Because of the high injury rates, many injured heel strike runners are looking to forefoot running because consistent with the research, forefoot running naturally engages additional mechanical outputs that do a better job at sustainably reducing net forces not just on the shins, but also the knees, hips and lower back than heel strike running.
One of the many reasons forefoot running sustains most safely on the body and more efficiently than heel strike running across all distances is by engaging a significantly higher degree of smoothness in foot-placement at landing, which not only was found to reduce surface forces, over-striding, over-pronation and brake loads, it also made the arch better at loading more energy-saving elastic power, which enabled the foot to spring up with minimal muscular effort at each step.
Heel strike running is the most damaging style of running to the heel because the mechanical risk factors engaged at heel strike were found to wear away the heel pad. What’s worse, cushioned running shoes was unhelpful because heel-impact was actually amplified. In recent years, several compelling studies have emerged to explain that the best path for protecting, not just the heel, but the body from impact-related damage, forefoot running’s claim to fame is there’s so little impact acting on the entire body that it does no harm.
The mechanical components engaged by heel striking when running was found to increase bending moments beyond tolerance on the toes, while plantar pressure in the forefoot raised to pain-inducing levels. Another bad outcome from this was increases in dorsal bending moments and compression strains placed additional burdens on the foot, as compared with forefoot running, which showed a net-reduction in injurious foot loading.
Spending more time barefoot will get your feet stronger than ever by enhancing the foot’s nerve communication which was found to directly stimulate increases in healthy blood vessels, soft tissues, fat pads, muscles and bones of the foot, whereas most cushioned athletic shoes are too narrow and inflexible, causing the foot’s engaging muscle activity to be overly restricted, and muscle tone diminishes.
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