United Kingdom
Professor Daniel Lieberman Interview from vivobarefoot on Vimeo.
Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Daniel Lieberman talks to VIVOBAREFOOT about, amongst other things, running barefoot.
If you haven’t done so already read Dan Lieberman’s barefoot study, published in Nature: “Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners”
Dr. Lieberman and his colleagues spent years looking at the evolution of man. In particular at his capacity to run and potential history as ‘persistence’ or endurance hunters, capable of running animals to exhaustion as they hunted their prey.
The central ideas is that “as ancient man left the trees and the jungle, he adapted and became more of a runner than a climber. Many adaptations and changes took place, including, but not limited, to changes in the lower leg and foot.” Michael Sandler from Runbare.com summarises ”In his latest study, Dr. Lierberman and his colleagues looked at the difference between barefoot runners and shod runners to understand the differences in form, efficiency, impact, and to try and better understand how we evolved into the bipedal runners we are today.”
