Is running bare foot on paved streets good or bad for knee?
I actually started running barefoot because running in sneakers was giving me knee pain. Running barefoot forces one to spread impact stresses across the whole foot, and I found that this prevented me from leaning forward quite so much. This forward lean that runners have often results in a lot of stress on the knees. However, it is true that foot stresses and the like would seem to naturally increase vis-a-vis a comparable running motion in sneakers. I just find that people who run in sneakers do not run with the weight spread across the entirety of their feet. They are either ball runners or heel runners and have either knee or back pain correspondingly. The above being said, running on sand or grass is definitely better for you than running on pavement. This is true regardless of whether your feet are bare or shod.
