The painful truth about running shoes

Thrust enhancers, roll bars, microchips...the $20 billion running - shoe industry wants us to believe that the latest technologies will cushion every stride. Yet in this extract from his controversial new book, Christopher McDougall claims that injury rates for runners are actually on the rise, that everything we've been told about running shoes is wrong - and that it might even be better to go barefoot...

Christopher McDougall, author of the forthcoming Born to Run, excerpts a section of his book that suggests costly, tech-term-laden training shoes aren't helping runners all that much—and they may actually be hurting.

McDougall draws from sports science, evolutionary study, and evidence from coaches and running teams that shoes with top-of-the-line "support," "impact resistance," and other features have actually resulted in more injuries for runners than using cheap, low-tech sneakers. There's actually an argument made for running barefoot as, McDougall argues, the human body was designed for.

Dr Daniel Lieberman, professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University, has been studying the growing injury crisis in the developed world for some time and has come to a startling conclusion: 'A lot of foot and knee injuries currently plaguing us are caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to over-pronate (ankle rotation) and give us knee problems.

'Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet and had a much lower incidence of knee injuries.'

The painful truth about trainers: Are expensive running shoes a waste of money?