Why was barefoot running such a fad?

Barefoot running has been a large novelty about 10 years ago which lasted a couple of years and pulled in a lot of curiosity, particularly in social media. At the end of 2008 to early 2009 there was growing comments that running shoes were really bad for the athletes and was the reason for the vast majority of injuries which athletes were getting. It was despite the phenomenal volume of research and technology which went into creating running shoes to stop these injuries. These claims produced a fad for runners to experiment with running without making use of running shoes and going barefoot or using what become known as minimalist athletic shoes. These kinds of athletic shoes had negligible technology or characteristics within them and were merely a protective covering up of the feet.

The without athletic shoes running fad had been motivated by a substantial existence in social media. There were plenty of web sites, publications, programs, journals and message boards focused on and advocating without running shoes running. A lot of incredible assertions were made for barefoot running as to what it is going to do for the runners. It was believed that up to 25 % of runners may have played around with in some way with without athletic shoes running. Nevertheless, by late 2013 and early 2014 involvement in barefoot running had evaporated away and athletes weren’t any longer enthusiastic about it. This was despite all of the astounding promises that got made in regards to the advantages of the idea as well as the comments from a few that it was about to put the running footwear providers out of business. This never ever happened.

The trend dropped since the claimed advantages rarely accumulated for the vast majority of athletes who attempted it. There initially were a lot of comments made how the science supported without running shoes running, when in actuality there wasn’t any research that demonstrated that it had been better and following research has revealed how the overuse injury incidence in barefoot or minimalist running isn’t lower than people who run in the padded athletic shoes. There was a lot of research carried out on barefoot and minimalist running, however that science failed to show that it turned out any greater, it really indicated that that it was different. The fact that there was a great deal of science which was misinterpreted by individuals who touted barefoot running as showing it had been superior, when that isn’t what it proved.

At the end with the barefoot trend, the Hoka One One running footwear company introduced some maximally cushioned running footwear that were laughed at and loathed by individuals advocating barefoot running. Despite that, runners liked this footwear and the Hoka’s are now a strong player in the running shoe marketplace and since 2014 the trend has been for the much more maximally padded running footwear from all of the running shoe manufacturers.

There is certainly however a little group of hardcore barefoot runners which was always there. At this time the minimalist athletic shoes have made up approximately 0.3-0.5% of the running footwear market for the previous few years. Those maximalist running shoes continue to dominate the marketplace for the past 5-7 years and there is no hint in any drop in their share of the market or a come back of any affinity for barefoot or minimalist running footwear.

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