No. If running barefoot were faster then you would see lots of elite athletes competing barefoot. The ideal is wearing very light shoes (track spikes, racing flats) for protection, and developing good form so you aren’t landing on your heel with each stride.
Afaik, we actually don’t know, we have so many years of research and technique development of running with arched footwear than with archless and barefoot running, there’s no sufficient incentive to research and test it at full Sprint (heh) and thus research for it goes at a snail pace.
As a reference of how important this research is, nowadays there are banned running shoes you can’t use in competition because of the advantage they give you and they have to be previously be approved as opposed to individually banned. A new shoe can shave seconds off a professional runner’s time.
No. If running barefoot were faster then you would see lots of elite athletes competing barefoot. The ideal is wearing very light shoes (track spikes, racing flats) for protection, and developing good form so you aren’t landing on your heel with each stride.
Afaik, we actually don’t know, we have so many years of research and technique development of running with arched footwear than with archless and barefoot running, there’s no sufficient incentive to research and test it at full Sprint (heh) and thus research for it goes at a snail pace.
As a reference of how important this research is, nowadays there are banned running shoes you can’t use in competition because of the advantage they give you and they have to be previously be approved as opposed to individually banned. A new shoe can shave seconds off a professional runner’s time.