If you listen to a lot of coaches, fitness gurus, and obsessive runners, there are a LOT of strong opinions on the specific mechanics of where your foot strikes (heel or forefoot) when you run. Many people are adamant that heel is universally bad...the problem here is there is almost no actual data on this...just a bunch of anecdotal information about barefoot vs. shod running and personal accounts.

So yesterday in the NY Times blogs I found this: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/why-runners-get-injured/?src=me&ref=general.

I have read the abstract of the paper, and it reaches the following conclusions: there is a higher frequency of repetitive injury in heel strike runners but no difference in frequency of traumatic injury based on foot mechanics. Other factors (age, sex, miles run), however, also correlate tightly with injury frequency. When you combine the author's comments from the blog interview with the content of the abstract, the s best conclusions appear to be (1) forefoot striking is generally better but (2) may not be best for everyone and (3) a change from heel to forefoot striking should be done very gradually, as the transition can also cause injury.

Keep in mind this study published in Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise is limited (52 cross-country runners at Harvard) but as it is actually data based, it gives a much more reasonable account of what is and is not factual than is typically espoused. Just an FY for runners interested in the real data behind what we're told to do (as opposed to the emotional push behind what we're told to do.)

(For those interested, I can expand on how the change from one strike pattern to the other can increase the risk of injury, as this is a function of bone organization...let me know if anyone's interested...)