot when you can, and when you can't be conscious about bring that foot underneath you and not letting that heel make the first contact.