I'm lifting this straight from the comments on my last post.
hello, what do you think about barefoot? I find it easier for my very damaged knees compare to Nike carbon (Alphafly) which are better when it comes to cushioning but foot and knee feels unstable
I never tried going barefoot to see if that would put less stress on my knees (well, except around my Hong Kong apartment, I suppose).
As I recall, I tended to look for as much cushioning in a sneaker as I could find. That was basically my footwear strategy.
In the book, I do mention a special pair of shoes I bought that were supposed to reduce stress on my knee joints. The manual in the box sounded very promising. I was very excited about trying them out.
But once I started walking around in these new (and rather expensive) shoes, I soon discovered they were a disaster. My knees felt worse. I quickly abandoned that experiment.
Still, healing knees is like running a series of experiments where you try things and toss aside what doesn't work, and keep trying. There's no magic one-size-fits-all formula. What works for me may not work for you, and that includes our choice of footwear.
Since I broached the subject, if anyone has experience with going barefoot, please weigh in below. Did it help or hurt your knees? I wonder sometimes about activities such as walking barefoot in loose sand, for someone who has knee pain, as that would seem to risk exacerbating instability in the joint.
I believe I wrecked my knees decades ago by running with thickly padded (normal) running shoes. I believe these type of shoes encourage heel-striking while running
ReplyDelete(Oops I accidentally hit publish) because of the illusion of a soft landing, but even with padding, heel striking is bad for the knees. I had to stop running and finally decades later I was able to strengthen my knees though a very slow progression of weighted box squats (which put very little pressure on the knees but worth all the leg muscles thoroughly). Then I was able to return to running using barefoot shoes, which encourage correct running technique. I won't go as far as to say barefoot shoes will fix knee pain, but once transitioned over (slowly, over a long period of time) I think they will prevent knee damage through correct running technique 🙂
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