How To Avoid 3 Common Barefoot Running Injuries
Barefoot running brings many joys and great experiences with it - like running more efficiently
, being more aware of your surroundings, and generally feeling like a kid again. It's truly wonderful in many ways.However, many who jump into running barefoot risk getting some serious injuries right from the start, that can easily be avoided if you know how. Barefoot running forums are full of beginners who want to keep barefoot running but are held back by early injuries. Don't be one of those people.
There is really just one rule to avoiding the most common running barefoot "beginner's injuries" and I will lay it out for you clearly in a moment; but first, what exactly are these 3 common barefoot running injuries?
Here are the 3 injuries people get when beginning running barefoot:
1. Blood blisters. These are like regular blisters, except much nastier: they are often big, and as the name implies, filled with blood. These can also occur not just on the surface of your sole, but underneath calluses that are already built up.
2. Dropped metatarsal. This is when one of your Metatarsals, or the small bones running from your toes to the bones in the back of your foot becomes lower than the other bones, causing more pressure on that area of the foot generally just behind the toes. You will develop a callus just behind your toes.
3. Swelling of the foot, localized or general.
There are various things you can do if you do develop any of these injuries while running barefoot. However, you should be able to avoid these injuries if you start barefoot running properly. (I say 'should' because there are no guarantees, and I personally have experienced all of these injures - before I knew better).
Here's how to start barefoot running and minimize your risk of injuries like these:
Start off VERY slowly. the number one thing that most barefoot running beginners get wrong is that they start off running too far, too long right in the beginning. You really want to start off very slow, for example I recommend that you start running barefoot just 5 minutes a day, for a week. You can do five minutes barefoot and then do the rest of your run in shoes if you want. But whatever you do, do not start off running 3 to 5 miles barefoot, or even 1 whole mile barefoot.
The next week you can increase your time to 10 minutes a day, then 15 the next week, and so on. This may seem extreme, but if you don't follow my advice and get a serious injury your barefoot running career will begin even slower when you have to take a week or two off!
I have read several comments in running barefoot forums by runners who did not start off slowly enough, they probably tried to do the kind of mileage that they might have when starting to train in shoes, and now they are injured.
What you need to consider is that, the amount of time or mileage you would start with in shoes is different than the time or mileage you need to start with in running barefoot, simply because of this: you have been wearing shoes for many years, and this means your feet are adapted to shoes and not to going barefoot. Your feet need to develop proper muscles in order to run barefoot, so understandably it takes a little more buildup than beginning in shoes.
Tip: you can also decrease your chances of getting bad blisters by having the proper barefoot running stride, and decrease foot swelling by using ice baths after going running barefoot; I go into more detail on these techniques in my barefoot running course.
In the meantime, start off barefoot running "on the right foot" by starting very slowly as explained above, and hopefully you will avoid these common injuries that keep other barefoot runners out of commission right from the start.
Important! Before you start running barefoot: You will also want to know about how to change your stride for barefoot running, as well as the ancient secret "supplement" used by Aztec runners.
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