Natural Running Symposium – Part 3

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John: I’ve been to a number of companies this year, believe me, if I see another minimalist shoe, I might shoot myself.

But we’re going to go with the authentic brands that are relevant and that have started out with it, like Newton and Vibram. New Balance has a collection called the Minimus coming out that’s really exciting.

Danny: That’s funny! They have a Latin termed shoe now.

John: But beyond that, how many shoes can we really sell in those categories?

Vibram, I applaud them because they’re actually making the outsole for New Balance and they’re making the outsole for Merrell.

Why are they doing that?

Because they want to grow the category. They want to expand it. And that’s fine.

But utilizing it and learning how to adapt as a retailer, and I know I’m talking on, as a retailer, it’s our job to educate. New Balance for example is actually putting a, almost like a caution tag, because our job is to educate people on the adaptation process. How to use the shoes, so that people don’t get injured. And that’s really my perspective.

So one of the things that I don’t struggle with but I do on occasion is the whole difference between barefoot, minimalism, and natural running. Those are the 3 prominent terms that we hear out there.

And Danny I’d like to hear your perspective. Are they all the same? Is there a difference? How is that?

Danny: Usually they’re equating to the same. I mean, barefoot is barefoot, right? Go step on a piece of glass totally unprotected, but you are in the best position to self-regulate your impact and your body position to be in the ideal position to run.

We could all do it right now. We could all take our shoes off and go out in the parking lot. And we’ll run very gingerly, very lightly on the concrete or asphalt. We’ll lighten our upper body, we’ll touch very carefully sensing the ground, and we’ll just have a short stride, and we’ll lean flatly forward. And we regulate that when we’re barefoot.

Minimalist is what I call anything that’s from a very thin racing flat to a Vibram Five Finger. A minimal amount of protection underneath the foot. In that case it’s getting closer to barefoot so the communication is a little better. But even the rubber or the material in between, foam especially is not a good medium.

It’s a good medium for cushioning but it’s not a good medium for communication, or rotational forces.

John: Could you just expand on the whole sensory integration with the foot to the brain, and cadence, and all that.

Danny: Well typically the idea is if you’re going to run more naturally, you’re going to be on your forefoot. And you have a condition called afferent feedback. That’s your input from the ground to your central nervous system. So as you touch the ground, if you feel a pebble, boom! You get off of it. Because you feel that pain just instantaneously. If you have a… I’m sorry, what were we talking about?

John: About sensory input, and the integration of that to cadence and everything else.

Danny: So idea is that the lighter you touch the ground the quicker you have to move.

I’m ADD so I get off on tangents.

So as we have a longer stride and heel strike, which is basically caused by the ability to do so by having a higher heel, we’re really urged to do that, then of course the cadence will slow down, the impact forces are greater, then you spend more time on the ground getting your upper body mass centered, then guess what…you break. You’ve got to push off. So it halves the muscle power as you break. So when you’re running underneath your center of mass, or barefoot style you just kind of roll like a wheel, because you’re picking your feet up. You don’t really have to push off.

So all the other stuff that we’ve researched for years and years and years, rear foot pronation, over pronation, over supination of rear foot, that was only caused because we put our foot out in front of our body. If we put it underneath our body, we do not have to worry about rear foot pronation or supination.

So the very fact that as they built the heel up, our ankle became a loose adapter when we’re walking, we try to run with the walking gait, our ankle, knee, and hip, and back are all over the place, plus the impact force. The sensory input that you get is like… you guys all notice this when you go home. When you’re walking up and down steps, do you ever put your heel down? No, you put your forefoot down so
you can sense your balance and not fall down the bloody steps.

Sorry.

John: It’s all right.

Danny: But yeah! It’s really about the ability to regulate and balance. And that does not come from your heel. Your heel is an adapter. Yeah! It’s a loose adapter. So by having your forefoot communicating, then you’re centered over your mass you’re very protected.

Pretty easy I think, but we made it very complex. All your cronies from the past… I’m just kidding. All your work associates from the past have made it complex, so now most people actually think it’s
natural to run, it’s natural to heel strike.

We’re having great success in Asia. Japan loves Newton! There may be a couple of things in our blog site where you can see Japanese like jumping up and down on trampolines in like Newtons and probably crazy.

Because what do they do? They come in their house, they take off their shoes and put on slippers. They’re grounded. They don’t sell.. I can tell you, okay John, they don’t sell the Kayano in Japan.

John: Yeah!

Danny: They don’t buy that shoe. That was an American shoe. They don’t sell that shoe in Japan. They sell racing flats. The thinner the better. Less weight, 155 grams, more expensive than a 195 grams. It’s all about lighter is better, and less is better in Japan. But the reason they like Newton is, their Asics sits only about 10 millimeters thick, and they’re running on concrete everyday, they put a Newton on and they’re like, “Whoa!”. They can run with that same form, but they feel so protected on the concrete, you
recover so much quicker.

So there is a big difference between an unnatural surface and going barefoot or minimalist, and then going into a man-made surface. It’s just natural.

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