Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck, Brian over there,
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you
Speaker 1: should know about barefoot running. Colin, don't do it, Colin,
Speaker 1: says Chuck Colan, Josh says, do it if you want. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just because it's running, has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: being barefoot. Uh oh really, I got you. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not a fan of running. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love walking, but I don't think. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Have you just tried to walk faster? Oh?
Speaker 1: I walk exercise walk super fast? I'm kidding, By the way,
Speaker 1: walking fast and running are not the same thing. No, No,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, it's just a lot of wear
Speaker 1: on your body. I don't think humans we're meant to
Speaker 1: run like this. Well, and Chuck, you would be running
Speaker 1: a foul of an entire subgroup of people who believe
Speaker 1: that not only humans should be running barefoot, but that
Speaker 1: we're actually designed to run long distances. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: the idea was that we evolved and this sounds crazy
Speaker 1: to me. We evolved to run long distances so we
Speaker 1: could eventually just outrun animals who got tired before we did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Yeah, so animal just gonna run after this
Speaker 1: animal boar until it gets tired. Sure, that doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to you. Sure if that's true. Well that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like they could also spears and bows and arrows,
Speaker 1: which they did, which probably means they didn't like running
Speaker 1: after animals. Right, But if you speared an animal, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's gonna drop dead where you speared it.
Speaker 1: You might have to chase after it. Well, that's when
Speaker 1: you do the fast walk. Can you imagine like took
Speaker 1: Took doing like the sport walking over the tundra kind
Speaker 1: of because the nice it would be. Um, okay, so
Speaker 1: we should probably tell everybody what the heck we're talking
Speaker 1: about in general, So I'm out running without shoes yea,
Speaker 1: or with those minimal There are different versions of how
Speaker 1: minimal those shoes get. Yeah, so this this the whole thing,
Speaker 1: Like started this idea of like, hey man, you know
Speaker 1: those running shoes, you got chuck them off and just
Speaker 1: start running barefoot and you'll be glad that you did that.
Speaker 1: All started around two yeah yeah, um, and it is
Speaker 1: definitely hit its high water market, got a lot of press.
Speaker 1: It was a huge trend in running, and then it
Speaker 1: seems to have kind of crested and waned and now
Speaker 1: it's back. But the running world has changed forever because
Speaker 1: of it. But from what I understand, there's not like
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are barefoot running these days.
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I don't think it's has swept
Speaker 1: the nation. It did for a minute, but there are
Speaker 1: definitely people who adhere to the philosophy of your body
Speaker 1: will adjust because we were meant to. We ran barefoot
Speaker 1: for you know, eighty million years, right, Well, that's one
Speaker 1: of the implications of that is that and some people
Speaker 1: suspect not only are you supposed to run barefoot, but
Speaker 1: that running with shoes, including very expensive, highly designed running shoes,
Speaker 1: are actually going to increase your your chances of injury
Speaker 1: or that wear and tear on your joints. Now you're
Speaker 1: better off running barefoot. But sounds totally countertuitive until you
Speaker 1: stop and think, they say, hey, man, how long have
Speaker 1: we been running in running shoes? For shoes of any kind,
Speaker 1: I think the oldest shoes that um have been found
Speaker 1: were actually found in Oregon. Uh, and they're like ten
Speaker 1: thousand four years old. They're called Fort Rock sandals. They
Speaker 1: were called prefontaines. Right. Should we talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the history of the running shoe? Obviously not as
Speaker 1: long as that pretty exhaustive lists from mental itch. Um
Speaker 1: it it's supposedly the running shoe goes back a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred years. Yeah, something like that. The sneaker at
Speaker 1: least goes back a couple of hundred years. Um. I
Speaker 1: think in eighty two, a guy named Wait Webster. It's
Speaker 1: either wait or Wyatt, but it's spelled like weight W
Speaker 1: A n T. Anyway, we'll call him Senior Webster. He
Speaker 1: came up with a way of attaching a rubber soul
Speaker 1: to upper a shoe, um, which really kind of changed
Speaker 1: shoes in general. Like people were like, hey, these shoes
Speaker 1: are actually going to last, whereas before it was like
Speaker 1: all leather and they fell apart in the rain really quickly.
Speaker 1: These rubber souls could really kind of you know, take
Speaker 1: the take the impact that you put on your body
Speaker 1: when your foot hits the ground, and they weren't going
Speaker 1: to come apart because you could really attach him to
Speaker 1: an upper Yeah, and um, the word sneakers comes from
Speaker 1: the fact that they were quiet. They were the first
Speaker 1: shoes that didn't clip clap around like Jerry's elementary school
Speaker 1: principal shoes she had on last week. Uh. So they
Speaker 1: were sneaks or sneakers because you could sneak around. And
Speaker 1: I saw that that was invented by the British. But
Speaker 1: then the British went back to calling their sneakers. I
Speaker 1: think plim souls. That's what they call them today, is
Speaker 1: palm souls, which were like kids shoes back then, right,
Speaker 1: But we call them sneakers here, and then what we
Speaker 1: call running shoes they call trainers. Right. I think they
Speaker 1: still say trainers, don't they Yes, So I feel like yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think they still say plim souls and they
Speaker 1: still say garage lift and flat sure and lou and
Speaker 1: Lorie and all that, and aluminium and in herbs. Right.
Speaker 1: The only one I really take issue with is aluminium. Really,
Speaker 1: it's just wrong. I'm sorry, u K, but it's wrong.
Speaker 1: Even when like David Attenborough says it, or Richard Attenburgh
Speaker 1: or any Edinburgh I'm not saying it doesn't sound pleasant.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's wrong. Okay, okay, this was interesting too.
Speaker 1: The first I didn't know that Reebok went back so far.
Speaker 1: They were the Bolton Company initially Joseph William Foster was
Speaker 1: the founder. In eighteen fifty two he developed the first
Speaker 1: running spikes. And it sounds like in the eighteen sixties,
Speaker 1: for like the next decade, running spikes were just sort
Speaker 1: of shoes with spikes, like regular shoes with spikes on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you would hope that they'd flatten out the end
Speaker 1: that pressed against your feet, but I suspect that they
Speaker 1: didn't always, not to your satisfaction. Right. And then of
Speaker 1: course other developments in the seventies air cushion shoes, uh.
Speaker 1: And then eventually the the gel insert or not insert,
Speaker 1: but the gel cushion heel, and that was from a
Speaker 1: sex in the nineteen eighties. And I always thought that
Speaker 1: was kind of a scam, but apparently close to more
Speaker 1: displacement of impact than the air technology. Yeah. And the
Speaker 1: air technology had been invented I think a decade or
Speaker 1: so before NASA, right may by a guy named Frank
Speaker 1: Rudy and um he worked with Nike to add air
Speaker 1: to the souls so that this compressed gas would distribute
Speaker 1: the force that you were putting on your shoe and
Speaker 1: make it easier on your joints back up stream. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if you if you ask the shoe companies, they're
Speaker 1: saying that they have developed this technology over the years
Speaker 1: to help runners. If you asked a skeptic and a
Speaker 1: barefoot enthusiasts, they'll say, man, this running shoe thing is
Speaker 1: just a big marketing, money making scam, because they what
Speaker 1: they point to is, okay, the modern running shoe. Actually
Speaker 1: it was New Balance that came up with the modern
Speaker 1: running shoe in nineteen sixty that with their track Ster.
Speaker 1: But most people point to the seventies and Nikes waffles
Speaker 1: shoe is like the birth of the running shoe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because isn't that when running for exercise kind of really
Speaker 1: started as a mainstream thing. That's what I learned. That's
Speaker 1: what I learned from Forrest coump. Oh really is that
Speaker 1: in for cup Oh? Yeah? I remember he means running
Speaker 1: and he inadvertently starts the leisure running trend. Oh. I
Speaker 1: I didn't realize he was starting the trend. I just
Speaker 1: thought he was running, right, And then people started being like,
Speaker 1: what is that guy doing I'm gonna run alongside him,
Speaker 1: and he ended up starting the running jogging trend. And
Speaker 1: then movie goers sat in an audience and thought, why
Speaker 1: is this even in this dumb long movie. I like
Speaker 1: that movie. I don't know what you're talking about. You
Speaker 1: said something bad about it before. I have yet to
Speaker 1: see it since then, Oh since it came out. No, no,
Speaker 1: since you since you put it down weeks, you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it alright, which is rare. Maybe don't then, so,
Speaker 1: but they point to this, they say, Okay, from the seventies, um,
Speaker 1: when we started this running shoe thing, we uh we
Speaker 1: like injuries. Running injuries haven't gone down. In some cases,
Speaker 1: they've increased. And in fact, um things like uh, shin
Speaker 1: splints I believe, um planitis, knee injuries, and a couple
Speaker 1: other things have actually increased. So people are like, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what is going on here? If you
Speaker 1: stop and think about it. No one was really paying
Speaker 1: attention to it until two thousand and ten when a
Speaker 1: guy named Christopher McDougall came up with a book called
Speaker 1: Born to Run, and it's basically it makes the makes
Speaker 1: the case that like paleo does for dieting, that like,
Speaker 1: we have evolved to be a certain way to to
Speaker 1: behave under certain conditions, and our modern world has kind
Speaker 1: of taken that and co opted it and made, you know,
Speaker 1: messed everything up, and as a result, we're suffering from
Speaker 1: all these maladies. But rather than eating ultra process food
Speaker 1: is a paleo diet. Whole thing is based on this
Speaker 1: was that these modern running shoes were running in are
Speaker 1: actually causing injuries. We need to throw our shoes away
Speaker 1: and just run barefoot and we'll be better off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we have adapted our running to these shoes and
Speaker 1: we're not even supposed to run. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: the hole. I don't want to spoil anything by saying
Speaker 1: he'll first, but we'll get into that a little bit later.
Speaker 1: But he's saying we have a have to to run
Speaker 1: a certain way because of running shoes. And this is
Speaker 1: not how humans or not how the uh specifically the
Speaker 1: Tara Humara Indians. He's like, they don't get injured. They've
Speaker 1: been running barefoot for eons across long distances on all
Speaker 1: sorts of terrain. Yeah, they m the Taramara Indians. They
Speaker 1: are Huma. They live in northwestern Mexico. I believe, And
Speaker 1: they're known for running around barefoot or in like sandals
Speaker 1: that they make from old tires. And they they showed
Speaker 1: up at the Leadville Trail one hundred an ultra thon
Speaker 1: up a mountain peak and back down. They were like
Speaker 1: middle aged smoking before and I think during the race,
Speaker 1: maybe possibly drunk on corn or like some sort of
Speaker 1: moonshine at the time. Um, and we're just passing everybody
Speaker 1: without like seeing They didn't stretch, they didn't do anything,
Speaker 1: and they're passing some of the world's like most finely
Speaker 1: tuned old ultra marathon ors like it was nothing, and
Speaker 1: people are like, what is going on with these guys.
Speaker 1: They're not even wearing shoes, What's what's the deal here?
Speaker 1: They really kind of kick things off. They actually McDougall
Speaker 1: went and visited them, wrote an article about him and
Speaker 1: ended up writing a book on barefoot running based on
Speaker 1: his his experiences with them. That's awesome. Yeah, should we
Speaker 1: take a break? All right, we're taking a break. Yes,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Okay, So this guy, Christopher mcdood
Speaker 1: comes around Born to Run. I've seen it referred to
Speaker 1: as the most influential running book of all time. And
Speaker 1: greatest Springsteen album. That's more than I wonder if they're
Speaker 1: related in any way. Let me say this, if ever
Speaker 1: in his book he finishes a chapter with baby we
Speaker 1: Were Born to Run, then he should be he should
Speaker 1: have the pants suit off of him. Oh you don't
Speaker 1: think he should be maybe kissed lightly on the cheek
Speaker 1: for a witty Springsteen reference. He's already still in his title. Huh,
Speaker 1: how come on as the Boss? How's he stealing? Is?
Speaker 1: Ohas I thought he meant, like like his title, like
Speaker 1: his status title still still pretty recent after the new
Speaker 1: year of McDougall, the Boss, Like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: I've not seen him referred to. There's only one boss,
Speaker 1: But think about it. Jim Fix wrote, um, oh that
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was the actual title was,
Speaker 1: but it was like he wrote the book on running.
Speaker 1: Yeah I remember that. Okay, so the Art of Running
Speaker 1: the Joy of Running one of those two. And um,
Speaker 1: they're saying that this book was more influential. It just
Speaker 1: hit it just the right time. But not only did
Speaker 1: this book hit it just the right time, it came
Speaker 1: either right before or right after a study came out
Speaker 1: that basically said the same thing. That this other guy
Speaker 1: who's like one of the luminaries of the barefoot running world.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Daniel Lieberman. Yeah, he's a paleo anthropologist at Harvard,
Speaker 1: which means that he gets listened to when he talks.
Speaker 1: But he released the study with some co authors, I
Speaker 1: think in two thousand nine or the beginning of two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten that basically said, hey, man, um, if
Speaker 1: you run barefoot, your body is going to suffer far
Speaker 1: less than if you run in modern running shoes. And
Speaker 1: it was just a perfect timing with this book Born
Speaker 1: to Run, and the two together caught the attention of
Speaker 1: anybody who is into running at a time, and people
Speaker 1: started literally taking their shoes off and going and running
Speaker 1: and then hurting themselves pretty quickly. Yeah. And he would
Speaker 1: point to things like, uh, look, we've got Achilles tendons,
Speaker 1: we got these big knee joints, we have a big
Speaker 1: gluetyus Maximus, especially me, and he's like, we were kind
Speaker 1: of made to run these distances. Other people say, hey,
Speaker 1: we have those glutes because um, they're great for squatting
Speaker 1: and for foraging and pooping, let's be honest, and um,
Speaker 1: but you're right sure, And so there are competing theories
Speaker 1: out there because we don't know exactly for sure. But
Speaker 1: he basically says, the way the human body is put together,
Speaker 1: we don't need these shoes, and we were built to
Speaker 1: built to run, not born to run. Right. But the
Speaker 1: the other idea of this is is, and this is
Speaker 1: really why he uses to get people to to buy
Speaker 1: into it, is like we were we evolved to run
Speaker 1: this way. Running with shoes is unnatural. Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter who you are, even if you're super fit,
Speaker 1: if you're running with running shoes on and you're a runner,
Speaker 1: you have an eight chance of getting injured at some
Speaker 1: point eight out of ten people every year, he said, Yep,
Speaker 1: get injured every single year. And even if you're in
Speaker 1: like I said, super great shape and you run all
Speaker 1: the time. In fact, if you run all the time,
Speaker 1: you're probably more likely to get injured. Right, because again,
Speaker 1: we didn't evolve to wear super cushion e gel um
Speaker 1: shoes when we run. We were we evolved to run
Speaker 1: barefoot or maybe in some very thin's handles or something
Speaker 1: like that, minimalist shoe wear. Um. And he also said, well,
Speaker 1: some of the other modern problems that we have are
Speaker 1: some of the other problems that that just come along
Speaker 1: with walking around in these shoes, things like supernation pro nation,
Speaker 1: which I do. It's where you're where if you're when
Speaker 1: you're walking or running right, you're the inside of your
Speaker 1: heel is curved downward. So your shoes eventually when you
Speaker 1: look at the soul and the cushioning, they're worn on
Speaker 1: one side or the other. Yeah more, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I do that a little bit, Like I walk like
Speaker 1: verbal kint at the end of the usual suspects, basically
Speaker 1: from the looks of my shoes and the wear and
Speaker 1: tear on them. Yeah, might might actually wear a little bit,
Speaker 1: I think on the outside more than the inside. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that'd be supernation. That's supernation. They're there are two
Speaker 1: sides of the same problem, which is that your your feet,
Speaker 1: your heel is not landing in line in the same
Speaker 1: axis with the front. It's it's tilted. I think there's
Speaker 1: like three different things going on biomechanically. But what people
Speaker 1: like um Christopher McDougall and proponents of barefoot running say is, buddy,
Speaker 1: that's because you're walking on these padded um souls of
Speaker 1: shoes that like they're they're new. They haven't been around
Speaker 1: for more than for even half of a century. Yet
Speaker 1: we are feet are not designed to walk like this, um,
Speaker 1: and so that's why you're doing this. If you will
Speaker 1: stop running and shoes, your your pro nation or your
Speaker 1: supernation will actually fix itself. And there is some data
Speaker 1: that that is actually true, that that that those things
Speaker 1: biomechanical disorders can be fixed by running or walking barefoot.
Speaker 1: Other people say no, if you have a biomechanical order
Speaker 1: like supernation or pro nation, you have no business going barefoot.
Speaker 1: The barefoot proponents they do not listen to that guy.
Speaker 1: He's a dork. Uh. And then they say, you know,
Speaker 1: you really don't need to bring the name calling into this.
Speaker 1: They said, whatever, dork, Yeah, what did you say, dork?
Speaker 1: Remember in Police Academy where they wrote dorc on Mauser's
Speaker 1: chest with um suntan lotion. All right, you got a
Speaker 1: real red burn. Just realized I was reminiscing about Police Academy.
Speaker 1: I was just watching I'm watching the TV show Party
Speaker 1: Down for the third time now, and there's the grade up.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see that at all? And still have not?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a catering company in each episode is
Speaker 1: a different party, and there's one party where they go
Speaker 1: to Steve Guttenberg's house for his birthday party, and he
Speaker 1: he's like, oh man, I forgot, Like we actually had
Speaker 1: a surprise party my friends through for me, so there
Speaker 1: is no birthday party. But he's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: this to go to waste. Why don't you guys just
Speaker 1: come in and call your friends. We'll have a party.
Speaker 1: So it becomes like a party at the Goots house.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. It's a really good one. I'll bet that's
Speaker 1: that's probably how it would go down in real life.
Speaker 1: He at least seemed like a good guy on this
Speaker 1: fictional TV show. Who got their start on that show? Uh?
Speaker 1: I don't know about getting their start, I mean who's on.
Speaker 1: It starred Adam Scott and Kim Marino and Jane Jane Lynch.
Speaker 1: She didn't get her start on it, but she got
Speaker 1: it pre Glee and then had to leave the show
Speaker 1: when she got Glee. Megan Malali, Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: was like seven or eight years ago. I saw her
Speaker 1: on an episode of UM, maybe Law and Order or
Speaker 1: something like that old one, and she's like playing serious
Speaker 1: like pathologists showing I think Lenny Briscoe something in somebody's
Speaker 1: tissue or something like that. I was like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: Chane Lynched. It was. It was like a where she
Speaker 1: was like, am I a serious actress and my comedic
Speaker 1: actress both? Yeah? She was good. Christ and our buddy
Speaker 1: Christin Bell was on it. Martin Starr, Okay, maybe it
Speaker 1: was Kristin Bell. I was like, she didn't get her
Speaker 1: start though. Was that after Ronica Mars? Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: she sort of did a guest I guess starring thing,
Speaker 1: but it's Ken Marino at his best, and he's like
Speaker 1: one of my heroes Martin stars I'm freaking geeks. And
Speaker 1: then later on Silicon Valley, right, yes, okay, I love
Speaker 1: that guy. Yeah, he's great. He Actually, since we're already sidetracked,
Speaker 1: you should at some point try and bring yourself to
Speaker 1: listen to the Mark Maren episode with Martin Starr. Why
Speaker 1: would I have any trouble listening to Mark Maron? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Uh, really interesting guy, Martin Starr, I can
Speaker 1: only imagine and different than you might think. Oh really,
Speaker 1: is he really like twee and whimsical? No, he's very
Speaker 1: intense and uh hetty spiritual and hetty. Oh yeah, super smart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not that I thought he was dumb, but he can
Speaker 1: he can play that. I got all right, Where were we?
Speaker 1: We're talking about barefoot running and how some the people
Speaker 1: who are proponents say if you throw your shoes away,
Speaker 1: you will fix all these modern problems. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: idea is that you know, your your feet have these
Speaker 1: nerve endings that will give you feedback when you're making
Speaker 1: contact with the ground that you don't get when you're
Speaker 1: wearing these shoes, and they will tell you how to
Speaker 1: walk basically depending on what kind of terrain you're on,
Speaker 1: and your body adjust accordingly and had for many, many years.
Speaker 1: The other thing that they say is with um without shoes,
Speaker 1: you actually run differently than you do with shoes. And
Speaker 1: this seems to be the genuine article argument for or
Speaker 1: against barefoot running, and it seems to kind of land
Speaker 1: in favor of barefoot running to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: So should we talk about the the old heel first thing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll striking, Yeah, he'lls you know, when you run if
Speaker 1: someone cause I don't run, but if someone were to,
Speaker 1: you know, steal something from me on the street and
Speaker 1: I had to run you would see me take off
Speaker 1: down the road, and you would notice that my heels
Speaker 1: are striking the ground first and with a pretty great impact,
Speaker 1: and pool like me would see you and be like
Speaker 1: that's terrible form, yeah, and say you're never going to
Speaker 1: catch that guy. Just don't even bother. So when you
Speaker 1: run like that, it actually hurts pretty quickly, and you're
Speaker 1: actually propelling yourself in a weird way backwards, Like when
Speaker 1: you bring your heel down, your foot is up and
Speaker 1: your heel is actually hitting the ground at a direction
Speaker 1: opposite the direction that you're trying to go. If you
Speaker 1: like freeze frame that for it's a kind of a
Speaker 1: long running stride. That's what it would look like. So
Speaker 1: just as far as like running form goes, it's not
Speaker 1: a good way to run. Anybody who runs can tell
Speaker 1: you that you're not supposed to heal strike, although it
Speaker 1: feels very natural when you're in shoes, if you take
Speaker 1: off your shoes and you heel strike, you'll take about
Speaker 1: two steps and just your head will just explode with
Speaker 1: pain at your heel. Yeah, because your heel is not
Speaker 1: made to be run on. Now, if you lean forward
Speaker 1: and run on the mid the midfoot or the ball
Speaker 1: of your feet. You'll find run barefoot is much more comfortable.
Speaker 1: And that's what a lot of people who are proponents
Speaker 1: of barefoot running say is this is how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to run, and this is how barefoot running makes you run.
Speaker 1: When you wear shoes, it's much easier to heal strike.
Speaker 1: You have to remember not to do that right like
Speaker 1: a sprinter. When you see these Olympic sprinters, they're not
Speaker 1: heal striking right, They're they're pitched forward a bit and
Speaker 1: they're running up on the front or at least the
Speaker 1: mid of their foot. You see how fast they go.
Speaker 1: I took a running class once. No, No, it's like
Speaker 1: just to learn how to run better, just like out
Speaker 1: in the shop, out in the world. What's it called
Speaker 1: continuing education adult? It nights school, I think, um. And
Speaker 1: what I was taught was that running is falling forward
Speaker 1: and catching yourself over and over again. So the whole
Speaker 1: time you have to go right, will flail your arm basically. Um.
Speaker 1: But you do that in a controlled manner obviously. UM.
Speaker 1: But that's when when you when you learn that and
Speaker 1: you try it, it forces you to run on the
Speaker 1: balls or the midfoot. Midfoot's what I learned is the
Speaker 1: best way to do it. So you did this to
Speaker 1: learn like proper technique and stuff. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and once you once you try it, remind yourself that
Speaker 1: you you can actually feel yourself doing it and you
Speaker 1: realize you're in the right form when you feel like
Speaker 1: there's this slight falling forward sensation. Yeah. You know, the
Speaker 1: last time I was did any kind of running was
Speaker 1: when I was playing softball, which is all sprinting. And
Speaker 1: even for a guy with extra pounds I was. I
Speaker 1: was always pretty quick, believe it or not, birth to speed,
Speaker 1: burst of speed, and I would uh, I would just
Speaker 1: naturally Jerry's laughing over there. I would naturally run, um,
Speaker 1: not on my tippy toes, but kind of pretty far forward. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would mince toward that first base bag. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: people would be like, do you get that tinking sound?
Speaker 1: And look how fast that dude is. Is that a
Speaker 1: rainbow tree behind him in his wake? Yeah, he looks
Speaker 1: like he's about to fall over. And sometimes I did,
Speaker 1: oh really no, But I saw other other dudes. You know,
Speaker 1: this is an old bar guy league. So um, let's
Speaker 1: see some pretty funny running and some weird balance issues.
Speaker 1: Guys kind of falling down and tripping and clumsy because
Speaker 1: of all the drunkenness. And now we didn't drink before games.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well what about during? No, I didn't what
Speaker 1: about Okay, now they would go afterward, but I didn't
Speaker 1: socialize with this crowd much. You hated them so much.
Speaker 1: I was just the ace pitcher who would come in
Speaker 1: and then go home and like ice my elbow. Oh
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. You were like the closer. Huh. No,
Speaker 1: I pitched the whole game. Oh really, but I was
Speaker 1: a specialist. I got you specialisted just winning? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was it. All you do? Is that's it. Well, let's
Speaker 1: take a break, Chuck, because I feel like this is
Speaker 1: so far off the rails. I don't even remember what
Speaker 1: the topic is. All right, let's do it. So what
Speaker 1: is the topic? Barefoot running? And we should say that
Speaker 1: when we say barefoot, that there's a range of how
Speaker 1: bare your foot is. It can be completely bare some
Speaker 1: but some people just go completely foot naked. Um. Then
Speaker 1: there are these uh, I don't know what you call them.
Speaker 1: They're they're about as minimal as you can get. It's
Speaker 1: almost like a little tire flat, like you were saying
Speaker 1: it's called minimalist shoes. Yeah. It's just a really thin
Speaker 1: rubber sandal essentially, and I've seen that for running. But
Speaker 1: what I've mainly seen those four is just people saying
Speaker 1: just go out and be in the world and these things.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so are you talking about the sandal ones
Speaker 1: that like going between your your big toe in the
Speaker 1: next toes little webbing. Yeah, it's just like a shoe
Speaker 1: string and a piece of rubber. They also came up
Speaker 1: with shoes shoes that are are called minimal issues. There's
Speaker 1: much more to them than what you just described that.
Speaker 1: You know, they wrap around your the top of your
Speaker 1: foot but have a similar footbed. That shoe you you
Speaker 1: just mentioned is like the Tarma Tara Tara Maara Indian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they make theirs out of old tires, which is
Speaker 1: even Googler, you know, totally um So, so there is
Speaker 1: like different degrees of it. And the reason that people
Speaker 1: started wearing things that I think the company Vibrum made
Speaker 1: a sock with some tread on the bottom. Remember I
Speaker 1: got in trouble for bagging on those years ago five
Speaker 1: toad sock. Yeah, I made fun of those and people
Speaker 1: wrote in had their feelings hurt. Yes, I'll bet those.
Speaker 1: Some people do not wear those. Um. I remember going
Speaker 1: to a Cyndey Lauper concert with you me and there
Speaker 1: was a couple there and they were wearing matching vibrum shoes,
Speaker 1: sock shoes whatever, minimalist shoes, and where you guys like, hey,
Speaker 1: we should do that. I will never forget them. They
Speaker 1: looked like they could like they were going to it
Speaker 1: any minute, just just kind of go from walking on
Speaker 1: their feet to just walking on their hands and then
Speaker 1: back on their feet and then back on the head.
Speaker 1: That's just what they looked like for some reason, because
Speaker 1: they weren't wearing workout gear anything. This is like just
Speaker 1: the shoes they were wearing out there in the world
Speaker 1: because a lot of people say like, no, don't just
Speaker 1: do this for running, like do this for life basically? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I love I've always been a barefoot person.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I would play a lot
Speaker 1: in bare feet and always had really tough foot beds,
Speaker 1: natural foot beds. What do you call those soles of
Speaker 1: your feet? Yeah, they're always pretty tough and still are. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: Daniel Lieberman the paleo anthropologists did another study recently, I
Speaker 1: think in two nine, and he found that Um, I
Speaker 1: guess by the way, he won an ignoble prize for
Speaker 1: figuring out why pregnant women don't tip over back in
Speaker 1: like two nine. Yeah, what was the answer? The way
Speaker 1: that they leaned backward and there's additional lumbar support in
Speaker 1: their lower back, and I think maybe the way the
Speaker 1: fetus lays. It's all like just kind of that's how
Speaker 1: we've evolved to not fall over basically. But this more
Speaker 1: recent UM work, he went to Kenya and he studied
Speaker 1: uh native Kenyans, who basically lived their lives without wearing shoes.
Speaker 1: He studied Americans who have worn shoes their whole life,
Speaker 1: and then he studied Americans who wore shoes and then
Speaker 1: made the transition over to barefoot running. And he found
Speaker 1: that the Kenyan UM subjects all had deep callouses on
Speaker 1: their feet, so he thought that they would not be
Speaker 1: as sensitive, and he found that that's actually not the case.
Speaker 1: That they're much better off because they have these callouses,
Speaker 1: so their feet are naturally prevented from things like cuts
Speaker 1: and punctures and things like that because they're just tougher
Speaker 1: on the bottom. But the callouses don't cover up their
Speaker 1: nerve endings, so they're still feed coming from the ground.
Speaker 1: But the feet are also protected by the calluses, which
Speaker 1: is kind of surprising from what I understand. Right, and
Speaker 1: his buddy, the anthropologist Brian Richmond, who he worked with,
Speaker 1: I think he was from GW University. He's he was
Speaker 1: talking about the arch of the foot and those ligaments
Speaker 1: and he says, this thing stretch and contract every time
Speaker 1: you hit the ground, and that allows the calf muscle
Speaker 1: to act as a spring. Yes, so that's what I've
Speaker 1: seen barefoot running. Um. One of the reasons why they say,
Speaker 1: like no, it's just healthier and less injury prone is
Speaker 1: because of that the arch of your foot acting is
Speaker 1: a spring, and then your achilles heel and your calf
Speaker 1: muscle acting as a shock absorber. But that these are
Speaker 1: the things that come into play when you run on
Speaker 1: the ball of your foot or midfoot. When you heal strike,
Speaker 1: you are offloading that same force, maybe even more force,
Speaker 1: but the full weight of your body coming down on
Speaker 1: your heel, that doesn't utilize the calf or the Achilles tendon.
Speaker 1: It sends this shock wave of force back upward to
Speaker 1: your knees in your hips, and that that is why um,
Speaker 1: heel striking is so bad for you, whereas um, running
Speaker 1: on the ball of your feet is probably better, or
Speaker 1: is your midfoot is probably much better because that that
Speaker 1: force is distributed to the right places. In other words, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the skeptics will say, you know, you start you
Speaker 1: other than start running barefoot, you're gonna get hurt. And
Speaker 1: then adherents will say, that's because you just throw your
Speaker 1: shoes in the trash and go out into your workout routine.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you want to do this, you gotta
Speaker 1: really wade into this water very slowly. And they recommend
Speaker 1: even which sounds kind of silly, but they recommend doing
Speaker 1: something you probably do every day anyway, which is walking
Speaker 1: around your house with no shoes on if you're a
Speaker 1: normal human being. Yes, and then um, then start walking
Speaker 1: outside on different terrains, just walking without shoes on soft
Speaker 1: terrains first, yeah, you know, like dirt grass or something.
Speaker 1: Then working your way up to pavement and asphalt and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Then broken flaming glass. That's right, that's
Speaker 1: the final But they say you really got to work
Speaker 1: into it otherwise, like any radical new thing, you're gonna
Speaker 1: do to your body. You can't just shock it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not just because of your feet in the bottoms
Speaker 1: of your feet either. Um, you be tried the new
Speaker 1: balanced minimalists years and years maybe two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: something like that, And she had read like I think
Speaker 1: the people who solder the shoes even totally like opposite.
Speaker 1: They're like, do not do your normal run? Like do
Speaker 1: a third of it, I think, is what they said.
Speaker 1: And human's like nuts to that, and did her normal
Speaker 1: run maybe even then some And I thought she may
Speaker 1: have been crippled for life after, yes, because she was
Speaker 1: used to heal striking, because she's been running like everybody
Speaker 1: else this whole time, and all of a sudden she's
Speaker 1: running on the balls of her feet, not even her midfoot,
Speaker 1: the balls of her feet, so all that stuff is
Speaker 1: getting moved into the calf muscles, which just get overloaded
Speaker 1: with this workout and just later up for seriously, like
Speaker 1: about five days, she could not run. She was so sore.
Speaker 1: Could she walk or was she barely barely? Like the
Speaker 1: kind where you know, have have your muscle has ever
Speaker 1: been so sore that you feel like flu like almost
Speaker 1: like that? Yeah, like it was bad news, and she's like,
Speaker 1: you should try this, and I'm like, not on your life.
Speaker 1: That's very Uni like, like, yeah, they can't tell me
Speaker 1: what to do, right, Yeah, they don't know me. They
Speaker 1: must have been talking about themselves. That's great. And there
Speaker 1: is another study I think this was even from kind
Speaker 1: of late last year, that we found an outside magazine
Speaker 1: from a study that was in the Journal of Applied
Speaker 1: Physiology from Peter Wehend and his biomechanics group at s
Speaker 1: m U. That's Southern Methodist. I think there's some kind
Speaker 1: of a horse mascot the Stallions I just remember, I
Speaker 1: mean they were they didn't never mind the only do
Speaker 1: we really want to talk college football? The well, I
Speaker 1: mean you could everybody like volleyball or high a lie,
Speaker 1: it doesn't just have to be football. Well, that's true,
Speaker 1: that was some kind of a horse. You were so
Speaker 1: sec I am so uh. We should point out that
Speaker 1: when you're doing these kind of studies, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of ways to go about it. There's a something
Speaker 1: called a force measuring treadmill or a force plate that's
Speaker 1: kind of installed on the ground and you run on
Speaker 1: it and it really measures and can show a you know,
Speaker 1: a graph on a curve or a curve on a
Speaker 1: graph on where your foot is exactly striking. And what
Speaker 1: that means, right, It shows the force not not just
Speaker 1: like where like in space, it's more like it tracks
Speaker 1: the force over time. I think, Yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: how they're doing all this. They're not just kind of
Speaker 1: guessing by watching people. Right, this is Lieberman specifically, I
Speaker 1: think too. That's right. And by the way, there's somebody
Speaker 1: knocking somewhere in this building. We're trying to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of it. Jerry's walking around with a machete, right,
Speaker 1: but blood We're hoping we can get it out in
Speaker 1: the edit. But if you hear some knocking, we're really sorry.
Speaker 1: But I think you'll agree with us in this episode,
Speaker 1: it sincerely doesn't matter. It's probably like half of the
Speaker 1: normal amount of people listening at this point. So back
Speaker 1: to this study they're using, uh, they use this treadmill
Speaker 1: and these force plates, and what they are determined determining
Speaker 1: is something called the loading rate, which is how quickly
Speaker 1: that forces applied. Yeah, and what they found is that
Speaker 1: when your heel or the ball of your foot or
Speaker 1: wherever your foot strikes, there's like this initial force that
Speaker 1: is transferred through your body from the ground hitting from
Speaker 1: your foot hitting the ground right, which will show up
Speaker 1: as a spike on this graph right, depending on how
Speaker 1: quick that force is transferred. That's that loading rate, right,
Speaker 1: And then what follows is the rest of your body
Speaker 1: weight and it's reaching its lowest point in your stride,
Speaker 1: and then you go back up and push off the
Speaker 1: ground and you start all over again. That's like one
Speaker 1: stride and that's what these force plates measure. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: what they found is when you run on the ball
Speaker 1: or midfoot, when that's what touches the ground, that actually
Speaker 1: distributes and kind of prolongs that force long enough that
Speaker 1: it actually merges with that second that second introduction of
Speaker 1: force the rest of your body weight into basically one
Speaker 1: force curve. Yeah. I think for a while they looked
Speaker 1: at the spike and when they ran on the midfoot,
Speaker 1: that spike was gone. But what they determined was it's
Speaker 1: not gone at all. It is, like you said, just
Speaker 1: kind of covered up and merged with the other. But
Speaker 1: that was that early evidence from two ten that Lieberman
Speaker 1: came out with that supported Christopher McDougal's born to Run hypothesis.
Speaker 1: The spike wasn't there when you run barefoot, it is
Speaker 1: there when you run in shoes because you're heel striking.
Speaker 1: This leaves a really important question, though, Chuck, because so
Speaker 1: this new this new research is basically saying, like, all
Speaker 1: that off, that's not the case anymore. We just change
Speaker 1: our loading rate depending but it's ultimately the same amount
Speaker 1: of force getting transferred through the body, depending on what
Speaker 1: kind of shoe protection you're wearing. But I think, what
Speaker 1: what's weird to me and what I didn't understand with
Speaker 1: this new new research is if it's going to different places,
Speaker 1: If that shock is being absorbed by your achilles tendon
Speaker 1: and your calf rather than your knees and hips, who
Speaker 1: cares If the loading rate is the same, Um, it's
Speaker 1: going to different parts of your body in some parts
Speaker 1: are designed to handle um that shocked better than others.
Speaker 1: Is that what they're saying, like, Uh, you may be
Speaker 1: less likely to get injured because the parts of your
Speaker 1: legs that are affected are more capable of handling it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that when you run barefoot, because you're running on your
Speaker 1: fore foot or your midfoot and you're distributing that force
Speaker 1: to your calf and your Achilles tendant. That that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that you're less likely to get injured because of that,
Speaker 1: because you're taking that stress off of your knees and hips.
Speaker 1: My question is this, wouldn't you be better off than
Speaker 1: running in shoes but hitting your fore ft or midfoot
Speaker 1: best of both worlds in other words, which is probably?
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I do. So, I mean, of
Speaker 1: course it's there right doing great, But I think that
Speaker 1: that must be the case. But I didn't see anything
Speaker 1: where it's like this is definitive. Still after ten years
Speaker 1: of us being a huge trend, of a lot of
Speaker 1: studies being done, a lot of people who are very
Speaker 1: smart have thought about this, it's still not definitive what
Speaker 1: the best way to run is. And I think we
Speaker 1: go back to me, which is to not run right
Speaker 1: and just walk right. But I think the last thing
Speaker 1: thing that I saw from this is that, so if
Speaker 1: you like our track coach, they frequently now prescribe um
Speaker 1: running barefoot in the grass as a cool down after
Speaker 1: the race. Yeah. And then the other thing you'll see
Speaker 1: too is the era of the very chunky heel running
Speaker 1: shoe has kind of on because of this. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: feels like they've gotten a little leaner, haven't they. They
Speaker 1: have because when you have a chunky heel, what's called
Speaker 1: your shoe drop, which is the ratio of um where
Speaker 1: your heel lands in relation to the front of your foot.
Speaker 1: So like in the higher the shoe drop, the thicker
Speaker 1: the chunkier your heel is, it's impossible not to heal strike.
Speaker 1: So what they figured out is if you kind of
Speaker 1: drop that heel down more in line with the front
Speaker 1: of your foot, you can run on the front of
Speaker 1: your foot a lot more easily and not heal strike
Speaker 1: in your shoes. Yeah, those big, tall heeled running shoes too,
Speaker 1: are always made me more susceptible to an ankle turn
Speaker 1: as well. You know that just your you're kind of
Speaker 1: up there you are. It's kind of like walking in
Speaker 1: high heels or something. I wouldn't know about that, but
Speaker 1: you can imagine. Sure, okay, you got anything else. Nothing,
Speaker 1: So that's barefoot running. It sounds like the jury is
Speaker 1: still out everybody. But if you do get into barefoot running,
Speaker 1: do it slowly. Learn learn the lesson from you. Mar
Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for listener man, Hey, guys.
Speaker 1: On the safe Cracking episode, I was reminded of a
Speaker 1: track by Bristol based music producer in the UK Tricky
Speaker 1: We know Tricky, Sure, I think you gotta explain that
Speaker 1: to us. Come on, everybody knows Trickies from Bristol based
Speaker 1: which featured on an album he released called Product of
Speaker 1: the Environment. It was a series of interviews with old
Speaker 1: school London gangsters from the Create Twins era, telling their
Speaker 1: stories of lives of crime over trip hop beats. That
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. One of these was Bernie Lee, who learned
Speaker 1: his safe cracking trade while in prison. His favorite technique
Speaker 1: was to blow the doors off with nitroglycerin, which you
Speaker 1: touched on the episode, but not in that context. Check
Speaker 1: it out here insert hyperlink also MGE three seventy. At
Speaker 1: the end of the episode, the second one, Josh question
Speaker 1: the ability to tag all pieces of a plane with
Speaker 1: its call sign. Speculating on the existence of such tech,
Speaker 1: Chuck said that was the future. Well, it's actually the present.
Speaker 1: What smart water not the bottle Drinking water is a
Speaker 1: technology that encodes detailed info of a thing within water
Speaker 1: and then is applied to said thing, allowing that info
Speaker 1: to be read later on if necessary. The only problem
Speaker 1: it evaporates. It's apparently quite robust, so it doesn't simply
Speaker 1: wash off or whatever. But I don't have firstand experience,
Speaker 1: so it can't be exactly sure how it works or
Speaker 1: how it's read. BT Open Reach, the UK's main telecom
Speaker 1: network provider, uses it to tag the copper wires that
Speaker 1: make up the network, is a deterrent following a spade
Speaker 1: of copper theft about seven years ago. Interesting, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm losing my mind right now. That's from Liam.
Speaker 1: He says, big up. Thanks Liam. Here in the States
Speaker 1: we say big ups. That's right. They dropped the s there? Aluminum?
Speaker 1: Was that in this episode? Now? Can't you believe that
Speaker 1: this might be the longest episode we've ever done on nothing? Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch of this, like
Speaker 1: Liam did, you can go on to stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know dot com uh and who knows what's there these days? Instead,
Speaker 1: why don't you just send us an email, wrap it up,
Speaker 1: spank it on the bottom, and send it off to
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
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