Exactly. People ran barefoot, then with a thin piece of leather strapped to their feet for hundreds of thousands of years. All this arch and ankle support of the last few decades has done nothing except cause injuries.
What about all the concrete and asphalt we run on now? Doesn't that make a difference?
Harder surfaces are actually easier to run on than dirt trails. You get much more of the energy you put down with each footfall back. This is important because your foot is basically a spring and designed to recover some of the energy put into making each step.
Harder surfaces are a mixed bag. Yes you run faster but your feet, ankles and knees take more impact and damage.
Not if you strike with your forefoot. If you are landing on your heels, then yes. Don’t do that.
Human bipedalism evolved in places like the East African Rift Valley which is rocky, hard packed ground and not at all the soft grasses people imagine. If you've ever hiked in Pennsylvania, it's a bit like that.
And people also only lived to be 40 (if they were lucky) for hundreds of thousands of years. Just because ancient people did something doesn't somehow make it better for that reason alone.
<40 is “life expectancy AT BIRTH”, that is not the adult life expectancy which is much higher.
Exact value is irrelevant considering I'm talking about a span of hundreds of thousands of years across every human population alive during that time. The point is, and I feel confident saying it, that current life expectancy (at any stage) is higher now than at nearly any time in the distant past.
We have better medical care for sure. I doubt our diet or lifestyle are healthier, other than that.