Overload injuries in barefoot/minimal footwear running: evidence from crowd sourcing
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Abstract
Background: The incidence of injuries in minimal footwear or barefoot runners compared to runners using conventional running shoes is still being discussed.
Methods: We focus here on methods and results of a online survey in a community of minimal footwear/barefoot (MF/B) runners. The aim of the survey was to investigate the viability of the method and to record first insights on running behavior, distance performance and injuries.
Results: In total 226 runners answered the questionnaire, 15 subjects had to be removed due to invalid data. A total of 211 (94%) subjects (152 male, ages 15-71 years [mean=40]) were included in the analysis. The risk to suffer a running related injury was significantly increased during the time period of changing from shod running to MF/B running (see Table 2). The injury rate per km was markedly lower – about one half - in MF/B than in shod running, but threefold higher during the transition period.
Discussion/Conclusion: Future research into the right “dosage” of barefoot/minimal footwear running in the transition period is warranted. We speculate that special adaptations - which may take years and thousands of kilometers to become effective - of the neuromuscular control play a major role, very similar to the thousands of hours a person needs to play and practice playing the piano before becoming a musician.
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2014. Overload injuries in barefoot/minimal footwear running: evidence from crowd sourcing. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e250v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.250v1note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
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Competing Interests
Martin Daumer is an Academic Editor for PeerJ and has invented the "free heel running pad". He is also the Director of the Sylvia Lawry Centre for MS Research. He is one of the two managing directors of Trium Analysis Online GmbH, together with Michael Scholz (50% ownership each). Trium is a manufacturer of CTG monitoring systems.
Dr. Daumer has served on the scientific advisory board for the EPOSA study; has received funding for travel from ECTRIMS; serves on the editorial board of MedNous; is co-author with Michael Scholz on patents re: Apparatus for measuring activity (Trium Analysis Online GmbH), method and device for detecting a movement pattern (Trium Analysis Online GmbH), device and method to measure the activity of a person (Trium Analysis Online GmbH), co-Author with Christian Lederer of device and method to determine the fetal heart rate from ultrasound signals (Trium Analysis Online GmbH), author of method and device for detecting drifts, jumps and/or outliers of measurement values, coauthor of patent applications with Michael Scholz of device and method to determine the global alarm state of a patient monitoring system, method of communication of units in a patient monitoring system, and system and method for patient monitoring; serves as a consultant for University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University of Southampton, Charite, Berlin, University of Vienna, Greencoat Ltd, Biopartners, Biogen Idec, Bayer Schering Pharma, Roche, and Novartis; and receives/has received research support from the EU-FP7, BMBF, BWiMi, and Hertie Foundation.
Markus Walther is Medical Director of the Schön Clinic München Harlaching and on a medical advisory board of Adidas.
Christian Lederer and Christoph Stolle were employed at the SLC - The Human Motion Institute when the study was performed.
Marc Hilgers is employed by Level One Orthopedics.
Christine Kleinmond is employed by ClinProject GmbH.
Author Contributions
Martin Daumer conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Christine Kleinmond conceived and designed the experiments, wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Christoph Stolle analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Christian Lederer conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Marc Hilgers wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Markus Walther wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding the deposition of related data:
Questionnaire as promoted by the BRS:
http://www.thebarefootrunners.org/threads/update-new-study-being-conducted-running-injuries-in-shod-vs-minimal-footwear-barefoot-runners.12871/
Read access to the raw data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvgupxDHApmCdGppOFdsbEotTDMzQWtpWUdGWW9WTlE&usp=sharing
Funding
There was no external funding for this project, but part of the work was supported by students from the TUM Munich in the context of the lecture "clinical applications of computational medicine" and officers of the barefoot runners society.
