My understanding is that forefoot striking is common in any culture where going barefoot is typical. It doesn't feel good to slam your bare heel onto the ground all the time. It's only tolerable if you're wearing shoes.

We should really consider heel striking to be the unusual non-default behavior here, the same as how prevalence of chairs means many Westerners have shortened Achilles tendons and lost the ability to do a comfortable deep squat which has been a fundamental human posture for longer than we've been a species.

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burnt-resistor 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Tip-toeing around mechanically makes sense when one wants to be quiet.

I find walking on concrete is more comfortable when using the whole foot, so just barely tip-toeing rather than my usual heel striking. In general, it's not a good idea to walk on hard surfaces barefoot or in sandals excessively, no matter what the FiveFingers crowd might believe. I discovered plantar fasciitis the hard way [pun not intended].

	▲	munificent 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> In general, it's not a good idea to walk on hard surfaces barefoot or in sandals excessively I think cultures where going barefoot is the norm also tend to have fewer hard concrete and stone floors. We've engineered a whole alien environment for ourselves that then require augmenting our body to deal with.

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wizzwizz4 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Doubt that's going to happen. "Normal" is whatever the educators believe: just like RP is the One True English, whatever WEIRD neurotypical men do is the One True Behaviour. We've been making this mistake for hundreds of years.