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In the early 2000’s we debated barefoot running and we firmly ruled against the overall benefit vs harm. 

In a recent article written by one of my favourite Podiatric biomechanics gurus; Simon Bartold, he spoke on the subject of “Grounding”.  Apparently  the debate is not quite over. 

 I love the “feeling”of my bare feet on grass or preferably sand, but to say that this can have a lasting physiological effect on my body is taking a major step beyond. (Yeap I know)

For those advocating the benefits of grounding, report claims that walking barefoot on the Earth enhances health and provides feelings of well-being. Although supported by almost zero meaningful research, grounding insists it is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that “ground” or electrically reconnect you to the earth. And if you do this, it will enable you to “pull away from flashbacks, unwanted memories, and negative or challenging emotions.”

Apparently, it will also:

1. Reduce inflammation
2. Decrease pain
3. Decrease stress response
4. Increase heart rate variability
5. Improve sleep
6. Improve cortisol rhythm
7. Improve wound healing
8. Reduce blood viscosity

Moving right along, Barthold got his hands on a brand new piece to research from Switzerland titled: The Impact of Grounding in Running Shoes on Indices of Performance in Elite Competitive Athletes

Muniz–Pardos et al, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(3), 1317

Basically they took some fairly high level runners and placed them in specially designed shoes to enable grounding to occur during training and in a very nicely designed piece of research they measured heart rate, blood gases, perceived fatigue, recovery and a host of factors in a double blind study. 

And drum roll…… the findings were?.  NOTHING! Absolutely nothing.

Conclusion:  our results suggest that grounding in shoe designs is not an effectivealternative for well-trained athletes to improve their running efficiencies, and/or their physiological/perceptual responses during submaximal exercise. 

So what do we take from this? There may yet be something to grounding, by all means continue to enjoy your beach and back lawn in your bare feet, but for those of you looking to improved running performance and recovery, splash out on a pair of Nike Zoom X Vaporfly .. there is compelling evidence for their efficacy!

Would you lace up a pair of these babies?

We’ve visited previously the sector of Ultra running shoes and touched on the features that make them “ultra performers”. I will reveal up front, I’m not a runner, never have been, and never will. Im very passionate about my water sports and winter sports and while I’m always willing to test drive new equipment the visual appeal of the of the gear has a big influence on my perceived performance. First look at the early sampling of Adidas 2023 Ultra BOOST 23 makes me think these babies must fly because they aren’t winning any beauty contest.

It appears they have enlarged the OG action dots in the mid sole and shrunk everything in the sock style uppers.

This is a very competitive design category aimed at runners taking Gold in the distance category can’t wait to see what the competition come up with next.

Have you suddenly developed areas of callous or hard skin where none was present before?.

This frequently happens and very often with changes in seasonal sport specific footwear.

Just started wearing the old hiking shoe or pair of skates and boom the hard skin or blister appears. Occasionally it can be the increase in activity or a new activity, most often it's an indication that the inner lining in the shoe, boot or skate has worn through and the rough material is now the source of the irritation.

The most frequent sites are around the bottom or back the heel, sides of big or little toes and inside of the mid foot. A simple probe with your finger tips will confirm the damage to the liner of the footwear and indicate the need for some shopping.

A final word of caution, while such wear is common, it is not normal. It indicates that your foot is not functioning normally and to ascertain why and to resolve the situation, bring in the footwear as evidence to help us diagnose the underlying cause.