Home - The Science of Sport

The Barefoot running round-table discussion from UKSEM Thoughts from the Barefoot running round-table discussion at UKSEM: Many of you will probably know by now that at the recent UKSEM conference in London, I chaired a session called “Natural Running – advantages and disadvantages. A Round Table Discussion”. The protagonists in the debate were: Prof Daniel Howell, an anatomy professor from Liberty (USA), known as the “barefoot professor”Simon Barthold, who formerly worked as a podiatrist but who now works in biomechanics and is Asics global research consultantProf Benno Nigg, one of the world’s leading biomechanistsDr Mathias Marquard, a clinician and running coach (who would go on to become the voice of reason in many of the more hostile aspects of the debate, as I’ll describe!) The debate concept That’s a pretty high-profile “cast”, including some of the world leaders in their fields. Controlling it, however, was a nerve-jangling prospect. Buy or sell? So from my vantage point, this is what I saw from the five responses: Back to the debate…