You know when you’re running on a dirt road? It must have happened to you, surely? Many dirt roads have lanes of more or less high grass on either side. If it’s not too high (rainforest model, in other words) it’s not a bad idea at all to detour and do a few miles on that as well. The article might as well end here but instead I want to explain why training on grass is not only a good idea: it does great and many elite athletes do it.
It’s not new age stuff
Let’s dispel a myth right away: it’s not about things like “reconnecting with nature” or “feeling Mother Earth” underfoot. None of the above. Running on grass produces tangible benefits because, at the opposite extreme, running on asphalt fatigues the joints much more than we think. Every time you land on asphalt-every time you take a step in short-your foot impacts a hard, rigid surface that transmits to your body all the energy you have dumped on it, net of the absorption of the midsole of your shoes. In fact, its function is to cushion and limit the forces that come back to you after you put your foot down. Running on grass is an even softer, more mediated ride because because of its “self-dampening” nature it returns even less energy to your body, preserving those useful things known as joints. Take care of them because without them you go nowhere.
Two benefits of running on grass
Besides the beauty of running on a natural surface-excluding rock-running on grass has two main benefits:
- When practiced with shoes it produces the above: softer running and less work for the joints
- When practiced barefoot-as many top athletes do-it allows the foot to strengthen much more than if it were wearing shoes. Why? It is quickly said: the shoe is designed to provide for many mechanical functions of the foot. Its supports and buttresses serve to offload the foot of many mechanical tasks. When running barefoot, on the other hand, the foot must use all the muscles at its disposal to work well. The result is that, being able to do this because of the soft surface of the grass, he gets stronger and when you put the shoes back on he will have a kind of mechanical memory that will make him use the benefits of the shoe only when he is really tired after a long way. Think of it this way: barefoot running makes the foot less lazy by fortifying it at the same time.
Go green
From now on, when you see grass, don’t think twice: you will go slower because it is not the best surface to do your personal best but you will definitely benefit from it. Do you remember Mila and Shiro? At one point she trains with lead anklets and wrist rests (I’m going from memory). The aim is to make it very difficult for her to jump and dunk. But it is not torture: it is just a way to train his body to be strongest when in the game he will dunk without that impediment. And indeed he goes into the game and dunks like the Hulk. Okay, it’s a cartoon and maybe that’s not a type of training that the Federation would recommend however look at it a little like this: to run well and strong you don’t just have to go a long way but you have to do it in a smart way: building your body up to endure the effort, rather than making it endure it by dint of miles and miles.
Besides, running on grass is a very pleasant thing that makes you become a little bit of a child again. That’s not bad, is it?
(Photo by Evelyn Mostrom on Unsplash)