I run in minimal shoes. Minimal shoes are extremely light, have little or no drop-off from the heel to mid-foot, and almost forces you to adopt an ideal running form in order to wear them without getting hurt.
Most runners cannot wear minimal shoes unless they have an efficient mid-foot strike, which for most people feels unnatural. I used to be a heel-striker, which applies to many runners. The problem with a heel strike is it often leads to the most common running injuries, such as strained calves, runner's knee, achille's strains, plantar fasciitis, lower back strain and...just about everything bad about running. After crapping out in the Boston Marathon in 2005, mainly due to excessive heat on race day and a range of injuries caused by an inefficient heel strike, I decided I needed to make changes in my approach to running.
I was fortunate to have happened upon a new method of running based on Tai Chi. In fact, it's call Chi Running, which you probably heard of if you're a runner. Danny Dreyer, the inventor of Chi Running promises the holy grail of benefits for Chi runners: no injuries, greater endurance, more speed. Get the details here at the website. I'm a true believer in Chi, since I've been able to avoid running injuries for the past 8 years, though I don't think it has had much of an impact on my endurance or speed. (Full disclosure: I've been having some annoying knee problems over the past year, but that was mainly cased to a structural issue in my back and unaligned hips, not due to running form.)
This is a windy way of getting back to minimal shoes. Chi Running espouses using a mid-foot strike and generating motion not from toe-ing off, but from a slight forward lean and with the idea to avoid using your legs at all for propulsion. It's a complex process to learn, but it saved my running career, as it is. But bottom line, if you want to go minimal, you need a mid-foot strike and the best way to develop that, in my opinion, is becoming a Chi runner.
Any Chi runners out there?
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