I just started barefoot running and my calves and achilles are REALLY sore! I guess I need to get stronger.
If you’ve been around the barefoot world for any amount of time, you’ve either heard that or said that.
And I’m here with some, hopefully, good news.
It’s a LIE!
Sure, you will probably get stronger by running barefoot. But the solution for achilles or calf soreness is rarely needing to be stronger.
The solution is to stop working so hard!
There are 2 times that you can use your calves too much: landing, and taking off.
When it comes to landing, there are some people who think that you’re supposed to land on the ball of your foot and never let your heel touch the ground. Pardon me for being blunt (but I don’t know any other way to be) — those people are wrong.
Or, to be semi-politically correct, while SOME runners land that way, if you’re having calf/achilles pain, DON’T DO THAT.
Use less effort. You can still land on the forefoot, but let your heel drop after you touch down.
Or, try landing more mid-foot or flat footed. There is no one way on how to run barefoot.
Suffice it to say, you don’t want to strain your calf by putting out too much effort when your foot hits the ground.
Now, when it comes to taking off… don’t push off the ground with your foot. Instead, try lifting your foot off the ground.
What’s the difference?
Think about these two images:
- Reaching up to a very high shelf, you raise up on your toes — that’s pushing.
- Recoiling when a bee stings the bottom of your foot — that’s lifting
In fact, use that bee-sting image when you run. Imagine that when your foot hits the ground, you get stung by a bee!
I know it’s a horrible image and you’ll want to stop thinking about that as soon as you can (’cause where’s the fun of getting bee stings with every step for miles at a time?!).
What that image does, though, is help you learn to get your foot off the ground by contracting your hip flexor, rather than by pushing with your calf.
Finally, there’s a “mantra” that I use when I run, a thought that I keep in my mind, that I hope you’ll experiment with. It goes like this:
How can I do this with less effort and more fun?
I ask myself that question and then I experiment with my gait until something gives me a YES answer.
And if your YES points you to some way of running or walking that’s different than what someone teaches in a book or a workshop, that’s great! You want to Run Like You, not like what anyone thinks you should be.
