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Running: Are you running naturally?
That’s the question TCL Sports and Newton Running are asking through a series of seminars designed to educate retailers and consumers alike to the ‘barefoot’ running movement. David Pittman reports on a trade seminar held at last month’s TCR to see if the message got through.
TCL Sports, the UK distributor for Newton Running shoes, said it is hoping to educate the market on natural running through a series of seminars discussing the technologies behind the movement. As a brand, Newton Running’s philosophy is ‘natural running’, which is also referred to as barefoot or minimal running. TCL Sports director
Mike Trees said the aim of the seminar series is for it to be a ‘programme of knowledge’ to raise awareness of the benefits of natural running and overcome both the historical notion that running on the heel is natural, as is the norm with general running shoes, and the problems some retailers have in selling such shoes.
Newton Running is taking a philanthropic approach to the natural running movement, Trees said, and that the aim of improving awareness was to drive wider acceptance in the UK for the whole market, and not just for Newton Running products.
Newton Running technical adviser Ian Adamson, himself a seven-time world champion adventure racer, said almost every leading running-related footwear brand is set to bring a more natural running shoe to market in the near-future and that Newton Running is “trying to grow the market to get people running better and to help retailers build an ethical business”.
Addressing a trade audience at the recent TCR show, Adamson said the natural running movement is a ‘re-evolution’ in the market as it is more efficient to run barefooted rather than in bulky, heeled shoes that add weight and force the body to adopt an unnatural running gait, posture and body profile.
However, years of bad habits mean running with a heel strike has become standard in western countries, he said, and is a “persistent dogma”. Athletic footwear has evolved to place the emphasis on technologies designed to cushion and support heel strike running, as “the thickest part of the shoe engages the ground first”.
Showing gait analysis comparing heel and toe strike running styles, Adamson said: “With toe strikes you get a smoother pattern, where as the shod running gait has two force peaks and more rapid impact.
“We’ve tested a runner in a 12mm heel and then in ‘flat’ shoes, and when you eliminate the heel you eliminate heel strike and reduce the pressure exerted on the heel and the forefoot.”
