Most other related studies on barefoot v shoe running economy were acute interventions. This one was following a 4 week acclimatization ... I not yet seen the full paper, but all appears good, but nothing on effect sizes in the abstract.
It would be like doing a study on people who had never bicycled, measured their heart rate and oxygen uptake the first few times they learned to ride their bicycle and then again measuring their heart rate and oxygen uptake after they had practiced bicycling for four weeks.
Standard neuromuscular conditioning theory for any athletic activity states that increased practice at an activity will make the athlete more metabolically efficient at that activity.
Therefore, does this study tell us anything new?
No.
The experimental results are exactly what would be expected.
@SeasonsChange - that study you are quoting is the same one that this thread was started with. What you are quoting is an abstract on the research from the ACSM conference.
HOWEVER, there are some differences between that abstract and the abstract of the published version.... need to look into that further as it does raise a red flag about the nature of the analysis that they did.
Transitioning to minimalist footwear to improve running economy — A randomised controlled trial
K. Lindlein, A. Zech, A. Zoch, K.-M. Braumann, K. Hollander' Article in Press
"Although not reaching statistical significance, training in MFW compared to CRS resulted in small to moderate improvements in RE."
No statistical difference = there is no difference …. talk about displaying preconceived biases to claim there is a trend … when there is no difference ...