January 23, 2020 • 41 mins
What is barefoot running? I think you know. But we'll detail all of the ins and outs. Listen and learn!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck, Brian over there,
and there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you
should know about barefoot running. Colin, don't do it, Colin,
(00:26):
says Chuck Colan, Josh says, do it if you want. Oh,
it's just because it's running, has nothing to do with
being barefoot. Uh oh really, I got you. Yeah, man,
I don't know. I'm not a fan of running. I
love it. I love walking, but I don't think. I
don't know. Have you just tried to walk faster? Oh?
I walk exercise walk super fast? I'm kidding, By the way,
(00:49):
walking fast and running are not the same thing. No, No,
I don't know, man, it's just a lot of wear
on your body. I don't think humans we're meant to
run like this. Well, and Chuck, you would be running
a foul of an entire subgroup of people who believe
that not only humans should be running barefoot, but that
we're actually designed to run long distances. Yeah. I think
(01:13):
the idea was that we evolved and this sounds crazy
to me. We evolved to run long distances so we
could eventually just outrun animals who got tired before we did. Yeah,
that's crazy. Yeah, so animal just gonna run after this
animal boar until it gets tired. Sure, that doesn't make
sense to you. Sure if that's true. Well that's the thing.
(01:38):
It's like they could also spears and bows and arrows,
which they did, which probably means they didn't like running
after animals. Right, But if you speared an animal, it
doesn't mean it's gonna drop dead where you speared it.
You might have to chase after it. Well, that's when
you do the fast walk. Can you imagine like took
Took doing like the sport walking over the tundra kind
(01:59):
of because the nice it would be. Um, okay, so
we should probably tell everybody what the heck we're talking
about in general, So I'm out running without shoes yea,
or with those minimal There are different versions of how
minimal those shoes get. Yeah, so this this the whole thing,
Like started this idea of like, hey man, you know
(02:21):
those running shoes, you got chuck them off and just
start running barefoot and you'll be glad that you did that.
All started around two yeah yeah, um, and it is
definitely hit its high water market, got a lot of press.
It was a huge trend in running, and then it
seems to have kind of crested and waned and now
(02:42):
it's back. But the running world has changed forever because
of it. But from what I understand, there's not like
a lot of people who are barefoot running these days.
I don't. I mean, I don't think it's has swept
the nation. It did for a minute, but there are
definitely people who adhere to the philosophy of your body
will adjust because we were meant to. We ran barefoot
(03:06):
for you know, eighty million years, right, Well, that's one
of the implications of that is that and some people
suspect not only are you supposed to run barefoot, but
that running with shoes, including very expensive, highly designed running shoes,
are actually going to increase your your chances of injury
(03:27):
or that wear and tear on your joints. Now you're
better off running barefoot. But sounds totally countertuitive until you
stop and think, they say, hey, man, how long have
we been running in running shoes? For shoes of any kind,
I think the oldest shoes that um have been found
were actually found in Oregon. Uh, and they're like ten
thousand four years old. They're called Fort Rock sandals. They
(03:47):
were called prefontaines. Right. Should we talk a little bit
about the history of the running shoe? Obviously not as
long as that pretty exhaustive lists from mental itch. Um
it it's supposedly the running shoe goes back a couple
of hundred years. Yeah, something like that. The sneaker at
least goes back a couple of hundred years. Um. I
(04:09):
think in eighty two, a guy named Wait Webster. It's
either wait or Wyatt, but it's spelled like weight W
A n T. Anyway, we'll call him Senior Webster. He
came up with a way of attaching a rubber soul
to upper a shoe, um, which really kind of changed
(04:31):
shoes in general. Like people were like, hey, these shoes
are actually going to last, whereas before it was like
all leather and they fell apart in the rain really quickly.
These rubber souls could really kind of you know, take
the take the impact that you put on your body
when your foot hits the ground, and they weren't going
to come apart because you could really attach him to
an upper Yeah, and um, the word sneakers comes from
(04:53):
the fact that they were quiet. They were the first
shoes that didn't clip clap around like Jerry's elementary school
principal shoes she had on last week. Uh. So they
were sneaks or sneakers because you could sneak around. And
I saw that that was invented by the British. But
then the British went back to calling their sneakers. I
(05:13):
think plim souls. That's what they call them today, is
palm souls, which were like kids shoes back then, right,
But we call them sneakers here, and then what we
call running shoes they call trainers. Right. I think they
still say trainers, don't they Yes, So I feel like yeah,
and I think they still say plim souls and they
still say garage lift and flat sure and lou and
Lorie and all that, and aluminium and in herbs. Right.
(05:38):
The only one I really take issue with is aluminium. Really,
it's just wrong. I'm sorry, u K, but it's wrong.
Even when like David Attenborough says it, or Richard Attenburgh
or any Edinburgh I'm not saying it doesn't sound pleasant.
I'm just saying it's wrong. Okay, okay, this was interesting too.
The first I didn't know that Reebok went back so far.
(05:59):
They were the Bolton Company initially Joseph William Foster was
the founder. In eighteen fifty two he developed the first
running spikes. And it sounds like in the eighteen sixties,
for like the next decade, running spikes were just sort
of shoes with spikes, like regular shoes with spikes on them. Yeah,
and you would hope that they'd flatten out the end
(06:19):
that pressed against your feet, but I suspect that they
didn't always, not to your satisfaction. Right. And then of
course other developments in the seventies air cushion shoes, uh.
And then eventually the the gel insert or not insert,
but the gel cushion heel, and that was from a
sex in the nineteen eighties. And I always thought that
(06:41):
was kind of a scam, but apparently close to more
displacement of impact than the air technology. Yeah. And the
air technology had been invented I think a decade or
so before NASA, right may by a guy named Frank
Rudy and um he worked with Nike to add air
to the souls so that this compressed gas would distribute
(07:04):
the force that you were putting on your shoe and
make it easier on your joints back up stream. Yeah,
but if you if you ask the shoe companies, they're
saying that they have developed this technology over the years
to help runners. If you asked a skeptic and a
barefoot enthusiasts, they'll say, man, this running shoe thing is
just a big marketing, money making scam, because they what
(07:27):
they point to is, okay, the modern running shoe. Actually
it was New Balance that came up with the modern
running shoe in nineteen sixty that with their track Ster.
But most people point to the seventies and Nikes waffles
shoe is like the birth of the running shoe. Yeah,
because isn't that when running for exercise kind of really
started as a mainstream thing. That's what I learned. That's
(07:49):
what I learned from Forrest coump. Oh really is that
in for cup Oh? Yeah? I remember he means running
and he inadvertently starts the leisure running trend. Oh. I
I didn't realize he was starting the trend. I just
thought he was running, right, And then people started being like,
what is that guy doing I'm gonna run alongside him,
and he ended up starting the running jogging trend. And
(08:10):
then movie goers sat in an audience and thought, why
is this even in this dumb long movie. I like
that movie. I don't know what you're talking about. You
said something bad about it before. I have yet to
see it since then, Oh since it came out. No, no,
since you since you put it down weeks, you haven't
seen it alright, which is rare. Maybe don't then, so,
(08:31):
but they point to this, they say, Okay, from the seventies, um,
when we started this running shoe thing, we uh we
like injuries. Running injuries haven't gone down. In some cases,
they've increased. And in fact, um things like uh, shin
splints I believe, um planitis, knee injuries, and a couple
(08:54):
other things have actually increased. So people are like, well,
wait a minute, what is going on here? If you
stop and think about it. No one was really paying
attention to it until two thousand and ten when a
guy named Christopher McDougall came up with a book called
Born to Run, and it's basically it makes the makes
the case that like paleo does for dieting, that like,
(09:18):
we have evolved to be a certain way to to
behave under certain conditions, and our modern world has kind
of taken that and co opted it and made, you know,
messed everything up, and as a result, we're suffering from
all these maladies. But rather than eating ultra process food
is a paleo diet. Whole thing is based on this
was that these modern running shoes were running in are
(09:40):
actually causing injuries. We need to throw our shoes away
and just run barefoot and we'll be better off. Yeah,
because we have adapted our running to these shoes and
we're not even supposed to run. And we'll get into
the hole. I don't want to spoil anything by saying
he'll first, but we'll get into that a little bit later.
But he's saying we have a have to to run
(10:00):
a certain way because of running shoes. And this is
not how humans or not how the uh specifically the
Tara Humara Indians. He's like, they don't get injured. They've
been running barefoot for eons across long distances on all
sorts of terrain. Yeah, they m the Taramara Indians. They
are Huma. They live in northwestern Mexico. I believe, And
(10:24):
they're known for running around barefoot or in like sandals
that they make from old tires. And they they showed
up at the Leadville Trail one hundred an ultra thon
up a mountain peak and back down. They were like
middle aged smoking before and I think during the race,
maybe possibly drunk on corn or like some sort of
(10:46):
moonshine at the time. Um, and we're just passing everybody
without like seeing They didn't stretch, they didn't do anything,
and they're passing some of the world's like most finely
tuned old ultra marathon ors like it was nothing, and
people are like, what is going on with these guys.
They're not even wearing shoes, What's what's the deal here?
They really kind of kick things off. They actually McDougall
(11:09):
went and visited them, wrote an article about him and
ended up writing a book on barefoot running based on
his his experiences with them. That's awesome. Yeah, should we
take a break? All right, we're taking a break. Yes,
we'll be right back. Okay, So this guy, Christopher mcdood
(11:45):
comes around Born to Run. I've seen it referred to
as the most influential running book of all time. And
greatest Springsteen album. That's more than I wonder if they're
related in any way. Let me say this, if ever
in his book he finishes a chapter with baby we
Were Born to Run, then he should be he should
have the pants suit off of him. Oh you don't
(12:05):
think he should be maybe kissed lightly on the cheek
for a witty Springsteen reference. He's already still in his title. Huh,
how come on as the Boss? How's he stealing? Is?
Ohas I thought he meant, like like his title, like
his status title still still pretty recent after the new
(12:28):
year of McDougall, the Boss, Like, what are you talking about?
I've not seen him referred to. There's only one boss,
But think about it. Jim Fix wrote, um, oh that
I can't remember what it was the actual title was,
but it was like he wrote the book on running.
Yeah I remember that. Okay, so the Art of Running
the Joy of Running one of those two. And um,
they're saying that this book was more influential. It just
(12:51):
hit it just the right time. But not only did
this book hit it just the right time, it came
either right before or right after a study came out
that basically said the same thing. That this other guy
who's like one of the luminaries of the barefoot running world.
Oh yeah, Daniel Lieberman. Yeah, he's a paleo anthropologist at Harvard,
which means that he gets listened to when he talks.
(13:12):
But he released the study with some co authors, I
think in two thousand nine or the beginning of two
thousand and ten that basically said, hey, man, um, if
you run barefoot, your body is going to suffer far
less than if you run in modern running shoes. And
it was just a perfect timing with this book Born
to Run, and the two together caught the attention of
(13:34):
anybody who is into running at a time, and people
started literally taking their shoes off and going and running
and then hurting themselves pretty quickly. Yeah. And he would
point to things like, uh, look, we've got Achilles tendons,
we got these big knee joints, we have a big
gluetyus Maximus, especially me, and he's like, we were kind
(13:56):
of made to run these distances. Other people say, hey,
we have those glutes because um, they're great for squatting
and for foraging and pooping, let's be honest, and um,
but you're right sure, And so there are competing theories
out there because we don't know exactly for sure. But
he basically says, the way the human body is put together,
(14:17):
we don't need these shoes, and we were built to
built to run, not born to run. Right. But the
the other idea of this is is, and this is
really why he uses to get people to to buy
into it, is like we were we evolved to run
this way. Running with shoes is unnatural. Yeah, And it
(14:37):
doesn't matter who you are, even if you're super fit,
if you're running with running shoes on and you're a runner,
you have an eight chance of getting injured at some
point eight out of ten people every year, he said, Yep,
get injured every single year. And even if you're in
like I said, super great shape and you run all
(14:58):
the time. In fact, if you run all the time,
you're probably more likely to get injured. Right, because again,
we didn't evolve to wear super cushion e gel um
shoes when we run. We were we evolved to run
barefoot or maybe in some very thin's handles or something
like that, minimalist shoe wear. Um. And he also said, well,
(15:20):
some of the other modern problems that we have are
some of the other problems that that just come along
with walking around in these shoes, things like supernation pro nation,
which I do. It's where you're where if you're when
you're walking or running right, you're the inside of your
heel is curved downward. So your shoes eventually when you
look at the soul and the cushioning, they're worn on
(15:43):
one side or the other. Yeah more, Yeah, I think
I do that a little bit, Like I walk like
verbal kint at the end of the usual suspects, basically
from the looks of my shoes and the wear and
tear on them. Yeah, might might actually wear a little bit,
I think on the outside more than the inside. Okay,
so that'd be supernation. That's supernation. They're there are two
(16:05):
sides of the same problem, which is that your your feet,
your heel is not landing in line in the same
axis with the front. It's it's tilted. I think there's
like three different things going on biomechanically. But what people
like um Christopher McDougall and proponents of barefoot running say is, buddy,
that's because you're walking on these padded um souls of
(16:30):
shoes that like they're they're new. They haven't been around
for more than for even half of a century. Yet
we are feet are not designed to walk like this, um,
and so that's why you're doing this. If you will
stop running and shoes, your your pro nation or your
supernation will actually fix itself. And there is some data
that that is actually true, that that that those things
(16:51):
biomechanical disorders can be fixed by running or walking barefoot.
Other people say no, if you have a biomechanical order
like supernation or pro nation, you have no business going barefoot.
The barefoot proponents they do not listen to that guy.
He's a dork. Uh. And then they say, you know,
you really don't need to bring the name calling into this.
(17:13):
They said, whatever, dork, Yeah, what did you say, dork?
Remember in Police Academy where they wrote dorc on Mauser's
chest with um suntan lotion. All right, you got a
real red burn. Just realized I was reminiscing about Police Academy.
I was just watching I'm watching the TV show Party
Down for the third time now, and there's the grade up.
(17:35):
Did you ever see that at all? And still have not?
You know, it's a catering company in each episode is
a different party, and there's one party where they go
to Steve Guttenberg's house for his birthday party, and he
he's like, oh man, I forgot, Like we actually had
a surprise party my friends through for me, so there
is no birthday party. But he's like, I don't want
this to go to waste. Why don't you guys just
(17:56):
come in and call your friends. We'll have a party.
So it becomes like a party at the Goots house.
That's awesome. It's a really good one. I'll bet that's
that's probably how it would go down in real life.
He at least seemed like a good guy on this
fictional TV show. Who got their start on that show? Uh?
I don't know about getting their start, I mean who's on.
It starred Adam Scott and Kim Marino and Jane Jane Lynch.
(18:20):
She didn't get her start on it, but she got
it pre Glee and then had to leave the show
when she got Glee. Megan Malali, Yeah, I think it
was like seven or eight years ago. I saw her
on an episode of UM, maybe Law and Order or
something like that old one, and she's like playing serious
like pathologists showing I think Lenny Briscoe something in somebody's
(18:44):
tissue or something like that. I was like, oh, that's
Chane Lynched. It was. It was like a where she
was like, am I a serious actress and my comedic
actress both? Yeah? She was good. Christ and our buddy
Christin Bell was on it. Martin Starr, Okay, maybe it
was Kristin Bell. I was like, she didn't get her
start though. Was that after Ronica Mars? Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
she sort of did a guest I guess starring thing,
(19:05):
but it's Ken Marino at his best, and he's like
one of my heroes Martin stars I'm freaking geeks. And
then later on Silicon Valley, right, yes, okay, I love
that guy. Yeah, he's great. He Actually, since we're already sidetracked,
you should at some point try and bring yourself to
listen to the Mark Maren episode with Martin Starr. Why
would I have any trouble listening to Mark Maron? I
(19:25):
don't know, Uh, really interesting guy, Martin Starr, I can
only imagine and different than you might think. Oh really,
is he really like twee and whimsical? No, he's very
intense and uh hetty spiritual and hetty. Oh yeah, super smart. Yeah,
not that I thought he was dumb, but he can
(19:45):
he can play that. I got all right, Where were we?
We're talking about barefoot running and how some the people
who are proponents say if you throw your shoes away,
you will fix all these modern problems. Yeah. So the
idea is that you know, your your feet have these
nerve endings that will give you feedback when you're making
contact with the ground that you don't get when you're
(20:07):
wearing these shoes, and they will tell you how to
walk basically depending on what kind of terrain you're on,
and your body adjust accordingly and had for many, many years.
The other thing that they say is with um without shoes,
you actually run differently than you do with shoes. And
(20:27):
this seems to be the genuine article argument for or
against barefoot running, and it seems to kind of land
in favor of barefoot running to tell you the truth.
So should we talk about the the old heel first thing? Yeah,
he'll striking, Yeah, he'lls you know, when you run if
someone cause I don't run, but if someone were to,
you know, steal something from me on the street and
(20:50):
I had to run you would see me take off
down the road, and you would notice that my heels
are striking the ground first and with a pretty great impact,
and pool like me would see you and be like
that's terrible form, yeah, and say you're never going to
catch that guy. Just don't even bother. So when you
run like that, it actually hurts pretty quickly, and you're
(21:11):
actually propelling yourself in a weird way backwards, Like when
you bring your heel down, your foot is up and
your heel is actually hitting the ground at a direction
opposite the direction that you're trying to go. If you
like freeze frame that for it's a kind of a
long running stride. That's what it would look like. So
(21:32):
just as far as like running form goes, it's not
a good way to run. Anybody who runs can tell
you that you're not supposed to heal strike, although it
feels very natural when you're in shoes, if you take
off your shoes and you heel strike, you'll take about
two steps and just your head will just explode with
pain at your heel. Yeah, because your heel is not
made to be run on. Now, if you lean forward
(21:54):
and run on the mid the midfoot or the ball
of your feet. You'll find run barefoot is much more comfortable.
And that's what a lot of people who are proponents
of barefoot running say is this is how you're supposed
to run, and this is how barefoot running makes you run.
When you wear shoes, it's much easier to heal strike.
(22:14):
You have to remember not to do that right like
a sprinter. When you see these Olympic sprinters, they're not
heal striking right, They're they're pitched forward a bit and
they're running up on the front or at least the
mid of their foot. You see how fast they go.
I took a running class once. No, No, it's like
just to learn how to run better, just like out
(22:34):
in the shop, out in the world. What's it called
continuing education adult? It nights school, I think, um. And
what I was taught was that running is falling forward
and catching yourself over and over again. So the whole
time you have to go right, will flail your arm basically. Um.
(22:56):
But you do that in a controlled manner obviously. UM.
But that's when when you when you learn that and
you try it, it forces you to run on the
balls or the midfoot. Midfoot's what I learned is the
best way to do it. So you did this to
learn like proper technique and stuff. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah,
and once you once you try it, remind yourself that
(23:17):
you you can actually feel yourself doing it and you
realize you're in the right form when you feel like
there's this slight falling forward sensation. Yeah. You know, the
last time I was did any kind of running was
when I was playing softball, which is all sprinting. And
even for a guy with extra pounds I was. I
was always pretty quick, believe it or not, birth to speed,
(23:39):
burst of speed, and I would uh, I would just
naturally Jerry's laughing over there. I would naturally run, um,
not on my tippy toes, but kind of pretty far forward. Yeah.
I would mince toward that first base bag. Yeah, And
people would be like, do you get that tinking sound?
And look how fast that dude is. Is that a
(23:59):
rainbow tree behind him in his wake? Yeah, he looks
like he's about to fall over. And sometimes I did,
oh really no, But I saw other other dudes. You know,
this is an old bar guy league. So um, let's
see some pretty funny running and some weird balance issues.
Guys kind of falling down and tripping and clumsy because
(24:19):
of all the drunkenness. And now we didn't drink before games.
But yeah, well what about during? No, I didn't what
about Okay, now they would go afterward, but I didn't
socialize with this crowd much. You hated them so much.
I was just the ace pitcher who would come in
and then go home and like ice my elbow. Oh
that's pretty cool. You were like the closer. Huh. No,
I pitched the whole game. Oh really, but I was
(24:40):
a specialist. I got you specialisted just winning? Yeah, that
was it. All you do? Is that's it. Well, let's
take a break, Chuck, because I feel like this is
so far off the rails. I don't even remember what
the topic is. All right, let's do it. So what
(25:15):
is the topic? Barefoot running? And we should say that
when we say barefoot, that there's a range of how
bare your foot is. It can be completely bare some
but some people just go completely foot naked. Um. Then
there are these uh, I don't know what you call them.
(25:36):
They're they're about as minimal as you can get. It's
almost like a little tire flat, like you were saying
it's called minimalist shoes. Yeah. It's just a really thin
rubber sandal essentially, and I've seen that for running. But
what I've mainly seen those four is just people saying
just go out and be in the world and these things.
Oh okay, so are you talking about the sandal ones
(25:57):
that like going between your your big toe in the
next toes little webbing. Yeah, it's just like a shoe
string and a piece of rubber. They also came up
with shoes shoes that are are called minimal issues. There's
much more to them than what you just described that.
You know, they wrap around your the top of your
foot but have a similar footbed. That shoe you you
just mentioned is like the Tarma Tara Tara Maara Indian. Yeah,
(26:24):
but they make theirs out of old tires, which is
even Googler, you know, totally um So, so there is
like different degrees of it. And the reason that people
started wearing things that I think the company Vibrum made
a sock with some tread on the bottom. Remember I
got in trouble for bagging on those years ago five
toad sock. Yeah, I made fun of those and people
(26:45):
wrote in had their feelings hurt. Yes, I'll bet those.
Some people do not wear those. Um. I remember going
to a Cyndey Lauper concert with you me and there
was a couple there and they were wearing matching vibrum shoes,
sock shoes whatever, minimalist shoes, and where you guys like, hey,
we should do that. I will never forget them. They
(27:05):
looked like they could like they were going to it
any minute, just just kind of go from walking on
their feet to just walking on their hands and then
back on their feet and then back on the head.
That's just what they looked like for some reason, because
they weren't wearing workout gear anything. This is like just
the shoes they were wearing out there in the world
because a lot of people say like, no, don't just
do this for running, like do this for life basically? Yeah,
(27:27):
I mean, I love I've always been a barefoot person.
When I was a kid, I would play a lot
in bare feet and always had really tough foot beds,
natural foot beds. What do you call those soles of
your feet? Yeah, they're always pretty tough and still are. Yeah. Well,
Daniel Lieberman the paleo anthropologists did another study recently, I
(27:47):
think in two nine, and he found that Um, I
guess by the way, he won an ignoble prize for
figuring out why pregnant women don't tip over back in
like two nine. Yeah, what was the answer? The way
that they leaned backward and there's additional lumbar support in
their lower back, and I think maybe the way the
(28:09):
fetus lays. It's all like just kind of that's how
we've evolved to not fall over basically. But this more
recent UM work, he went to Kenya and he studied
uh native Kenyans, who basically lived their lives without wearing shoes.
He studied Americans who have worn shoes their whole life,
and then he studied Americans who wore shoes and then
(28:31):
made the transition over to barefoot running. And he found
that the Kenyan UM subjects all had deep callouses on
their feet, so he thought that they would not be
as sensitive, and he found that that's actually not the case.
That they're much better off because they have these callouses,
so their feet are naturally prevented from things like cuts
(28:51):
and punctures and things like that because they're just tougher
on the bottom. But the callouses don't cover up their
nerve endings, so they're still feed coming from the ground.
But the feet are also protected by the calluses, which
is kind of surprising from what I understand. Right, and
his buddy, the anthropologist Brian Richmond, who he worked with,
(29:12):
I think he was from GW University. He's he was
talking about the arch of the foot and those ligaments
and he says, this thing stretch and contract every time
you hit the ground, and that allows the calf muscle
to act as a spring. Yes, so that's what I've
seen barefoot running. Um. One of the reasons why they say,
like no, it's just healthier and less injury prone is
because of that the arch of your foot acting is
(29:35):
a spring, and then your achilles heel and your calf
muscle acting as a shock absorber. But that these are
the things that come into play when you run on
the ball of your foot or midfoot. When you heal strike,
you are offloading that same force, maybe even more force,
but the full weight of your body coming down on
your heel, that doesn't utilize the calf or the Achilles tendon.
(30:00):
It sends this shock wave of force back upward to
your knees in your hips, and that that is why um,
heel striking is so bad for you, whereas um, running
on the ball of your feet is probably better, or
is your midfoot is probably much better because that that
force is distributed to the right places. In other words, Yeah,
(30:22):
and the skeptics will say, you know, you start you
other than start running barefoot, you're gonna get hurt. And
then adherents will say, that's because you just throw your
shoes in the trash and go out into your workout routine.
It's like, if you want to do this, you gotta
really wade into this water very slowly. And they recommend
even which sounds kind of silly, but they recommend doing
(30:44):
something you probably do every day anyway, which is walking
around your house with no shoes on if you're a
normal human being. Yes, and then um, then start walking
outside on different terrains, just walking without shoes on soft
terrains first, yeah, you know, like dirt grass or something.
Then working your way up to pavement and asphalt and
stuff like that. Then broken flaming glass. That's right, that's
(31:06):
the final But they say you really got to work
into it otherwise, like any radical new thing, you're gonna
do to your body. You can't just shock it. Yeah,
and not just because of your feet in the bottoms
of your feet either. Um, you be tried the new
balanced minimalists years and years maybe two thousand and eleven,
something like that, And she had read like I think
(31:29):
the people who solder the shoes even totally like opposite.
They're like, do not do your normal run? Like do
a third of it, I think, is what they said.
And human's like nuts to that, and did her normal
run maybe even then some And I thought she may
have been crippled for life after, yes, because she was
used to heal striking, because she's been running like everybody
(31:50):
else this whole time, and all of a sudden she's
running on the balls of her feet, not even her midfoot,
the balls of her feet, so all that stuff is
getting moved into the calf muscles, which just get overloaded
with this workout and just later up for seriously, like
about five days, she could not run. She was so sore.
Could she walk or was she barely barely? Like the
(32:11):
kind where you know, have have your muscle has ever
been so sore that you feel like flu like almost
like that? Yeah, like it was bad news, and she's like,
you should try this, and I'm like, not on your life.
That's very Uni like, like, yeah, they can't tell me
what to do, right, Yeah, they don't know me. They
must have been talking about themselves. That's great. And there
(32:32):
is another study I think this was even from kind
of late last year, that we found an outside magazine
from a study that was in the Journal of Applied
Physiology from Peter Wehend and his biomechanics group at s
m U. That's Southern Methodist. I think there's some kind
of a horse mascot the Stallions I just remember, I
(32:57):
mean they were they didn't never mind the only do
we really want to talk college football? The well, I
mean you could everybody like volleyball or high a lie,
it doesn't just have to be football. Well, that's true,
that was some kind of a horse. You were so
sec I am so uh. We should point out that
when you're doing these kind of studies, there are a
couple of ways to go about it. There's a something
(33:18):
called a force measuring treadmill or a force plate that's
kind of installed on the ground and you run on
it and it really measures and can show a you know,
a graph on a curve or a curve on a
graph on where your foot is exactly striking. And what
that means, right, It shows the force not not just
like where like in space, it's more like it tracks
(33:39):
the force over time. I think, Yeah, so this is
how they're doing all this. They're not just kind of
guessing by watching people. Right, this is Lieberman specifically, I
think too. That's right. And by the way, there's somebody
knocking somewhere in this building. We're trying to get to
the bottom of it. Jerry's walking around with a machete, right,
but blood We're hoping we can get it out in
(34:02):
the edit. But if you hear some knocking, we're really sorry.
But I think you'll agree with us in this episode,
it sincerely doesn't matter. It's probably like half of the
normal amount of people listening at this point. So back
to this study they're using, uh, they use this treadmill
and these force plates, and what they are determined determining
(34:24):
is something called the loading rate, which is how quickly
that forces applied. Yeah, and what they found is that
when your heel or the ball of your foot or
wherever your foot strikes, there's like this initial force that
is transferred through your body from the ground hitting from
your foot hitting the ground right, which will show up
as a spike on this graph right, depending on how
(34:45):
quick that force is transferred. That's that loading rate, right,
And then what follows is the rest of your body
weight and it's reaching its lowest point in your stride,
and then you go back up and push off the
ground and you start all over again. That's like one
stride and that's what these force plates measure. Yeah, but
what they found is when you run on the ball
(35:06):
or midfoot, when that's what touches the ground, that actually
distributes and kind of prolongs that force long enough that
it actually merges with that second that second introduction of
force the rest of your body weight into basically one
force curve. Yeah. I think for a while they looked
(35:28):
at the spike and when they ran on the midfoot,
that spike was gone. But what they determined was it's
not gone at all. It is, like you said, just
kind of covered up and merged with the other. But
that was that early evidence from two ten that Lieberman
came out with that supported Christopher McDougal's born to Run hypothesis.
The spike wasn't there when you run barefoot, it is
(35:50):
there when you run in shoes because you're heel striking.
This leaves a really important question, though, Chuck, because so
this new this new research is basically saying, like, all
that off, that's not the case anymore. We just change
our loading rate depending but it's ultimately the same amount
of force getting transferred through the body, depending on what
kind of shoe protection you're wearing. But I think, what
(36:12):
what's weird to me and what I didn't understand with
this new new research is if it's going to different places,
If that shock is being absorbed by your achilles tendon
and your calf rather than your knees and hips, who
cares If the loading rate is the same, Um, it's
going to different parts of your body in some parts
are designed to handle um that shocked better than others.
(36:35):
Is that what they're saying, like, Uh, you may be
less likely to get injured because the parts of your
legs that are affected are more capable of handling it. Yeah,
that when you run barefoot, because you're running on your
fore foot or your midfoot and you're distributing that force
to your calf and your Achilles tendant. That that, yeah,
that you're less likely to get injured because of that,
(36:55):
because you're taking that stress off of your knees and hips.
My question is this, wouldn't you be better off than
running in shoes but hitting your fore ft or midfoot
best of both worlds in other words, which is probably?
I mean that's what I do. So, I mean, of
course it's there right doing great, But I think that
(37:17):
that must be the case. But I didn't see anything
where it's like this is definitive. Still after ten years
of us being a huge trend, of a lot of
studies being done, a lot of people who are very
smart have thought about this, it's still not definitive what
the best way to run is. And I think we
go back to me, which is to not run right
(37:38):
and just walk right. But I think the last thing
thing that I saw from this is that, so if
you like our track coach, they frequently now prescribe um
running barefoot in the grass as a cool down after
the race. Yeah. And then the other thing you'll see
too is the era of the very chunky heel running
(37:58):
shoe has kind of on because of this. Yeah, it
feels like they've gotten a little leaner, haven't they. They
have because when you have a chunky heel, what's called
your shoe drop, which is the ratio of um where
your heel lands in relation to the front of your foot.
So like in the higher the shoe drop, the thicker
the chunkier your heel is, it's impossible not to heal strike.
(38:22):
So what they figured out is if you kind of
drop that heel down more in line with the front
of your foot, you can run on the front of
your foot a lot more easily and not heal strike
in your shoes. Yeah, those big, tall heeled running shoes too,
are always made me more susceptible to an ankle turn
as well. You know that just your you're kind of
up there you are. It's kind of like walking in
(38:43):
high heels or something. I wouldn't know about that, but
you can imagine. Sure, okay, you got anything else. Nothing,
So that's barefoot running. It sounds like the jury is
still out everybody. But if you do get into barefoot running,
do it slowly. Learn learn the lesson from you. Mar
And since I said that, it's time for listener man, Hey, guys.
(39:05):
On the safe Cracking episode, I was reminded of a
track by Bristol based music producer in the UK Tricky
We know Tricky, Sure, I think you gotta explain that
to us. Come on, everybody knows Trickies from Bristol based
which featured on an album he released called Product of
the Environment. It was a series of interviews with old
school London gangsters from the Create Twins era, telling their
(39:26):
stories of lives of crime over trip hop beats. That
sounds awesome. One of these was Bernie Lee, who learned
his safe cracking trade while in prison. His favorite technique
was to blow the doors off with nitroglycerin, which you
touched on the episode, but not in that context. Check
it out here insert hyperlink also MGE three seventy. At
(39:48):
the end of the episode, the second one, Josh question
the ability to tag all pieces of a plane with
its call sign. Speculating on the existence of such tech,
Chuck said that was the future. Well, it's actually the present.
What smart water not the bottle Drinking water is a
technology that encodes detailed info of a thing within water
(40:09):
and then is applied to said thing, allowing that info
to be read later on if necessary. The only problem
it evaporates. It's apparently quite robust, so it doesn't simply
wash off or whatever. But I don't have firstand experience,
so it can't be exactly sure how it works or
how it's read. BT Open Reach, the UK's main telecom
(40:29):
network provider, uses it to tag the copper wires that
make up the network, is a deterrent following a spade
of copper theft about seven years ago. Interesting, I feel
like I'm losing my mind right now. That's from Liam.
He says, big up. Thanks Liam. Here in the States
we say big ups. That's right. They dropped the s there? Aluminum?
(40:51):
Was that in this episode? Now? Can't you believe that
this might be the longest episode we've ever done on nothing? Well,
if you want to get in touch of this, like
Liam did, you can go on to stuff you Should
Know dot com uh and who knows what's there these days? Instead,
why don't you just send us an email, wrap it up,
spank it on the bottom, and send it off to
stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
(41:17):
Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck, Brian over there,
and there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you
should know about barefoot running. Colin, don't do it, Colin,
(00:26):
says Chuck Colan, Josh says, do it if you want. Oh,
it's just because it's running, has nothing to do with
being barefoot. Uh oh really, I got you. Yeah, man,
I don't know. I'm not a fan of running. I
love it. I love walking, but I don't think. I
don't know. Have you just tried to walk faster? Oh?
I walk exercise walk super fast? I'm kidding, By the way,
(00:49):
walking fast and running are not the same thing. No, No,
I don't know, man, it's just a lot of wear
on your body. I don't think humans we're meant to
run like this. Well, and Chuck, you would be running
a foul of an entire subgroup of people who believe
that not only humans should be running barefoot, but that
we're actually designed to run long distances. Yeah. I think
(01:13):
the idea was that we evolved and this sounds crazy
to me. We evolved to run long distances so we
could eventually just outrun animals who got tired before we did. Yeah,
that's crazy. Yeah, so animal just gonna run after this
animal boar until it gets tired. Sure, that doesn't make
sense to you. Sure if that's true. Well that's the thing.
(01:38):
It's like they could also spears and bows and arrows,
which they did, which probably means they didn't like running
after animals. Right, But if you speared an animal, it
doesn't mean it's gonna drop dead where you speared it.
You might have to chase after it. Well, that's when
you do the fast walk. Can you imagine like took
Took doing like the sport walking over the tundra kind
(01:59):
of because the nice it would be. Um, okay, so
we should probably tell everybody what the heck we're talking
about in general, So I'm out running without shoes yea,
or with those minimal There are different versions of how
minimal those shoes get. Yeah, so this this the whole thing,
Like started this idea of like, hey man, you know
(02:21):
those running shoes, you got chuck them off and just
start running barefoot and you'll be glad that you did that.
All started around two yeah yeah, um, and it is
definitely hit its high water market, got a lot of press.
It was a huge trend in running, and then it
seems to have kind of crested and waned and now
(02:42):
it's back. But the running world has changed forever because
of it. But from what I understand, there's not like
a lot of people who are barefoot running these days.
I don't. I mean, I don't think it's has swept
the nation. It did for a minute, but there are
definitely people who adhere to the philosophy of your body
will adjust because we were meant to. We ran barefoot
(03:06):
for you know, eighty million years, right, Well, that's one
of the implications of that is that and some people
suspect not only are you supposed to run barefoot, but
that running with shoes, including very expensive, highly designed running shoes,
are actually going to increase your your chances of injury
(03:27):
or that wear and tear on your joints. Now you're
better off running barefoot. But sounds totally countertuitive until you
stop and think, they say, hey, man, how long have
we been running in running shoes? For shoes of any kind,
I think the oldest shoes that um have been found
were actually found in Oregon. Uh, and they're like ten
thousand four years old. They're called Fort Rock sandals. They
(03:47):
were called prefontaines. Right. Should we talk a little bit
about the history of the running shoe? Obviously not as
long as that pretty exhaustive lists from mental itch. Um
it it's supposedly the running shoe goes back a couple
of hundred years. Yeah, something like that. The sneaker at
least goes back a couple of hundred years. Um. I
(04:09):
think in eighty two, a guy named Wait Webster. It's
either wait or Wyatt, but it's spelled like weight W
A n T. Anyway, we'll call him Senior Webster. He
came up with a way of attaching a rubber soul
to upper a shoe, um, which really kind of changed
(04:31):
shoes in general. Like people were like, hey, these shoes
are actually going to last, whereas before it was like
all leather and they fell apart in the rain really quickly.
These rubber souls could really kind of you know, take
the take the impact that you put on your body
when your foot hits the ground, and they weren't going
to come apart because you could really attach him to
an upper Yeah, and um, the word sneakers comes from
(04:53):
the fact that they were quiet. They were the first
shoes that didn't clip clap around like Jerry's elementary school
principal shoes she had on last week. Uh. So they
were sneaks or sneakers because you could sneak around. And
I saw that that was invented by the British. But
then the British went back to calling their sneakers. I
(05:13):
think plim souls. That's what they call them today, is
palm souls, which were like kids shoes back then, right,
But we call them sneakers here, and then what we
call running shoes they call trainers. Right. I think they
still say trainers, don't they Yes, So I feel like yeah,
and I think they still say plim souls and they
still say garage lift and flat sure and lou and
Lorie and all that, and aluminium and in herbs. Right.
(05:38):
The only one I really take issue with is aluminium. Really,
it's just wrong. I'm sorry, u K, but it's wrong.
Even when like David Attenborough says it, or Richard Attenburgh
or any Edinburgh I'm not saying it doesn't sound pleasant.
I'm just saying it's wrong. Okay, okay, this was interesting too.
The first I didn't know that Reebok went back so far.
(05:59):
They were the Bolton Company initially Joseph William Foster was
the founder. In eighteen fifty two he developed the first
running spikes. And it sounds like in the eighteen sixties,
for like the next decade, running spikes were just sort
of shoes with spikes, like regular shoes with spikes on them. Yeah,
and you would hope that they'd flatten out the end
(06:19):
that pressed against your feet, but I suspect that they
didn't always, not to your satisfaction. Right. And then of
course other developments in the seventies air cushion shoes, uh.
And then eventually the the gel insert or not insert,
but the gel cushion heel, and that was from a
sex in the nineteen eighties. And I always thought that
(06:41):
was kind of a scam, but apparently close to more
displacement of impact than the air technology. Yeah. And the
air technology had been invented I think a decade or
so before NASA, right may by a guy named Frank
Rudy and um he worked with Nike to add air
to the souls so that this compressed gas would distribute
(07:04):
the force that you were putting on your shoe and
make it easier on your joints back up stream. Yeah,
but if you if you ask the shoe companies, they're
saying that they have developed this technology over the years
to help runners. If you asked a skeptic and a
barefoot enthusiasts, they'll say, man, this running shoe thing is
just a big marketing, money making scam, because they what
(07:27):
they point to is, okay, the modern running shoe. Actually
it was New Balance that came up with the modern
running shoe in nineteen sixty that with their track Ster.
But most people point to the seventies and Nikes waffles
shoe is like the birth of the running shoe. Yeah,
because isn't that when running for exercise kind of really
started as a mainstream thing. That's what I learned. That's
(07:49):
what I learned from Forrest coump. Oh really is that
in for cup Oh? Yeah? I remember he means running
and he inadvertently starts the leisure running trend. Oh. I
I didn't realize he was starting the trend. I just
thought he was running, right, And then people started being like,
what is that guy doing I'm gonna run alongside him,
and he ended up starting the running jogging trend. And
(08:10):
then movie goers sat in an audience and thought, why
is this even in this dumb long movie. I like
that movie. I don't know what you're talking about. You
said something bad about it before. I have yet to
see it since then, Oh since it came out. No, no,
since you since you put it down weeks, you haven't
seen it alright, which is rare. Maybe don't then, so,
(08:31):
but they point to this, they say, Okay, from the seventies, um,
when we started this running shoe thing, we uh we
like injuries. Running injuries haven't gone down. In some cases,
they've increased. And in fact, um things like uh, shin
splints I believe, um planitis, knee injuries, and a couple
(08:54):
other things have actually increased. So people are like, well,
wait a minute, what is going on here? If you
stop and think about it. No one was really paying
attention to it until two thousand and ten when a
guy named Christopher McDougall came up with a book called
Born to Run, and it's basically it makes the makes
the case that like paleo does for dieting, that like,
(09:18):
we have evolved to be a certain way to to
behave under certain conditions, and our modern world has kind
of taken that and co opted it and made, you know,
messed everything up, and as a result, we're suffering from
all these maladies. But rather than eating ultra process food
is a paleo diet. Whole thing is based on this
was that these modern running shoes were running in are
(09:40):
actually causing injuries. We need to throw our shoes away
and just run barefoot and we'll be better off. Yeah,
because we have adapted our running to these shoes and
we're not even supposed to run. And we'll get into
the hole. I don't want to spoil anything by saying
he'll first, but we'll get into that a little bit later.
But he's saying we have a have to to run
(10:00):
a certain way because of running shoes. And this is
not how humans or not how the uh specifically the
Tara Humara Indians. He's like, they don't get injured. They've
been running barefoot for eons across long distances on all
sorts of terrain. Yeah, they m the Taramara Indians. They
are Huma. They live in northwestern Mexico. I believe, And
(10:24):
they're known for running around barefoot or in like sandals
that they make from old tires. And they they showed
up at the Leadville Trail one hundred an ultra thon
up a mountain peak and back down. They were like
middle aged smoking before and I think during the race,
maybe possibly drunk on corn or like some sort of
(10:46):
moonshine at the time. Um, and we're just passing everybody
without like seeing They didn't stretch, they didn't do anything,
and they're passing some of the world's like most finely
tuned old ultra marathon ors like it was nothing, and
people are like, what is going on with these guys.
They're not even wearing shoes, What's what's the deal here?
They really kind of kick things off. They actually McDougall
(11:09):
went and visited them, wrote an article about him and
ended up writing a book on barefoot running based on
his his experiences with them. That's awesome. Yeah, should we
take a break? All right, we're taking a break. Yes,
we'll be right back. Okay, So this guy, Christopher mcdood
(11:45):
comes around Born to Run. I've seen it referred to
as the most influential running book of all time. And
greatest Springsteen album. That's more than I wonder if they're
related in any way. Let me say this, if ever
in his book he finishes a chapter with baby we
Were Born to Run, then he should be he should
have the pants suit off of him. Oh you don't
(12:05):
think he should be maybe kissed lightly on the cheek
for a witty Springsteen reference. He's already still in his title. Huh,
how come on as the Boss? How's he stealing? Is?
Ohas I thought he meant, like like his title, like
his status title still still pretty recent after the new
(12:28):
year of McDougall, the Boss, Like, what are you talking about?
I've not seen him referred to. There's only one boss,
But think about it. Jim Fix wrote, um, oh that
I can't remember what it was the actual title was,
but it was like he wrote the book on running.
Yeah I remember that. Okay, so the Art of Running
the Joy of Running one of those two. And um,
they're saying that this book was more influential. It just
(12:51):
hit it just the right time. But not only did
this book hit it just the right time, it came
either right before or right after a study came out
that basically said the same thing. That this other guy
who's like one of the luminaries of the barefoot running world.
Oh yeah, Daniel Lieberman. Yeah, he's a paleo anthropologist at Harvard,
which means that he gets listened to when he talks.
(13:12):
But he released the study with some co authors, I
think in two thousand nine or the beginning of two
thousand and ten that basically said, hey, man, um, if
you run barefoot, your body is going to suffer far
less than if you run in modern running shoes. And
it was just a perfect timing with this book Born
to Run, and the two together caught the attention of
(13:34):
anybody who is into running at a time, and people
started literally taking their shoes off and going and running
and then hurting themselves pretty quickly. Yeah. And he would
point to things like, uh, look, we've got Achilles tendons,
we got these big knee joints, we have a big
gluetyus Maximus, especially me, and he's like, we were kind
(13:56):
of made to run these distances. Other people say, hey,
we have those glutes because um, they're great for squatting
and for foraging and pooping, let's be honest, and um,
but you're right sure, And so there are competing theories
out there because we don't know exactly for sure. But
he basically says, the way the human body is put together,
(14:17):
we don't need these shoes, and we were built to
built to run, not born to run. Right. But the
the other idea of this is is, and this is
really why he uses to get people to to buy
into it, is like we were we evolved to run
this way. Running with shoes is unnatural. Yeah, And it
(14:37):
doesn't matter who you are, even if you're super fit,
if you're running with running shoes on and you're a runner,
you have an eight chance of getting injured at some
point eight out of ten people every year, he said, Yep,
get injured every single year. And even if you're in
like I said, super great shape and you run all
(14:58):
the time. In fact, if you run all the time,
you're probably more likely to get injured. Right, because again,
we didn't evolve to wear super cushion e gel um
shoes when we run. We were we evolved to run
barefoot or maybe in some very thin's handles or something
like that, minimalist shoe wear. Um. And he also said, well,
(15:20):
some of the other modern problems that we have are
some of the other problems that that just come along
with walking around in these shoes, things like supernation pro nation,
which I do. It's where you're where if you're when
you're walking or running right, you're the inside of your
heel is curved downward. So your shoes eventually when you
look at the soul and the cushioning, they're worn on
(15:43):
one side or the other. Yeah more, Yeah, I think
I do that a little bit, Like I walk like
verbal kint at the end of the usual suspects, basically
from the looks of my shoes and the wear and
tear on them. Yeah, might might actually wear a little bit,
I think on the outside more than the inside. Okay,
so that'd be supernation. That's supernation. They're there are two
(16:05):
sides of the same problem, which is that your your feet,
your heel is not landing in line in the same
axis with the front. It's it's tilted. I think there's
like three different things going on biomechanically. But what people
like um Christopher McDougall and proponents of barefoot running say is, buddy,
that's because you're walking on these padded um souls of
(16:30):
shoes that like they're they're new. They haven't been around
for more than for even half of a century. Yet
we are feet are not designed to walk like this, um,
and so that's why you're doing this. If you will
stop running and shoes, your your pro nation or your
supernation will actually fix itself. And there is some data
that that is actually true, that that that those things
(16:51):
biomechanical disorders can be fixed by running or walking barefoot.
Other people say no, if you have a biomechanical order
like supernation or pro nation, you have no business going barefoot.
The barefoot proponents they do not listen to that guy.
He's a dork. Uh. And then they say, you know,
you really don't need to bring the name calling into this.
(17:13):
They said, whatever, dork, Yeah, what did you say, dork?
Remember in Police Academy where they wrote dorc on Mauser's
chest with um suntan lotion. All right, you got a
real red burn. Just realized I was reminiscing about Police Academy.
I was just watching I'm watching the TV show Party
Down for the third time now, and there's the grade up.
(17:35):
Did you ever see that at all? And still have not?
You know, it's a catering company in each episode is
a different party, and there's one party where they go
to Steve Guttenberg's house for his birthday party, and he
he's like, oh man, I forgot, Like we actually had
a surprise party my friends through for me, so there
is no birthday party. But he's like, I don't want
this to go to waste. Why don't you guys just
(17:56):
come in and call your friends. We'll have a party.
So it becomes like a party at the Goots house.
That's awesome. It's a really good one. I'll bet that's
that's probably how it would go down in real life.
He at least seemed like a good guy on this
fictional TV show. Who got their start on that show? Uh?
I don't know about getting their start, I mean who's on.
It starred Adam Scott and Kim Marino and Jane Jane Lynch.
(18:20):
She didn't get her start on it, but she got
it pre Glee and then had to leave the show
when she got Glee. Megan Malali, Yeah, I think it
was like seven or eight years ago. I saw her
on an episode of UM, maybe Law and Order or
something like that old one, and she's like playing serious
like pathologists showing I think Lenny Briscoe something in somebody's
(18:44):
tissue or something like that. I was like, oh, that's
Chane Lynched. It was. It was like a where she
was like, am I a serious actress and my comedic
actress both? Yeah? She was good. Christ and our buddy
Christin Bell was on it. Martin Starr, Okay, maybe it
was Kristin Bell. I was like, she didn't get her
start though. Was that after Ronica Mars? Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
she sort of did a guest I guess starring thing,
(19:05):
but it's Ken Marino at his best, and he's like
one of my heroes Martin stars I'm freaking geeks. And
then later on Silicon Valley, right, yes, okay, I love
that guy. Yeah, he's great. He Actually, since we're already sidetracked,
you should at some point try and bring yourself to
listen to the Mark Maren episode with Martin Starr. Why
would I have any trouble listening to Mark Maron? I
(19:25):
don't know, Uh, really interesting guy, Martin Starr, I can
only imagine and different than you might think. Oh really,
is he really like twee and whimsical? No, he's very
intense and uh hetty spiritual and hetty. Oh yeah, super smart. Yeah,
not that I thought he was dumb, but he can
(19:45):
he can play that. I got all right, Where were we?
We're talking about barefoot running and how some the people
who are proponents say if you throw your shoes away,
you will fix all these modern problems. Yeah. So the
idea is that you know, your your feet have these
nerve endings that will give you feedback when you're making
contact with the ground that you don't get when you're
(20:07):
wearing these shoes, and they will tell you how to
walk basically depending on what kind of terrain you're on,
and your body adjust accordingly and had for many, many years.
The other thing that they say is with um without shoes,
you actually run differently than you do with shoes. And
(20:27):
this seems to be the genuine article argument for or
against barefoot running, and it seems to kind of land
in favor of barefoot running to tell you the truth.
So should we talk about the the old heel first thing? Yeah,
he'll striking, Yeah, he'lls you know, when you run if
someone cause I don't run, but if someone were to,
you know, steal something from me on the street and
(20:50):
I had to run you would see me take off
down the road, and you would notice that my heels
are striking the ground first and with a pretty great impact,
and pool like me would see you and be like
that's terrible form, yeah, and say you're never going to
catch that guy. Just don't even bother. So when you
run like that, it actually hurts pretty quickly, and you're
(21:11):
actually propelling yourself in a weird way backwards, Like when
you bring your heel down, your foot is up and
your heel is actually hitting the ground at a direction
opposite the direction that you're trying to go. If you
like freeze frame that for it's a kind of a
long running stride. That's what it would look like. So
(21:32):
just as far as like running form goes, it's not
a good way to run. Anybody who runs can tell
you that you're not supposed to heal strike, although it
feels very natural when you're in shoes, if you take
off your shoes and you heel strike, you'll take about
two steps and just your head will just explode with
pain at your heel. Yeah, because your heel is not
made to be run on. Now, if you lean forward
(21:54):
and run on the mid the midfoot or the ball
of your feet. You'll find run barefoot is much more comfortable.
And that's what a lot of people who are proponents
of barefoot running say is this is how you're supposed
to run, and this is how barefoot running makes you run.
When you wear shoes, it's much easier to heal strike.
(22:14):
You have to remember not to do that right like
a sprinter. When you see these Olympic sprinters, they're not
heal striking right, They're they're pitched forward a bit and
they're running up on the front or at least the
mid of their foot. You see how fast they go.
I took a running class once. No, No, it's like
just to learn how to run better, just like out
(22:34):
in the shop, out in the world. What's it called
continuing education adult? It nights school, I think, um. And
what I was taught was that running is falling forward
and catching yourself over and over again. So the whole
time you have to go right, will flail your arm basically. Um.
(22:56):
But you do that in a controlled manner obviously. UM.
But that's when when you when you learn that and
you try it, it forces you to run on the
balls or the midfoot. Midfoot's what I learned is the
best way to do it. So you did this to
learn like proper technique and stuff. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah,
and once you once you try it, remind yourself that
(23:17):
you you can actually feel yourself doing it and you
realize you're in the right form when you feel like
there's this slight falling forward sensation. Yeah. You know, the
last time I was did any kind of running was
when I was playing softball, which is all sprinting. And
even for a guy with extra pounds I was. I
was always pretty quick, believe it or not, birth to speed,
(23:39):
burst of speed, and I would uh, I would just
naturally Jerry's laughing over there. I would naturally run, um,
not on my tippy toes, but kind of pretty far forward. Yeah.
I would mince toward that first base bag. Yeah, And
people would be like, do you get that tinking sound?
And look how fast that dude is. Is that a
(23:59):
rainbow tree behind him in his wake? Yeah, he looks
like he's about to fall over. And sometimes I did,
oh really no, But I saw other other dudes. You know,
this is an old bar guy league. So um, let's
see some pretty funny running and some weird balance issues.
Guys kind of falling down and tripping and clumsy because
(24:19):
of all the drunkenness. And now we didn't drink before games.
But yeah, well what about during? No, I didn't what
about Okay, now they would go afterward, but I didn't
socialize with this crowd much. You hated them so much.
I was just the ace pitcher who would come in
and then go home and like ice my elbow. Oh
that's pretty cool. You were like the closer. Huh. No,
I pitched the whole game. Oh really, but I was
(24:40):
a specialist. I got you specialisted just winning? Yeah, that
was it. All you do? Is that's it. Well, let's
take a break, Chuck, because I feel like this is
so far off the rails. I don't even remember what
the topic is. All right, let's do it. So what
(25:15):
is the topic? Barefoot running? And we should say that
when we say barefoot, that there's a range of how
bare your foot is. It can be completely bare some
but some people just go completely foot naked. Um. Then
there are these uh, I don't know what you call them.
(25:36):
They're they're about as minimal as you can get. It's
almost like a little tire flat, like you were saying
it's called minimalist shoes. Yeah. It's just a really thin
rubber sandal essentially, and I've seen that for running. But
what I've mainly seen those four is just people saying
just go out and be in the world and these things.
Oh okay, so are you talking about the sandal ones
(25:57):
that like going between your your big toe in the
next toes little webbing. Yeah, it's just like a shoe
string and a piece of rubber. They also came up
with shoes shoes that are are called minimal issues. There's
much more to them than what you just described that.
You know, they wrap around your the top of your
foot but have a similar footbed. That shoe you you
just mentioned is like the Tarma Tara Tara Maara Indian. Yeah,
(26:24):
but they make theirs out of old tires, which is
even Googler, you know, totally um So, so there is
like different degrees of it. And the reason that people
started wearing things that I think the company Vibrum made
a sock with some tread on the bottom. Remember I
got in trouble for bagging on those years ago five
toad sock. Yeah, I made fun of those and people
(26:45):
wrote in had their feelings hurt. Yes, I'll bet those.
Some people do not wear those. Um. I remember going
to a Cyndey Lauper concert with you me and there
was a couple there and they were wearing matching vibrum shoes,
sock shoes whatever, minimalist shoes, and where you guys like, hey,
we should do that. I will never forget them. They
(27:05):
looked like they could like they were going to it
any minute, just just kind of go from walking on
their feet to just walking on their hands and then
back on their feet and then back on the head.
That's just what they looked like for some reason, because
they weren't wearing workout gear anything. This is like just
the shoes they were wearing out there in the world
because a lot of people say like, no, don't just
do this for running, like do this for life basically? Yeah,
(27:27):
I mean, I love I've always been a barefoot person.
When I was a kid, I would play a lot
in bare feet and always had really tough foot beds,
natural foot beds. What do you call those soles of
your feet? Yeah, they're always pretty tough and still are. Yeah. Well,
Daniel Lieberman the paleo anthropologists did another study recently, I
(27:47):
think in two nine, and he found that Um, I
guess by the way, he won an ignoble prize for
figuring out why pregnant women don't tip over back in
like two nine. Yeah, what was the answer? The way
that they leaned backward and there's additional lumbar support in
their lower back, and I think maybe the way the
(28:09):
fetus lays. It's all like just kind of that's how
we've evolved to not fall over basically. But this more
recent UM work, he went to Kenya and he studied
uh native Kenyans, who basically lived their lives without wearing shoes.
He studied Americans who have worn shoes their whole life,
and then he studied Americans who wore shoes and then
(28:31):
made the transition over to barefoot running. And he found
that the Kenyan UM subjects all had deep callouses on
their feet, so he thought that they would not be
as sensitive, and he found that that's actually not the case.
That they're much better off because they have these callouses,
so their feet are naturally prevented from things like cuts
(28:51):
and punctures and things like that because they're just tougher
on the bottom. But the callouses don't cover up their
nerve endings, so they're still feed coming from the ground.
But the feet are also protected by the calluses, which
is kind of surprising from what I understand. Right, and
his buddy, the anthropologist Brian Richmond, who he worked with,
(29:12):
I think he was from GW University. He's he was
talking about the arch of the foot and those ligaments
and he says, this thing stretch and contract every time
you hit the ground, and that allows the calf muscle
to act as a spring. Yes, so that's what I've
seen barefoot running. Um. One of the reasons why they say,
like no, it's just healthier and less injury prone is
because of that the arch of your foot acting is
(29:35):
a spring, and then your achilles heel and your calf
muscle acting as a shock absorber. But that these are
the things that come into play when you run on
the ball of your foot or midfoot. When you heal strike,
you are offloading that same force, maybe even more force,
but the full weight of your body coming down on
your heel, that doesn't utilize the calf or the Achilles tendon.
(30:00):
It sends this shock wave of force back upward to
your knees in your hips, and that that is why um,
heel striking is so bad for you, whereas um, running
on the ball of your feet is probably better, or
is your midfoot is probably much better because that that
force is distributed to the right places. In other words, Yeah,
(30:22):
and the skeptics will say, you know, you start you
other than start running barefoot, you're gonna get hurt. And
then adherents will say, that's because you just throw your
shoes in the trash and go out into your workout routine.
It's like, if you want to do this, you gotta
really wade into this water very slowly. And they recommend
even which sounds kind of silly, but they recommend doing
(30:44):
something you probably do every day anyway, which is walking
around your house with no shoes on if you're a
normal human being. Yes, and then um, then start walking
outside on different terrains, just walking without shoes on soft
terrains first, yeah, you know, like dirt grass or something.
Then working your way up to pavement and asphalt and
stuff like that. Then broken flaming glass. That's right, that's
(31:06):
the final But they say you really got to work
into it otherwise, like any radical new thing, you're gonna
do to your body. You can't just shock it. Yeah,
and not just because of your feet in the bottoms
of your feet either. Um, you be tried the new
balanced minimalists years and years maybe two thousand and eleven,
something like that, And she had read like I think
(31:29):
the people who solder the shoes even totally like opposite.
They're like, do not do your normal run? Like do
a third of it, I think, is what they said.
And human's like nuts to that, and did her normal
run maybe even then some And I thought she may
have been crippled for life after, yes, because she was
used to heal striking, because she's been running like everybody
(31:50):
else this whole time, and all of a sudden she's
running on the balls of her feet, not even her midfoot,
the balls of her feet, so all that stuff is
getting moved into the calf muscles, which just get overloaded
with this workout and just later up for seriously, like
about five days, she could not run. She was so sore.
Could she walk or was she barely barely? Like the
(32:11):
kind where you know, have have your muscle has ever
been so sore that you feel like flu like almost
like that? Yeah, like it was bad news, and she's like,
you should try this, and I'm like, not on your life.
That's very Uni like, like, yeah, they can't tell me
what to do, right, Yeah, they don't know me. They
must have been talking about themselves. That's great. And there
(32:32):
is another study I think this was even from kind
of late last year, that we found an outside magazine
from a study that was in the Journal of Applied
Physiology from Peter Wehend and his biomechanics group at s
m U. That's Southern Methodist. I think there's some kind
of a horse mascot the Stallions I just remember, I
(32:57):
mean they were they didn't never mind the only do
we really want to talk college football? The well, I
mean you could everybody like volleyball or high a lie,
it doesn't just have to be football. Well, that's true,
that was some kind of a horse. You were so
sec I am so uh. We should point out that
when you're doing these kind of studies, there are a
couple of ways to go about it. There's a something
(33:18):
called a force measuring treadmill or a force plate that's
kind of installed on the ground and you run on
it and it really measures and can show a you know,
a graph on a curve or a curve on a
graph on where your foot is exactly striking. And what
that means, right, It shows the force not not just
like where like in space, it's more like it tracks
(33:39):
the force over time. I think, Yeah, so this is
how they're doing all this. They're not just kind of
guessing by watching people. Right, this is Lieberman specifically, I
think too. That's right. And by the way, there's somebody
knocking somewhere in this building. We're trying to get to
the bottom of it. Jerry's walking around with a machete, right,
but blood We're hoping we can get it out in
(34:02):
the edit. But if you hear some knocking, we're really sorry.
But I think you'll agree with us in this episode,
it sincerely doesn't matter. It's probably like half of the
normal amount of people listening at this point. So back
to this study they're using, uh, they use this treadmill
and these force plates, and what they are determined determining
(34:24):
is something called the loading rate, which is how quickly
that forces applied. Yeah, and what they found is that
when your heel or the ball of your foot or
wherever your foot strikes, there's like this initial force that
is transferred through your body from the ground hitting from
your foot hitting the ground right, which will show up
as a spike on this graph right, depending on how
(34:45):
quick that force is transferred. That's that loading rate, right,
And then what follows is the rest of your body
weight and it's reaching its lowest point in your stride,
and then you go back up and push off the
ground and you start all over again. That's like one
stride and that's what these force plates measure. Yeah, but
what they found is when you run on the ball
(35:06):
or midfoot, when that's what touches the ground, that actually
distributes and kind of prolongs that force long enough that
it actually merges with that second that second introduction of
force the rest of your body weight into basically one
force curve. Yeah. I think for a while they looked
(35:28):
at the spike and when they ran on the midfoot,
that spike was gone. But what they determined was it's
not gone at all. It is, like you said, just
kind of covered up and merged with the other. But
that was that early evidence from two ten that Lieberman
came out with that supported Christopher McDougal's born to Run hypothesis.
The spike wasn't there when you run barefoot, it is
(35:50):
there when you run in shoes because you're heel striking.
This leaves a really important question, though, Chuck, because so
this new this new research is basically saying, like, all
that off, that's not the case anymore. We just change
our loading rate depending but it's ultimately the same amount
of force getting transferred through the body, depending on what
kind of shoe protection you're wearing. But I think, what
(36:12):
what's weird to me and what I didn't understand with
this new new research is if it's going to different places,
If that shock is being absorbed by your achilles tendon
and your calf rather than your knees and hips, who
cares If the loading rate is the same, Um, it's
going to different parts of your body in some parts
are designed to handle um that shocked better than others.
(36:35):
Is that what they're saying, like, Uh, you may be
less likely to get injured because the parts of your
legs that are affected are more capable of handling it. Yeah,
that when you run barefoot, because you're running on your
fore foot or your midfoot and you're distributing that force
to your calf and your Achilles tendant. That that, yeah,
that you're less likely to get injured because of that,
(36:55):
because you're taking that stress off of your knees and hips.
My question is this, wouldn't you be better off than
running in shoes but hitting your fore ft or midfoot
best of both worlds in other words, which is probably?
I mean that's what I do. So, I mean, of
course it's there right doing great, But I think that
(37:17):
that must be the case. But I didn't see anything
where it's like this is definitive. Still after ten years
of us being a huge trend, of a lot of
studies being done, a lot of people who are very
smart have thought about this, it's still not definitive what
the best way to run is. And I think we
go back to me, which is to not run right
(37:38):
and just walk right. But I think the last thing
thing that I saw from this is that, so if
you like our track coach, they frequently now prescribe um
running barefoot in the grass as a cool down after
the race. Yeah. And then the other thing you'll see
too is the era of the very chunky heel running
(37:58):
shoe has kind of on because of this. Yeah, it
feels like they've gotten a little leaner, haven't they. They
have because when you have a chunky heel, what's called
your shoe drop, which is the ratio of um where
your heel lands in relation to the front of your foot.
So like in the higher the shoe drop, the thicker
the chunkier your heel is, it's impossible not to heal strike.
(38:22):
So what they figured out is if you kind of
drop that heel down more in line with the front
of your foot, you can run on the front of
your foot a lot more easily and not heal strike
in your shoes. Yeah, those big, tall heeled running shoes too,
are always made me more susceptible to an ankle turn
as well. You know that just your you're kind of
up there you are. It's kind of like walking in
(38:43):
high heels or something. I wouldn't know about that, but
you can imagine. Sure, okay, you got anything else. Nothing,
So that's barefoot running. It sounds like the jury is
still out everybody. But if you do get into barefoot running,
do it slowly. Learn learn the lesson from you. Mar
And since I said that, it's time for listener man, Hey, guys.
(39:05):
On the safe Cracking episode, I was reminded of a
track by Bristol based music producer in the UK Tricky
We know Tricky, Sure, I think you gotta explain that
to us. Come on, everybody knows Trickies from Bristol based
which featured on an album he released called Product of
the Environment. It was a series of interviews with old
school London gangsters from the Create Twins era, telling their
(39:26):
stories of lives of crime over trip hop beats. That
sounds awesome. One of these was Bernie Lee, who learned
his safe cracking trade while in prison. His favorite technique
was to blow the doors off with nitroglycerin, which you
touched on the episode, but not in that context. Check
it out here insert hyperlink also MGE three seventy. At
(39:48):
the end of the episode, the second one, Josh question
the ability to tag all pieces of a plane with
its call sign. Speculating on the existence of such tech,
Chuck said that was the future. Well, it's actually the present.
What smart water not the bottle Drinking water is a
technology that encodes detailed info of a thing within water
(40:09):
and then is applied to said thing, allowing that info
to be read later on if necessary. The only problem
it evaporates. It's apparently quite robust, so it doesn't simply
wash off or whatever. But I don't have firstand experience,
so it can't be exactly sure how it works or
how it's read. BT Open Reach, the UK's main telecom
(40:29):
network provider, uses it to tag the copper wires that
make up the network, is a deterrent following a spade
of copper theft about seven years ago. Interesting, I feel
like I'm losing my mind right now. That's from Liam.
He says, big up. Thanks Liam. Here in the States
we say big ups. That's right. They dropped the s there? Aluminum?
(40:51):
Was that in this episode? Now? Can't you believe that
this might be the longest episode we've ever done on nothing? Well,
if you want to get in touch of this, like
Liam did, you can go on to stuff you Should
Know dot com uh and who knows what's there these days? Instead,
why don't you just send us an email, wrap it up,
spank it on the bottom, and send it off to
stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
(41:17):
Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
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