The 100 Up Exercise: Method for Training Barefoot Running Form

The recent New York Times article [1] by Christopher McDougall, author of the best selling book on runningBorn to Run, is currently making its way around the Internet. Entitled “The Once and Future Way to Run“, McDougall takes a roundabout path of catching everybody up on the last few years of barefoot running news until finally unveiling a newly rediscovered running technique that he thinks will revolutionize running.

He is certainly right to suggest that despite the prevalence of minimalist footwear, many barefoot or minimalist running enthusiasts are still running with terrible form. By terrible, I mean landing hard on theirheels. This isn’t the faint heel touch you see with some elites, where its hard to tell if it’s actually a midfoot landing. We’re talking about the kind of bone jarring heel plodding that makes you cringe.