[dragonkin]

Originally Posted by d'Oracle

Here is a question, a lot of people I know who play hockey have some lower back trouble. Have you suffered any?
Notice any improvement since barefooting?

I think the problem with the lower back trouble is that pretty much everyones hamstrings are too tight from sitting all day at work therefore they can't rotate at the hips but are forced to rotate at the waist instead, ideally when playing there should be very little curve in the spine and the hips are doing most of the dynamic work unfortunately unless you have this range and most people don't then it can cause trouble. Similar problem to people trying to squat and rounding their lower back.

I definitely noticed a massive improvement in my game in particular my ankle range of motion and strength is much better and I can run faster and at a higher tempo without getting tried as I'm primarily using my glutes. The mobility work I've been doing is great too.

[kelly40]

I started considering Barefoot running back around October after reading a few articles and went on to read "Born to Run".think that convinced me,
so prepared myself by walking around for short periods in socks around the house,
progressed to running my final mile on a treadmill in socks(can burn a little) at a slightly reduced pace,once a week.
I ran my the remainder of my sessions in my runners.
Then i got a pair of vibrams for Christmas, incorporated them into my runs ever so slowly, increasing my distance by a mile a week (for one day a week)at a pace that felt comfortable for me.
my running gait changed quite quickly as my body stopped itself from heal striking.
I would like to add that this happened naturally and automatically.
I would start off striking a little for the first few minutes and then as i got used to them, this period of adjustment got shorter and shorter.
I changed a normal running day a week into barefoot and then slowly phased out my runners completely and kept my mileage in the vibrams to about half of what i ran normally .and used the 5% increase per week rule after that.
I believe as previous threads state.The key is to very slowly build up your mileage and to make sure you feet are used to walking around barefoot before you attempt any distance,and dont worry about speed.
i found my running style has changed completely, and very much for the better, my recovery rates are much quicker and i feel less tired after a long run.
i have had Achilles problems over the years and fell into the trap of buying the most expensive runners ,rotating them, changing them every 500 miles etc.
i am so far more comfortable running and my times and distances are now in line to what they were in runners.
Theres a lot of info on barefoot.ie and they have a link on facebook.