It’s Gotta be the Shoes
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Wow, two posts in one day? Yep, I was feeling ambitious and this information needs to get out. I am not a big fan of running as most of you know. I think it is a poor exercise for fat loss, strength, and flexibility, for the majority of people, and its boring! Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against running, but I do have an issue with unfit people running poorly. I also realize that many people love to run, and will do it regardless of what I say. However, if your going to do that, at least start paying attention to your posture and start running efficiently.
If you just want me to get to the point watch the video on the bottom! Otherwise, read on…
I posted on some of these concepts before; if your running, walking, cycling,sitting, for miles and miles or hours and hours per week, then you better be doing so efficiently, so your body does not break down. A good resistance training program should also be incorporated to increase strength, build lean muscle, and burn fat, while staying injury free. Exercise that includes many reps (continuous motion for hours), combined with high forces and short ranges of motion is asking for an injury. A forward slumped posture just aggravates these issues. Also, most people tend to wear shoes all the time which is another big issue. Shoes act like a cast on your ankle and foot. If you ever had a cast on a body part before you know what happens when that cast is taken off. The muscles have atrophied (became smaller) and weaker. Well when you wear shoes all the time the same thing happens, the feet muscles become weak and the ankle locks up. Ever hear of high ankle sprain? that is because of high top shoes and ankle taping. The force has to go somewhere so it sprains the ankle higher up the kinetic chain (body). What can you do? buy nike frees or vibram five finger shoes.
They mimic barefoot running which helps strengthen the muscles in your feet. Combine that with the fact that shoes tend to lengthen your stride at the expense of overstriding. This is when your heels hit the ground first and effectively act like breaks and slow you down. Not good! All that force shocks the joints of the ankle, knees, hips, and back. Instead your forefoot should hit the ground first, directly under your hips and you should push forward through the ground with your glutes and hamstrings. So you may say your stride is shorter, but now you are actually pushing off with the back leg and floating in the air longer and thus have a longer stride length. Think of the Road Runner character, huge range of motion and feet hit the ground directly under the hips.
Your body may not let you stride like a gazelle, because your strength won’t allow you to. Your body is smarter than you, and wont allow itself to succumb to those higher forces because of potential of injury. This brings us back to… you need to be fit to run, not run to be fit, and build strength in the legs and core. Also, for the people who run on a treadmill, realize that you are not pushing the tread, the motor does, effectively taking out the glutes and hamstrings of the movement. Outside running is ideal, but try to get some glute work if you have to run on a treadmill. So if you still dont follow me, ask yourself this…Wouldn’t you want to run more efficiently so you can stay injury free, and run more often? Wouldn’t you want to be able to run more often so you can burn more calories and stay in shape?
If you didn’t read anything above just watch this video. Sound is poor but you can see what I am talking about.
