The Minimal Shoe Debate Heats Up

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If you’re an exercise geek like me then you may take interest in the latest goings-on over at Zero-Drop, a very fine minimalist running blog.  Three posts are worth reading: “ASICS Have Really Dug In Their Heels,” “The ASICS ‘Minimalst’ Shoe Debate Continues…,” and “The Other Shoe Has Dropped: Dr. Craig Richards Challenges ASICS and Other Shoe Companies.”

It seems that shoe company ASICS is not jumping on the minimal shoe bandwagon like most of their competitors.  ASICS shoe designer Simon Bartold is quoted in the article and he speaks fairly derisively of the movement toward flatter, thinner and more flexible shoes. He demands proof that minimal shoes are healthy and useful for runners.  (Meanwhile, there’s certainly no proof that modern, “good” running shoes are healthy either.)

What’s most interesting however isn’t the article itself but rather the spirited exchange that follows in the comments section where Bertold and the blog author go back and forth over the scientific particulars of this issue.  The discussion gets quite heated and the drama even spills over to another blog. “ASICS vs Zero Drop, Minimalist vs. Maximalist” comes from the great minimalist site, Runblogger.  It’s a very thorough examination of the type of proof that Simon Bertold demands.  The article in fact draws a comment from ASICS’ Bertold that that might be seen as a little bit of backpedaling.

The issue of science and scientific “proof” is a prominent feature of these discussions.  It’s unlikely that any one study will prove 100% whether or not any type of shoe–or no shoe at all–will cause or prevent a given type of injury.  There are many many variables that go into an injury or lack thereof.  (Interestingly, several studies suggest that conventional “good” running shoes matched to foot type do nothing to prevent injuries.)  Further, just because a rigorous study hasn’t been done doesn’t mean that a given cause-and-effect relationship doesn’t exist.  Minimal shoe/barefoot running may or may not in fact be healthier for most people than running in a conventional running shoe but there may be no powerful study that exists that proves either condition.

There’s nothing wrong with examining the anecdotal evidence either.  It’s often the anecdotal stuff that motivates someone to study something, and there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence out there supporting the idea that less shoe is better than more shoe.  I can speak from my observations of clients in the gym (as well as my wife and my own condition) that many people move better and feel better in minimal shoes.  I’m not the only one observing this.  In fact the shoe companies making minimal shoes are responding to the requests of their customers.

Finally, if you find all of this interesting, then you should get over to a recent post at the Science of Sport.  The barefoot running debate: Born to run, shoes & injury: the latest thinking is a remarkably in-depth discussion on the shoe issue.  The Sports Scientists take their subjects very seriously and they always get deep into the science behind athletics.  They discuss the important of running technique and the idea of how to transition from a conventional running shoe to the barefoot/minimal running style.  Very informative stuff there.

 

Potomac 7.5 Mile Swim for the Environment & Team RWB

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The Big Swim

Mike Piet of Arlington, VA is a former client and good friend of mine.  He is a superb triathlete.  He’s competed in several Ironman Triathlons (including the Cozumel Ironman) and countless other triathlons and endurance events.   Most recently he competed in the Potomac 7.5 Mile Swim for the Environment, and he did quite well.  He finished 3rd overall and he was the first non-wetsuited competitor to cross the finish line with a time of 3 hrs 52 min.  Further, he raised $500 as part of the effort to clean up the Potomac River. This is a tremendous achievement and I applaud his efforts.  Here’s a link to his Race Report.

Team Red, White & Blue

Further, Mike will also be racing as a part of Team RWB (Red, White & Blue). Team RWB  is a non-profit organization that brings athletes together in support of wounded war veterans. Their mission is to enrich the lives of wounded veterans and their families. They work to re-introduce wounded vets back into society. RWB members raise funds and awareness through participating in a wide range of athletic events. To learn more about Team RWB including volunteer and donating opportunities, go to the Team RWB site.

If you know a vet then you may know that returning from combat and taking up a “normal” life can be excruciatingly difficult. Combat vets have gone through things that most of us can’t imagine. Upon returning stateside they’re often patted on the back and expected to take up life where they left off, but there is a lot of hard work involved in readjusting to civilian life.  This is the perhaps the hardest part of war. So if you have funds or the time, please find a way to donate to Team RWB.

Shifting Gears from Strength to Endurance Work: Part II

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In Part I of this series, we started to discuss the different physical capacities known as endurance, strength, and power.  Evidence is mixed but there it appears possible that strength gains may be hindered if one engages in endurance work at the same time.  The jury is still out.  What about endurance and power?

Endurance Work Seems to Inhibit Max Power Production

The previously mentioned NSCA document Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training for Strength/Power Athletes discusses several studies in which endurance training hindered the production of maximal power.  That is, short-duration, high intensity activities such as sprinting, jumping, shot put, discus, and Olympic weightlifting will be compromised if an athlete trains for endurance while also training for one of these events.  Similar findings are found here, here, and here.

As for why this interference occurs, it’s more than I can go into here.  If you want to get into it, you might look at this ACSM document by Nader titled Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training: from Molecules to Man or Stone’s Maximum Strength & Strength Training – Relationship to Endurance?

Strength & Power Work Enhances Endurance Performance

In contrast to the negative effects endurance work has for the strength and power athlete, strength and power work seem to benefit the endurance athlete.  Heavy strength training has been shown to increase running economy in triathletes, cross-country skiers, and cyclists.  Explosive (power) work has been shown to increase running economy (here, and here) when part of the runners’ endurance work was replaced with plyometric/jumping work.  There are many more studies with similar findings.  I’ve also posted a series Strength Training for Runners Part I and Part II that covers these issues.

Final Considerations

Please remember though that everyone is an experiment of one and that a program that works very well for one person may not work well at all for another. You may lie somewhere along a continuum. Perhaps you need more strength.  Perhaps you’re strong enough. The only way to find out is experiment and observe your results. Joel Freel offers a valuable observation on his blog:

“Will weight lifting help every athlete become more economical and therefore faster? Nope. I’ve coached a few endurance athletes who came to their sport with a long history of body building or power lifting. These athletes had plenty of strength. They needed less. Athletes who are the peak of performance probably won’t benefit either. If I took a Kenyan runner who had just won the New York City Marathon and put him on a weight lifting program for several weeks it’s doubtful he would be a better runner. But if someone who was a complete novice–say to cycling–lifted weights doing cycling-related strength exercises for several weeks he or she would undoubtedly improve cycling performance without even turning the cranks once. Most of us fall between these extremes. And most of us will improve our endurance performances by lifting weights. My experience tells me this is so.”

 

In my experience, it’s vital to recognize that if you’re increasing stress in one direction, then you must decrease stress in another.  For example, if you’re training for an endurance event then you must scale back your strength work.  Otherwise you’re stressing the organism too much and something’s going to break.

A little bit of strength and/or power work seem to compliment endurance work pretty well.  Err on the conservative side when deciding your loading parameters.  Two workouts per week at most seem ideal.  Select one or two exercises (squats and/or deadlifts for example for strength work; body weight jump exercises or barbell cleans for power work) and start with perhaps one set.  Next week add two sets followed by three sets the third week.  Don’t work to failure.  These workouts shouldn’t be terribly taxing.  See what happens.

My First Barefoot Excursion & What is Tightness?

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1st Barefoot Run

Anyone who reads this blog knows I’m a fan of minimal footwear.  I believe the best foot is a strong foot, not a foot that’s been made weak by modern “good shoes.” The foot has been a foot for a looooong time.  Relative to the span of human existence, “good shoes” and orthotic-type devices are a very new trinkets.  The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Gengis Khan’s Golden Horde, Comanches, Apaches, Aztecs, Zulus… and the vast majority of our fellow humans who’ve ever marched across the earth have done so while wearing nearly nothing on their feet.  It wasn’t until the 1970s that we got the modern running shoe from Nike.  In terms of research & development, one has a huge head start over the other. All kinds of new research suggests that “good shoes” may not be all that good for us at all.

While minimal shoes have gained in popularity so has barefoot running and I’ve pondered playing around with the concept.  So I was quite interested when our local running store the Runner’s Roost advertised a barefoot/minimal shoe seminar.  My wife and I attended the seminar last night and it was really fascinating.  It got me all excited to start experimenting in a shoeless direction.  Today was my first day out.

Of the four speakers, Michael Sandler of RunBare.com was the most interesting informative.  (Among other issues, he’s missing the anterior cruciate ligament on one leg–the result of a roller blade crash.  So for people who say running is bad for the knees, you might think again.  He was also an orthotic addict and orthotic designer.)  He suggested that newly barefoot runners must listen to their feet.  The moment you feel a little bit of irritation, the run is over.  Put on your shoes and come back to run barefoot another day.  He suggested a first barefoot run of 200 meters.  Then take a day off.  Next run is 300 meters.  Day off.  Next run is 400 meters and so on.  It is a very slow starting process this barefoot running.

So today I went for a walk with our dog.  It was great weather: sun and 70-ish degress.  I walked out barefoot but I had my shoes in a backpack.  I ran down the sidewalk to the end of our block.  My steps were very quick and light and everything felt fine.  First run done and done.  I walked another couple of blocks barefoot then put on the shoes.  No barefooting tomorrow but I plan to hit it again on Friday.  As I sit here writing this, my heel and Achilles pain is non-existent.  Seems like a good start.

What is Tightness?

In a somewhat different direction, one of my favorite exercise geek blogs is Begin to Dig.  It’s written by a fellow Z-Health practitioner, a woman named MC.  (I actually don’t know her full name.)  The latest post discusses the whys and hows of tight muscles and how to address them.  Among other things, she describes why using a foam roller is probably not the best idea.  If you want to learn a bit about the underlying cause(s) of tightness (first and foremost it’s all about your survival) then you should check it out.  Beyond that, there’s a lot more informative stuff on her blog about getting strong, lean, fast and pain-free.

60% Off Dues at the Cherry Creek Athletic Club

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The Cherry Creek Athletic Club (where I work) in Denver is offering big savings to members.  If you’re a Cherry Creek Athletic Club member you can save up to 60% off your dues if you refer a new member by the end of May.  Contact the membership office at 303.339.5467.  Or contact Jennifer Kueber at jkueber@cherrcreekclub.com.

I love working there.  It’s a first-class facility with all sorts of nice amenities.  Bring your friends.  Come check us out!

Shifting Gears from Strength to Endurance Work: Part I

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Springtime in Denver means it’s time to bicycle.  So now I’ve shifted my focus from heavy strength and power work to endurance work.  (I never did hit 500 lbs. on the deadlift.  I did however pull 435 lbs. for two reps.  I’m content with that.)  Endurance activity and strength/power work lie at two opposite ends of the exercise/movement/exertion continuum.  From what I’ve read and in my own personally experience, it’s very difficult if not impossible to develop a high-end level of strength while also training for an endurance event like the Sunrise Century (which I’ll be doing in June.)  Simply put, trying to maximize one area of performance means the other will suffer.  If you try to maximize all areas then you won’t reach your potential in any one.

Terminology: Endurance, Strength, Power

I’ll define some terms.  Endurance work is something like long distance cycling, running, or cross-country skiing.  These are long-duration activities executed well below the participants’ maximal abilities.

Maximal strength work is often a slow moving, short duration type of thing. If you attempt to lift a maximum weight you won’t be moving it very quickly. Heavy deadlifting, bench pressing and squatting typically move slowly. These activities can only be sustained for a very brief amount of time–several seconds at most–before the muscles fatigue significantly.

Power sports require a combination of strength and speed. Think of a shot putter, long jumper or an Olympic weight lifter. These athletes must move a fairly heavy object very quickly. Maximal power may be expressed in two seconds or less.  Power sports and endurance sports occupy the furthest opposite ends of the exercise spectrum.

So what happens if we decide to mix endurance work, strength work and power work together?

Endurance Work May Inhibit Strength Abilities

The National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA) offers a document titled Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training for Strength/Power Athletes.  Here we have evidence that suggests mixed results for combined strength and endurance work.  Several studies suggest that endurance work impedes strength gains.  Other studies show no interference.

Confusion and questions come up when we start to dissect the studies.  The article states:

“Differences between these studies may have been due to differences in the length of the studies, experience level of the subjects, and the training protocols utilized. For example, studies differed with respect to the specific exercises performed, whether strength and endurance training were performed on the same or different days per week, the sequence of training modes (strength before endurance or endurance before strength).”

We don’t have a definite answer to this question.

In my personal experience I run into difficulty if I ride/run a lot while also lifting a lot.  I become too sore and stiff from one activity to perform well at the other.  So I have to reduce one type of stress as I increase the other. Further, I find that riding my bike up mountains quite sufficiently addresses my strength needs. (Now we’re starting to get into the SAID Principle or Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.  Then we start to ask whether strength developed in the gym has any effect on strength expressed on a bike…)

In subsequent posts I’ll examine the effects of endurance work on power performance.  Then we’ll drive the other way up this street and ask the question, “To what degree does strength and power work affect endurance performance?”

 

 

The Dangers of Sitting & How to Fight Back With Z-Health

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I’m behind on the news here a little bit but a fascinating story appeared recently in the New York Times Magazine. Is Sitting a Lethal Activity discusses the idea that spending too much time sitting is harmful to our health.  In fact the article suggests the following:

“Sitting, it would seem, is an independent pathology.  Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterward or hit the gym.  It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin.  ‘Excessive sitting,’ Mayo Clinic researcher Dr. James Levine says, ‘is a lethal activity.'”

Okay, so this is no revelation to most of us.  We know that moving is generally healthier than sitting.  So if we exercise enough then we should be able to counteract the effects of sitting right?  Not so fast.  The Times article suggests that in fact we may not be able to exercise our way out of the risks of our seated lifestyle.  The article states:

“A growing body of inactivity research, however, suggests that this advice makes scarcely more sense than the notion that you could counter a pack-a-day smoking habit by jogging. ‘Exercise is not a perfect antidote for sitting,’ says Marc Hamilton, an inactivity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.”

So what does this mean?  It seem that according to the evidence in the article, sitting is unhealthy.  (Specifically we  might say that lack of movement not sitting in and of itself.) If we do too much of it we’ll get sick and die early–whether or not we exercise a lot.  This isn’t good!  Most of the Western world sits for a living.  We sit at computers.  Then we sit in cars for transportation.  Then for entertainment we sit in front of a television.  HOURS and HOURS of sitting is our way of life.  So what can we do?

Well, part of the research into this issue by Dr. Levine included the wearing of a special electronically wired “magic underwear” that measured the wearer’s movement.  The researchers found that healthier people moved more during the day but it wasn’t necessarily in the form of exercise.  They fidgeted more or simply engaged in many small movements throughout the day.  Even leaning down and tying a shoe can generate a burst of movement that should ultimately lead to better health. (The term for all this small, non-exercise movement is NEAT or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.  Read more about NEAT here, here and here.)

Z-Health R-Phase joint mobility drills are tailor made to address our modern lack of movement.  Any number of these drills directly counter the hours we spend immobilized in chairs.  Following are three joint mobility drills that you can perform while seated.  Moving our joints in these ways sends bursts of mechanoreceptor signals to the brain and basically lets the nervous system know that we’re still alive.

Wanna See Something Cool?

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Icelandic powerlifter Benedikt Magnússon (You’ve GOT to be strong with a name like that) recently recorded a world-record deadlift 1015 lbs!  He did this “raw,” meaning he wasn’t wearing a powerlifting suit. (In a nutshell, these suits are incredibly tight things that actually aid the effort of the lifter.  Lifting raw means someone is wearing something like a t-shirt and shorts.)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4jO21-a2W0

Okay, so I find this effort simply astonishing.  I love to deadlift so watching this is fun for me personally.  But what else do we see?  This large lad is graceful.  Elegant!  Look at the ease with which he performs the lift.  He makes it look easy.  He even gives a big grin to the crowd while he’s locked out at the top of the lift.  If you’re a Z-Health person, then this is exactly the sort of thing we want to strive for whether it’s during our joint mobility drills or our conventional “workout.”  Or for that matter, during your golf swing, tennis serve, swim stroke–whatever activity we’re doing.  To become excellent at something, we must establish precise command of all of our joints in every position at all speeds.

For further reading on creating excellent movement, I suggest you have a look at this article, Making the Hard Possible and the Easy Elegant from Todd Hargrove’s blog Better Movement.  He does a superb job at explaining concepts of movement, central nervous system function, proprioception and lots of other similar stuff.

Follow-up to Is Sugar Toxic?

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If you found the previous post interesting then you should read the following articles from the L.A. Times.  Sugar: The toxicity question and what to do about it cites the NY Times article on sugar and discusses the issue further.  Also from the L.A. Times is Food technology has been bad for human health since long before the invention of high-fructose corn syrup.  Bottom line, modern food technology and refinement aren’t doing the human race much good.  If it ain’t pulled off of a tree our out of the ground, or if it wasn’t recently running or swimming free, then you should reconsider eating it.