Back in 2012, when the minimalist running movement was at its peak, Harvard researcher Daniel Lieberman and his colleagues published an analysis of injury patterns on the university’s cross-country team. Runners who landed on their heels seemed to be about twice as likely to sustain an injury as those who landed on their forefoot. It was a small, non-randomized study, but many observers figured it was just the first salvo in a forthcoming avalanche of evidence that would prove heel-striking was bad for runners. The problem, Lieberman hypothesized, was that landing on your heels produces a sudden jolt of deceleration that travels up your body and leads to injury.
In the years that followed, running researchers looked for ways of measuring and reducing this impact shock. One approach was to stick…
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Canadian Running (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2024