¶ Exploring Barefoot Running and Shoe Technology
So you're thinking about running , but not sure how to take the first step . My name's Brian Patterson and I'm here to help , and welcome to Brian's Rompod .
Barefoot running is the way forward , so let's take off our nice thick cushioned , sold in-soul trainers and let's stick on a pair of five fingers and go out and run , and then we go . Actually , there's no transition in terms of the technique change that needs to happen for one to get on with those types of shoes .
So then they were seen as the devil because it was blowing everyone's Achilles and everyone was getting stress fractures in their feet because they haven't done it .
Was it based on a tribe , or is it a South American tribe or something like ?
that ?
Yeah , they've been doing that for years and years and it's kind of ingrained in their DNA or something that may be you .
Yeah , even the DNA point is an interesting one , because our kind of , to a certain extent , our genetics do have a part to play , but not as big a part , as you would think . I think the main point is you , as you say there is actually they've always done it .
Our bodies are incredibly adaptable and are absolutely unbelievably good at conditioning themselves to the stresses that we put on it , and so , actually , if we've done that from 10 months , 11 months , 12 months old and I've never worn a pair of shoes , then actually I'm not going to have a problem running there for when . I'm 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 .
It's those extremes and the load management again of if I am used to wearing a trainer and then I take that away . I need to give my body ample adaptation time to get used to this change in environment and this change in stress and this change in scenario .
And that's typically where things go wrong is that we don't give ourselves potentially enough time to adapt . It's not on the kind of footwear side of things .
Obviously , there's a lot made of these super shoes with the Berlin Marathon last week and women's world record dropping by two minutes and everyone going Because I listened to the runners world podcast and they were saying that this kind of filters down .
Does this mean that with these particular shoes that it is making in running too expensive ? You're getting some manufacturers and I think it's added as you you're in these really expensive shoes which will only last 50 miles ? I know , I know , I know they're super light , or something like that .
So where it's always useful to have a sponsorship , yeah , exactly .
When that kind of made . That's maybe another argument .
I think it's one of those ones where , along the same lines as the VO2 max testing mode and the lactate testing and that side , of things is that when you are elite , it will make a difference .
It's simple as that .
And that is and certainly that's without taking anything away from the athlete , because actually all you are doing is you are taking an unbelievably well trained ridiculously fast athlete and giving them the best possible chance of being even faster .
What I would argue is that if you are a club runner , if you are a weekend runner , if you are a once or twice a week runner , then the benefit that you will see from other areas in your training will potentially far outweigh spending 400 quid on a pair of shoes every month or so , because you trash them , because they don't last , and actually a 400 pound
pair of shoes isn't going to make you take you from a 40 minute 5K to a 16 minute 5K . So , it's also putting into perspective actually what that footwear does and who it does it for as well . To go Obviously , you will still see big improvements in your PBs .
You will still see big improvements in your running quality if you adapt the running technique or the strength or the flexibility . And again going back to our running assessment , yes , we do video and yes , we do have a look at your actual running gate in terms of your running style .
But underpinning that is are you strong enough and are you flexible enough to get into the positions that perfect technique looks like ? Again , perfect technique .
That might be an argument for another day in terms of body's perfect technique , because that is very dependent on the person , but I think conditioning and capacity to load your body repetitively over and over again as you do in running . I think how it weighs potentially some of the technique and the kit and the other areas that we're talking about there .
And that boy was down Certainly to strength , I would say so you said that on the cadence side we just take it with a bit of a pinch of soul , yeah , sort of thing .
So not take the 180 beats a minute with a bit of a pinch of salt because , depending on your , your kind of body type and body shape , you you may find that actually you fall off the other end of 180 beats a minute just being way too fast .
Yes , I've tried .
And it might be that if we looked at you , for instance , brian , it might be that we go okay , look , if this guy is potentially got a natural comfy cadence of a hundred and forty beats a minute , then a forty beat a minute difference is just totally 160 , yeah , so which I think most yeah .
Yeah , and that's where some of the kind of some of the follow-up research around the hundred and eighty beats a minute Then started to look at okay , if we are using cadence to make adaptations to run gate . Can we see at what point that happens ?
And so it might be that for you , if you're running around that hundred and sixty beats a minute , there was a couple of studies I should have . Should have dug them out , but there was a couple of studies looking at six , eight , ten , twelve percent and cadence increases relative to your natural running pace .
So it might be that if you're at a hundred and sixty beats a minute and you dial your cadence up to a hundred and sixty , eight hundred and seventy , a hundred and seventy two , that is more than enough of a change right 180 beats a minute .
Yeah , would you do that as part of a kind of like an interval , like four hundred , four hundred with the increased , okay , and then , and then a four hundred rest exactly , yeah , so it may be that again , that partly depends on what your Strength and what your muscle capacity is like , because typically if you are more of a heel striker and you automatically
Then start to change your cadence and run more on your forefoot , we know that will load your calves more . You will be more fatigued through your calves . Right , I like to flip down its head and go . Do you have calf capacity to allow that change to happen ?
Oh , I see , oh , I see where you can , so do we need to do ?
a potentially a little bit of kind of benchmark strength testing and Strength exercising to get us ready for those changes , because otherwise it gets pretty miserable if after every run your calves feel too led weights and you're Hopping around for a day or so yeah , so if we're saying , like you said , if you were looking to do that , increase the cadence .
But basically we would have to do some form of conditioning , potentially to you to get there . So , yeah , you know , because otherwise I know I'm gonna come
¶ Improve Running Performance and Strength
back to you the following week . I said , aaron , I'm trying to do hundred and seventy .
Just can't .
I just can't do it . But would you say you , would you advise someone , say , when you don't heel strike or do you go maybe on the front foot and Try to that , that kind of thing or would you ? Maybe swing strap . But , would you watch them on the treadmill and they say , we'll just change this and that's what it should feel like ?
Because I always think it's that very much that feel your spot on there In that .
Actually , that again is something else over the years , when you start to look at G running pose , running barefoot , running all of these different ways of actually skinning the same cap Basically yeah , we're trying to get as fast as we can from a to b .
So when you look and you compare some of the , some of the the theories and some of the kind of technique Tips , that all of those different types of training and and types of theories and suggest they are very similar , they're just different ways of queuing the same change or the the , the similar technique change and I think sometimes when you start to almost
when you start to do too much reading , or start to start to change too Too much in one go , there's only so much your brain is going to allow you to do , and we are talking about . Movements that are happening in fractions of a second as well . So , yeah , how realistic is it for you to , For you to be able to change that by going ?
Oh yeah , I need my .
Four foot to land , yeah three millimeters further forward than .
I am currently , it's just completely unrealistic . What we look to do is drive that change by putting you into positions that you can't do anything but that change .
If that , makes sense interesting and so that's where sometimes , when you mention about doing kind of intervals to bring the , to bring the cadence up , I'd be looking at can we get If we were using cadence as a cue ? Can we get cadence reliable regardless of what speed you are going ?
Yeah , because it needs to be . You know thinking about it .
No , you know exactly yeah , so it might be that we do have an external cue or a metronome be going along at a particular cadence and I am thinking about can I hit my foot on the floor ? To the time of that bit . The big thing with it is , particularly if you're training outside . Speed will increase cadence .
Of course yes , as a referral .
So typically what you will find is the first mistake people make when they're trying to adapt their cadence is that they just run faster everywhere and then they get out of puff everywhere and then they think , oh God , cadence changes .
And for me , because I can't hold it and actually it's almost about saying that's not going to bring about necessarily the technique change that we're after .
And do we have to ?
set the speed at a constant interesting and then increase the cadence to make that adaptation happen . And so that's where sometimes not not saying all the time , but sometimes some treadmill work or some- set work because you're going at a set distance . Exactly .
You're constantly aware of the speed that you are going and then , in effect , you start to increase the cadence for the same speed . You're going to have to change that , that running stride , to make the difference .
Yeah , so all of these things that we have to consider Okay , so we looked at and that was really quite informative quite a lot . Is there anything in the upper body that people could improve upon ? Or is it your elbows connected to your arm and it all connects together , sort of thing ? But if I noticed that in that little video we did on the website .
You know it was showing that the lady was , you know , from side to side , her arms going side to side , that kind of thing . So is there anything in terms of the technique from your upper body that or that people could improve upon ?
Yeah , absolutely , and so , again , what we've got to have a look at is why that's happening in the first place . So when you're running , typically if you're driving with one leg , you're swinging with the opposite leg .
Your drive basically comes from opposite arm and opposite leg , and so to get that drive from opposite arm and opposite leg it has to transition through something in the middle .
Right .
Your abs , your obliques , your glutes , your back muscles , your lats . So it's one of those areas of going . If I see a crossbody swing or a lot of rotation going on through someone's upper body , I'm always asking the question of is that counteracting something that's not happening elsewhere ?
So , again , if we've got a lot of potentially rotational instability through the hips and the pelvis , it might be , that I have to swing my arm in a certain position to try and keep tension and keep me on the straight and narrow , really .
So again , it may be as simple as technique change of don't swing your arms like that , swing them like this , but it could also be okay if we then test your abdominal strength and your glute strength and your pelvic strength .
Actually , we need to bump that up a bit and then technique starts to sort itself out , because you don't need to compensate for what's letting you down elsewhere , and I know I've swung it around to strength again , but it's one of those areas .
Because , in a way , what you're saying is that , because of the way you're running , there are your body is giving signals as to why it is running .
The way it is .
And that , for instance , the arm swinging or whatever , or even your stride length and that kind of thing . But , it may be , like you said , there may be other factors that play out Exactly .
And it's one of those areas that , again , I would say , in the vast majority of the people that we see through the clinic , they all run because they love running . They don't like the gym necessarily . They don't like pushing weights , Don't like anything else Actually .
I've run , because I like running , and then what we've got to have a look at from a potentially from a performance or from an injury risk perspective is can we cross-train ? Can we add a bit of strength in somewhere to make sure that actually movement efficiency is there to allow us to push our bodies to the levels that we want to push them to ?
And so that's where things like your couch to 5k is a great way of gradual , gentle exposure to running stresses . Typically , everyone gets a bit bored and a bit impatient midway through a couch to 5k and goes out . If I can run , to 5k . I'm sure 5k is okay . And it goes back to that exposure to stresses thing again .
And if we don't have the underpinning strength and the underpinning stability to cope with that , then we just potentially increase our injury risk . And so there's some some strength work and some strength assessments that we can do .
That gives us a rough idea as to what your output is going to be and whether you're going to be able to cope with the kind of the level of running or speed of running or the intensity of training that you're looking to so could you , when you maybe prescribe ?
the strength work . Do you know that ? Okay , if you can do this in terms of your strength work , then let's have a look .
Yes , you're running again re-assess and that kind of thing .
Exactly . And hey , presto you , we know , yeah , exactly , and it is like that .
Yeah , it's hey Presto . So if you're , struggling to make that technique change ? Why are you struggling to make that technique change ? Or , if you blow up after 10 miles of a half marathon , why can't you ? Why can't you do that last three miles ? Is it just an endurance thing , or is ?
it a power thing , or is ?
it a kind of max strength thing , or are you just going off too fast ? So , there's all of these different reasons as to why you're potentially missing the goals that you're aiming for , and then , yeah , we boil it down and go . Well , here's the factor that we're going to change , and most so , time Presto , here we go .
You've got a good half marathon , or you've got a good 10K .
Yeah , I could talk to you for ages , but I do have really one burning question . Is that if you were doing let's say you're prescribing the strength work ?
is it ?
better to do strength , endurance or low reps , strength , all that is it , yeah .
You're looking at it , I'm thinking best answer for that .
So let's say for instance , I have a gym membership . And he said great , brian , okay , we know that you need to improve strength in these areas and you go on either , whatever machines or free weights , whatever what you're looking at .
Typically it will be . It will depend on the stage of training and where you are in your training program . So what we've got to think about when it comes to strength typically is it's like a pyramid . So your neuromuscular and your coordination and your balance and all of that sort of stuff will underpin will be bottom level of the pyramid .
It's the widest portion . That's your base . So the more coordinated , balanced , controlled you are , the more you can then add strength endurance on , and so that is , as you mentioned , low weight , high rep , repetitive , over and over and over . Then we've got our kind of hypertrophy phase , which is to do with actually muscle bulk and muscle sites .
So , if you can imagine , we'll go through to the peak first and then come back down Once we've got our hypertrophy , we've got our muscle size , then it's about max strength . It's about okay , I've got a muscle , what can I train its output to get ?
Up to , and so that's where we start to lean towards those kind of lower reps , higher weights and that side of things . And then the kind of the peak , the point of the pyramid typically is power , and so that's where we're looking at , in effect , the two below plus speed .
So it's actually can I put down max output at pace , and so that's what creates power basically .
¶ Strength Training for Runners Importance
So if we flip it the other way around , can I be powerful if I haven't got absolute max strength ? If I'm not getting everything out of a muscle that I can , I'm never going to necessarily reach that peak . That peak isn't going to be as high as it potentially could be .
I can't get max strength if I don't have muscle size necessarily and that doesn't mean that everyone needs to be bodybuilding . This is more about a power to weight ratio or anything else ?
Because even when you look at the sort of inverted commas skinny marathon runners and skinny endurance runners the power output relative to their kilo of body weight is gigantic . So then we go back down to I can't really be strong unless I've got muscle size .
The muscle size can't build consistently If I don't have the endurance to stress it repetitively to make it stronger . So we come back down the pyramid of going early doors .
In your training program it might be that we do a lot of light weight , repetitive and high rep movements , but as we start to build that up we've got to look to potentially increasing max strength and increasing power to then get that real output and real hit the ground with purpose to propel ourselves forward .
So it may be that you start off doing that kind of muscle endurance and then you assess and then maybe bring it .
Exactly , and so that's where it gets quite interesting when you do start to drop strength training into a runners program , because they will be spending so much of their time slogging themselves to death , probably up and down the topos behind us . Looking at their time going .
I need to work hard , I need to work hard , I need to hit these time intervals and actually , if they just have more strength , they'd hit those intervals without really I know I interviewed Stuart Hayes and one of the things that he said because I know he started when I knew him 20 odd years ago he wished he had a much more bespoke strength coach in his
early as a junior triathlete , I think , and he would have . He felt he would have completely been performed better sort of thing . Yeah , yeah , yeah , but I don't know whether it was because triathlon was a new sport then , and I don't know .
Yeah , I think there's a lot of that . I think the nice thing is that in this day and age , there is so much more money in research , there's so much more money in sport , there's so much more data , there's so much availability or long term data . Now to go OK , look , this is what we did 20 years ago . How does it compare to what we did 10 years ago ?
What are the athletes like five years ago ?
So , it's not to me any real surprise that , as that gets more detailed , particularly at elite level , it's not necessarily a surprise that these kind of records are falling , because everything now is dealt with to the end degree there is no stone that goes unturned with these elite athletes , and I think it's one of those areas that then , when it filters down to
a fairly average runner like me , we can sometimes get bogged down in almost trying to be too detailed with the programming and think about too many of these very fine , very fine restrictions in terms of what I shouldn't be doing , when actually , if I , like I say , generally get stronger and I'm in the right kind of ballpark in terms of my technique , then I'll
actually see PB's improving quite well . There's a guy I work with stands out . This is going back probably a good eight , 10 years , and I know this is anecdotal data .
N equals .
one is always going to show a difference , but he was a mid 50s runner , still a very good runner . He was a 306 runner . He came to me having basically missed sub three a number of times in his marathon kind of journey and said , look , next year I've got the comrades run . So the ultra in South Africa , that's a race . My B races is Silverstone .
Yeah .
Half and he was doing a marathon . I think it was Berlin or I can't remember what marathon it was . What's going to make me I don't want to get injured , okay , and I want to be quicker . What's what's going to do it for me ?
And again , it was one of those prime examples where you look at it and actually his training program was in the right realms and his effort was absolutely in the right realms and his motivation was good and his hydration and his nutrition were good and he didn't do any strength work , any flexibility , any real kind of outside of running .
He didn't do much else . And all we did was we tweaked his run program and we said , okay , look , rather than putting the extra tempo run in , because I don't want to run you into the ground , we'll take one of those tempo sessions out and we'll replace it with a gym session .
And that year he went from a 306 marathon and scrambling around for five seconds , 10 seconds , 12 second PBs here and there , and he dropped his time to a 248 from the 606 marathon Wow .
And that was in realistically about six to nine months of solid strength training on top of what he was doing , training wise , but yeah he literally took 18 minutes off his marathon from just training differently and training what he needed rather than what he thought he needed .
Yeah , I can't believe we nearly died now because I thought you were eight . Sorry , but just I was going to ask you do you because there's so much for the layperson information out there in terms of smart watches , Gaj , a lot of , a lot of resources Do you think there's too much , or is it ? Do we get paralysis by analysis type of thing ?
Yeah .
The Strava and they're all great and whatever we're on just as guilty as anyone doing , but I just like to know what your , what your view of it is in terms of I , I think all technology is great technology .
I think , it has brought the elite level analysis to everyone now , but you make a good point . I think there is a massive portion of that is paralysis by analysis . It is that case of there is now so much information that a lot of people worry about what they shouldn't shouldn't be doing more than they ever used to .
And so there is an element where I think , certainly even in , even in my career , there was that case of going , of potentially over complicating certain situations and then when you step back and you whittle it down to what it actually is , it's relatively simple to to to change things .
Certainly in , certainly in the avid runner , it is useful to use Strava or watches or whatever , just to keep an eye on . Actually , have I got any big blips in training ?
was last week I ran 15 miles and this week I've run 25 miles and you look back at it and go , oh God , actually I've put a 40% increase on my miles without even really thinking about it . And going back to that kind of load management , point I made .
It can be quite useful to just keep a running sort of tally on on what stage of your training you're at and whether you're seeing any of these big spikes and these big peaks and troughs in your training , because that's where injury risks starts to really increase . I would say the Sometimes .
The drawback of looking at that stuff in too much detail day on day is that then you expect a PB every run and that realistically just isn't going to happen .
I'm also . The other thing is because I know lockdown or whatever you know . Maybe I was doing I don't know 620 , 615 a kilometer speed and I'm still doing that sort of thing .
Although I don't , I was probably doing more mileage then and I was feeling fitter Only because I was doing more , whereas now I can't do it because it's life in general , work and whatever sort of thing .
Like you said , it's not , there's going to be this kind of increase and you're getting faster , whatever , because a you're not an athlete , athlete and B think other things get in the way .
Yeah , absolutely . I think it's been being positive around that of going actually yeah , things get in the way and that's fine .
Don't beat yourself up about it . But , also .
it's one of those things of going yeah , if you were comfortably running 615 , 620 , 6 months ago , a year ago , and you've not trained consistently since , Then I can't imagine going out and running a 605 tomorrow is necessarily going to be a realistic or be sustainable in the long term , because it's that that notch up , but there's a way of doing it , there's a
way of going about that and then it's really . It's really about seeing what , in terms of your training , what fits life what is realistic in terms of training , because we could all go yeah , I've got enough time to train Seven days a week , and then you go , actually I don't . We put a seven day a week program together and then go .
Actually I'm only getting two or three of those sessions done , whereas if we're up front at the start and we go look , I've got two or three sessions a week to solve this , then it means we just tailor that training to get as best as we possibly can out of those two or three sessions a week and it will still get you results .
It will still get you progress .
Like someone said , it's not that fascination , it's about the journey . My last question and you've been brilliant , Thank you very much . Do you have any sporting ? I don't know . Do you admire anyone within the sporting realm or is there anyone ?
Anyone in the sporting realm ? In the past or In the past there are . Yeah , I would say that there's a lot of names that come out there . I think you've got . I've treated some of them . There was a lady I would say , certainly from a sort of success point of view there's .
I won't name her , but she won't know who she is , but it was a lady who came to me with a with an on-off history , with grade three , four college , wearing both knees . She was a very good hiking mountaineer , ultra runner , but was breaking down every other week or a month .
And actually she again took it on herself to change her ways and change her training and do whatever she needed to do together , sorted , and I think , again with her , it was just that drive to continue . It was impressive , yeah .
And she then ended up going from being told is ultra running a good idea on those knees to to , you know , winning the spine race , winning the archivatrition these are big , multi-day long events and actually getting to a position where she could do it and that was all about perseverance , consistency , doing what she needed to do , loading herself and keeping eyes on
the price , basically , yeah . So yeah , I would say there's . I'm lucky enough to work with all of these people day in , day out and actually , whether that be someone who's managed their first 5k for their in their life or up to to those kind of levels , yeah , there's always inspiring stories and inspiring people around it really .
Okay , as I said , I go to talk to you for ages , but is there anything like to promote ? I don't know if you're on social media , or I know you've got the website which is move , move , physio , move , physio , yeah .
So I would say , if there's anything , if any of it's resonated with you in particular , come and see us , brian . But but yeah , certainly I would say if you need any more information , we're always at the end of the email , yeah .
We're always at the
¶ Finding Options for Experimental Health
end of the call .
So even if it's that case of you're not really sure what you need or when you need it or what might be an option , let us know MovePhysiocouk or infomovephysiocouk .
There's a form I think you can fill in . Yeah , exactly yeah .
There's a contact form there .
Yeah .
I would say don't . Don't suffer in silence . There is always a way .
Yeah , it's just finding what that means , like we said right at the beginning , in terms of it is a holistic thing , exactly For experimental health , which is especially and if you can patch someone up , then you're doing a hell of a lot for them .
But okay , Thank you very much , Sharon for coming . Thanks for having me .