Does Barefoot Running Hurt the Knees?

One of the greatest challenges a runner has to tackle is protecting their knees. Contrary to popular belief, running with less on your feet, namely running barefoot, has been found over and over again to reduce net forces and other physical stressors that cause knee injury, making barefoot running more safe long-term for your knees than running in the thickest cushioned running shoes.

Research that makes this case stronger was a study by Hashish et al. in the Journal of Biomechanics which found that heel strike runners with no previous experience with barefoot or minimalist running showed significant reductions in mechanical work at the knee.

Many of these runners adopted a forefoot strike landing (see here what a proper forefoot strike looks like), however the runners that maintained heel strike when running barefoot still showed a 25% reduction in mechanical work at the knee. This is because heel strike running mechanics were less pronounced under barefoot conditions, and is also one of the reasons severe knee injuries are rare in habitual barefoot and minimalist runners.

Barefoot running safeguards your knees by enhancing your mechanics at every level, such as improving ankle position at landing, enabling the ankle to land under the knee (as shown above) vs when you run in cushioned shoes which unintentionally tends to push your ankle in front of the knee at landing, resulting in an over-stride which is a huge source of high impact, shown below:

If you run in shoes, especially in shoes with more padding under the heel than the front of the shoe, causes the front of your foot to lift up at landing to enable heel strike, but this also pushes the ankle too land far in front of the knee. This landing configuration was found to place enormous mechanic work and stress on the knee-joint.

On the flip side, the difference in ankle position when running barefoot is the main factor that draws mechanical work away from the knee. In the same study mentioned above, the researches found that barefoot running increased ankle plantar-flexion angle (the front of the foot pointed down upon and at landing to allow for a forefoot strike), shown below:

How Do I Fix my IT Band Syndrome Fast? Land Forefoot-First, NOT Heel-First! — When the front of the foot points down upon and at landing, moves the ankle in a better position, placing it closer to under the knee. This mechanical arrangement is the literal gateway that helps you completely save your knees as a runner.

The researchers found that landing with the front of the foot pointed down radically shifted mechanical work away from the knee and into the ankle, which isn’t a bad thing as ankle injuries are very rare in habitually barefoot and minimalist (barefoot shoes) runners. This is why barefoot running ranks very high in preventing injury to the leg, especially the knee, while making more functional use of the ankle.

Lastly, the shift in mechanical work from the knee to the ankle was less noticeable in the barefoot runners who maintained heel strike. This is because in order to heel strike the front of the foot pulls back, which caused the knee to retain some mechanical work at the knee, and as a result, the researchers strongly encourage runners to use a forefoot strike when running barefoot and even in shoes to sustainably keep loading rates low at the knee.

This kind of study is important because it shows that there is a cure-all for running-related knee pain and even severe knee injury, and that cure-all is simple: run barefoot more often because the full feel of the ground and therefore the constant source of sensory feedback is the best forefoot strike enhancer, and the same advantage remains when you run in barefoot-like running shoes to some degree. Overall, the evidence is in that your entire biomechanics is more well-organized when you run barefoot or in barefoot-like running shoes. And, running barefoot is the best gateway strategy to learn to run with effective forefoot running mechanics in shoes because the more you run barefoot, the more the proper forefoot running mechanics gets inscribed more deeply in your muscle memory, making you better at upholding knee-friendly running form in shoes.

Knee injury isn’t the only injury that barefoot running prevents! Here are all the other problems caused by running shoes that running barefoot corrects.

If you’ve enjoyed my post, you’ll love my content over at my YouTube channel, here, where I discuss all the reasons forefoot running is better than heel strike running by every measure.