Barefoot Running

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Episode 580 : Lee Saxby joins Vinnie in this 1 on 1 edition of the Celebrity Fitness trainer podcast to discuss the art of injury-free barefoot running, and how everyone is born to run.

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LEE SAXBY

• The Godfather of Barefoot Running
• Check out his website here 
• Pursues injury free, barefoot running

BAREFOOT RUNNING

• Jogging book from the 70s
  • Jogging is the same thing as race-walking
  • When you are barefoot, your brain KNOWS when to break into a run due to force
    • When you have rubber (heel) under your foot, your body doesn’t know when to run vs. jog, which can hurt you
• Lee’s epiphany came in the year 2000, in Kenya
  • He saw lots of kids running barefoot and he saw how everyone had the same running technique
    • Biomechanically, running barefoot forced them to
      • Lower impact for them!
      • The best runners come out of East Africa, so there Lee saw a correlation
• Lee saw that there was a definite difference in running depending on where they ran (endurance running)
  • Forefoot on hard ground
  • Heel-strike on grass
  • They didn’t realize what they were doing — instincts and biomechanics kicked in
• Your foot is constantly trying to find the ground — it cannot do that if you have tennis shoes on
• Lee will film people with shoes vs no shoes
  • The more padding in the shoe, the longer their feet stick to the ground
    • This is an issue and can cause extra strain

CORRECTING A BAD RUNNER

• Many people never heel-strike which causes lots of pain to achilles and other tendons
• Lee tries to educate people simply
  • Educating trainers to what good running looks like
    • To do this he has a certification program

BORN TO RUN

• People looked at Chris McDougall’s book as a bible which wasn’t the best idea
• Both do love the book, though
• McDougall had plantar fasciitis in 2010 and Lee Saxby helped fix that by changing his running style
  • Those toe-shoes are not the cure-all, good running technique is
  • Both Vinnie and Lee owned these Vibrum’s before realizing they weren’t the right move
  • The 5 finger can hurt those with broad feet, cause knee injuries, etc
  • They were more of a fashion statement than a functional shoe
  • Vinnie had issues with them on long runs
  • Your running style has to be good for these to work
  • You’re better off going actually barefoot if you are able