Natural Running Symposium – Part 7

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John: So looking ahead Danny, where do you see the evolution of footwear coming or going, from a bio-mechanical standpoint or design. Futuristic. I’ve seen a lot in the past year, definitely changing the way footwear is being implemented, at least in the running world.

Danny: Yeah! Well we talk about soccer earlier, I think there are a lot of sports that have influenced, I mean soccer is one. Soccer it’s a level shoe. It’s not not a high-heel fit shoe. So you can see how whether it’s adults or kids, they sprint, they stand upright and they slow down, and they lean back and run backwards, and go sideways because they’re perfectly balanced.

So a lot of athletic footwear was not influenced by the high heel. So when you watch the world cup, look how agile and how beautiful those guys run in all directions. And that’s the influence right there if you think about that, number one.

You know, you’re asking me about where things are going…and I do appreciate the first thing you said about Newtons. We are the innovators. Vibram had a water sock, and Nike did that years ago. There’s a lot of brands that have had basically the same thing as a Vibram. They just didn’t… I never really caught… I don’t understand why they call it Five Fingers. I thought it was like Five Toes. Sorry about that. Just trying to be a logical thinker

John: You’re not competitive though…

Danny: Of what? When we came on the market everybody was like, “Are you guys insane? You’re going to go up against people like Nike, and Adi, and Asics and whatever” and we’re like, “No, we’re not”. But that’s kind of nice being naive like that too. And that’s the way we think.

We don’t think like, “No we’re not.” We have something completely different. We have no competition, because we’re trying to… we’re the first brand that’s going to try and help you learn how to run correctly. You go to our website, look at our videos, we’re trying to teach you how to re-train to run more naturally, get under your mass, instead of out in front and breaking and heel striking.

So we wanted to be unlike everybody else, which we are. Our colors are wild. So when you look at the shoes you’re like, “Wow! What is that?”, “Oh! It must be that crazy brand from Boulder, that Newton thing. Sir Isaac, you know.” We’ve even put Sir Isaac in one of our Newton shoes.

It is all about being different and taking a step out, because it’s what you would have maybe right now if we weren’t around. You’d have “Born to Run”, you’d have everybody trying to run in Vibram. So we have tons of people that run in Vibram and try to practice with barefoot form, but they migrate to Newton and go, “Wow! I can run this way, but I don’t feel like this huge possible stress fracture to my
foot.”

I don’t know where were we? Future of Shoes?

John: Evolution.

Danny: So I just got back from China like 2 days ago and so we’re making a 5 and a half ounce, we want to call minimalist. It’s a racing flat, but with Newton technology.

Again, minimal; super-minimal, but with protection. So that’s been our whole thought this whole time of Newton. It’s going to let the shoe work more like the foot and with the foot, but with protection for modern day services.

Even cave men put a wrap around as he killed the mastodon, and they were like, “I’m going to put something on my foot, it’s cold. We’ll put the fur to the inside”.

The brain separates us from everything. And the brain will continue to do it. So for me to go back to something so simple like a water sock, that’s good for training or Five Fingers is good for a training effect on natural surfaces where you get enough cushion to do so, to train yourself. So we’ve built a shoe that you can actually go run a marathon, 50 miles, 100 miles on concrete if you want to and be
protected, and recover faster too. because our science shows, impact is stored in the forefoot. That we’re about 30% less shock than foam can ever be because of that travel in the membrane. We’ve created a different animal, which is much more like muscle and tendon.

John: Kirsten?

Kirsten: I think the evolution, I think you all can speak certainly most to the evolution of the shoes and things like that.

John: I wanna hear every word.

Kirsten: I think that it’s interesting. I think the minimalist piece of things certainly has a place. And I think that it has a place in everybody’s training.

To what degree, I don’t know. And I’m still looking at it from a standpoint of the biomechanics as it
comes up the system as well. Because I think that on a transverse plane, and Danny here has sort of talked about it or touched on it before, I think when you start to put a shim or something under one side, and not under the other, or you have a leg length difference or whatever; it starts to make a difference all the way up your system. And your lower back, and your hip and the way you move, and the mio-kinematics, so the muscle kinematics is what’s really going on. It’s really interesting to me.

And how you stand. Like when you guys are standing back there, you’re standing on one side more than the other. Do you find yourself shifting? Just on your right leg? Have you been hanging out on that
left side the whole time?

So it’s interesting to me, so yes I think from the standpoint of the shoes, and where those are going to go and how we’re going to use that, but also how we’re going to utilize that to help us all the way up and throughout the entire…because I think we want to try and balance ourselves, and I don’t know that you can do it entirely, certainly with a shoe, but I think just starting to know where those differences are and then trying to adjust for those differences is going to be really important. And I don’t think we can measure that really well right now. We can hardly measure… when you start talking about the history, we’re just differentiating shoes right and left in the 1800’s.

And the whole… when you start measuring kinematics and using some really good tools to do that. A Vicon and some of these bio-mechanical tools, that’s the 80’s that that starts. So we’re really early in being able to measure on a transverse plan or measuring in 3D. I don’t know that we’re quite there yet to do it really well, but I think that’s sort of where it’s going.

John: Jamie?

Jamie: Well the short answer is I don’t know.

Until technology catches up, I think you don’t have to wait. I encourage people. If you like to run, to me it seems closed minded to meet people saying, “I would never run barefoot, I should never do that.”

I don’t get that, to be honest with you. If you’re really into running, it’s just part of the full spectrum. And just get out there and try it. You don’t need to wait for whatever is coming down the line.

You don’t need to wait for it. I think there’s enough on the shelves right here to satisfy everybody’s
needs. You just have to kind of get out there and try it out in small doses and see what works for you.

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