The Homemade Running
Spectacular Presents…
In Conjunction with…
A Barefoot
Information Amalgamation…
A Spike Lee Joint…
Starring
Chas Gillespie
As
Rex Malloy
In
The Barefoot Running ‘Tacular
Preview:
By
far the most important and visible figure in the barefoot running movement is
Christopher McDougall, writer of the best-selling Born to Run. The
book is a narrative of Mr. McDougall tracking down a tribe in the Copper Canyon
of Mexico and observing an American eccentric coordinate an ultramarathon
between that tribe and some American ultramarathoners—all of it interspersed
with McDougall’s personal, injured history with running, how he is trying to
run barefoot and change his form, and various diatribes against the running
shoe industry and the modern lifestyle.
He celebrates many aspects of the Copper Canyon tribe, which is called
the Tarahumara, especially their health, love of running and their excellent
running form. They are known to
run marathons over rugged terrain in sandals. The story is compelling, and it got readers to consider that
running shoes cause people to get injured because they are unnatural and
promote improper running form. And
being injured is a big deal.
Possibly the majority of runners get injured every year. And, because running is so good for
you, if one could figure out an injury-proof way to run, then one could have
solved a huge problem and done a great thing in the realm of public
health.
The
publication of Born to Run coincided
with exciting research by Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolution at
Harvard, who has argued that distance running was essential to human
evolution. The argument goes that
preceding human evolution, the landscape of Africa was changing due to climate
change, creating savannah where thick jungle used to be. This change in landscape selected for
endurance because food was farther apart; one had to be able to conserve one’s
energy during locomotion. Further,
the ability to hunt was hugely valuable because meat is nutrient-rich, so those
who could hunt were more successful.
Distance running could have been an avenue to hunt through the technique
of persistence hunting, whereby a group of hunters doggedly pursue their prey
in the mid-day heat until the prey simply collapses from heat stroke. It is a brutal method, but one can see
how the morphological advancements that homo sapiens developed would enable this way of getting
food—namely, the ability to sweat large amounts, a springy Achilles tendon, an
arch in the foot to absorb shock, tendons that support and hold steady the
neck, and long limbs. All these
changes compared to earlier Homo and
Australopithecus species made
humans the greatest distance runners to roam on earth. Other species could sprint. Humans could run for hours, even in the
heat. We were born to run, and
born to run barefoot.
Mr.
McDougall and the barefoot running movement think they have found the way to
stay healthy, in line with the evolutionary hypothesis. Are they correct?
The official release date is Monday!
No comments:
Post a Comment