December 11, 2024 • 47 mins
I just dropped a new episode here, and you won't want to miss this one! I had an awesome chat with Dr. Scott Kaylor, a sports-certified physical therapist who knows his stuff when it comes to running. 🏃♂️💥
In this episode, we cover: ✅ How to optimize your running mechanics ✅ Why strength training is a game-changer for injury prevention ✅ Tips to keep running fun and enjoyable, no matter your level!
Whether you're a seasoned pro or just thinking about lacing up your shoes, this episode is packed with insights to help you crush your running goals.
🎧 Check it out now and let’s elevate your running game together!
Scott Kaylor is a highly skilled Doctor of Physical Therapy and a board-certified Clinical Specialist in Sports Physical Therapy. Residency and fellowship-trained, Scott brings advanced expertise to his work, specializing in the treatment of endurance athletes and runners. A multi-time Ironman finisher himself, Scott combines personal experience with professional excellence to help athletes achieve their goals and recover stronger.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
All right, so welcome to the WonBody Won Life Podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, Dr.
Jason Won, Lifestyle PhysicalTherapist.
I'd love to talk to you today.
Be insightful and provide youguys knowledge on how to
optimize your health, optimizeyour fitness.
And I also like to bring inamazing guests as well.
And so what we have, what wehave today is how to improve and
optimize running mechanics andendurance for recreational
(00:22):
runners.
I have a very special guest.
His name is Dr.
Scott Kaler.
He is a he has a sportscertification.
He also treats a ton of runners.
Not just how to rehab frominjuries, but also how to
optimize their running for thelong run.
So I think we have very similarphilosophies and that's why I
only bring in people that are, Iwouldn't say similar to me, but
just have a similar philosophy,but Scott, how are you doing
(00:43):
today?
I'm doing great, Jason.
Thanks so much for having me on.
I'm looking forward to thisconversation and just talking to
all things running, cause Iabsolutely love it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So I, I'm definitely a personthat I, I do a good amount of
strength training, but I stilldo some two to three weeks of
recreational running.
I've, you know, I've, I used torun a lot in high school and I
(01:04):
know that you generally treat alot of runners.
So let's start off with this.
Like why don't you first kind ofjust introduce yourself, get it,
let us know a little bit aboutyour background and like, you
know, who you serve.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, I've been a physicaltherapist for a little while
now.
So I'm in my 15th plus year ofdoing this residency trained.
I've been a fellowship trainedas well.
(01:26):
So I've worked in college andprofessional sports and that
just, it wasn't really thelifestyle my wife and I wanted.
And so we started a practicehere in the upstate of South
Carolina.
Where we get to serve my fellowendurance athletes.
And so one of my goals was tocreate the best running lab in
South Carolina.
And I think we've done a reallygood job of pursuing that and
(01:47):
getting that going.
And so my background, I ran atrack in high school, played all
the other sports as well.
And that just catapulted me intowanting to run.
So ran recreationally throughcollege and then in grad school,
got into triathlon.
And so for me, I've just beenpursuing all, all things
endurance over the last 15 plusyears.
(02:09):
And so we've done Ironman, I'vedone 50 mile trail runs, you
name it.
I usually will want to try it.
Perfect.
That sounds amazing.
And I feel like you have a lotto bring to the table.
And so over the next 25, 30minutes, I hope that you guys
can definitely tune in,especially if you're somebody
that is thinking about running,like pondering running as like a
(02:31):
good mode of.
exercise or cardiovascularactivity or whether you're
overcoming an injury.
I think you guys would be veryexcited to hear some of the
things that we have to saytoday.
So let's start off withsomething, a more generalized
question.
Is running a good form ofexercise in general.
And if so, why is that?
Yeah, I think it's a great formof exercise.
(02:51):
I think it checks a lot ofboxes.
So when we are building ourcardiovascular system, that is
one of the primary ways that wecan live a long and healthy
lifestyle.
So when we can.
promote a cardiovascular systemwith healthy cells and we can
take in oxygen and utilize thatoxygen to help provide energy
(03:13):
and burn fat.
All that stuff is amazing.
I really think it's a goodexercise because that's how I
get a lot of my community.
So I think there's a big mentalhealth aspect to it.
So whether I'm out running withmy friends, Or I want to go
solo.
I think that's helpful as well,just to clear my mind and just
try to be present with the runthat I'm doing.
I don't listen to any music orpodcasts while I'm running.
(03:34):
I just try to be in the momentof what I'm doing.
So running just checks a wholelot of boxes.
And I think that we're.
Designed to run.
And so it can be a good way to,to get out and strengthen and
build a cardiovascular system.
Yeah.
The runner's eye is real.
I definitely do a mixture ofboth.
So sometimes if I just need toclear my mind, it is one of the
(03:56):
absolute best things tomentally, you know, like if I
need, honestly, I wouldn't saythat like, you know, when it
comes like kid stress, like, youknow, we were kind of lacking
sleep and like the kids aregoing through their own phases.
I have like really young kids.
It's amazing.
Just like get outside my housein Daly city, the weather's
relatively cold.
It's not super hot.
So I can just run for days andjust clear my mind.
(04:18):
There are times where I want tokill two birds with one stone
and listen to a podcast at thesame time.
So whatever kind of like checkthe boxes for you and how you
want to use running.
But I, I strongly agree.
If you have the capacity to run,you should run.
You know, disuse, right?
If you stop running, you willlose the ability to sprint, to
run, then walking becomes harderfor you.
(04:40):
So overall cardiovascularly,that's a clear indicator and
correlation with longevity.
But also just mental andphysical health and like putting
the right stresses through theskeleton to.
Keep your hips, knees, andhealth and ankles healthy, if
you will.
That's right.
And I don't know, we'll get intoit more on the injury side, but
I just think like through thelifespan.
And we'll talk about strategiesto do this, but being able to
(05:01):
move quickly is really importantas we age so that we can age
well.
And so, you know, a lot of myclients that want to get into
running, haven't had to runsince they were in high school
and how it's been 20 or 30years.
And, you know, one of the,Things that can lead to falls is
just not being able to move yourlegs fast.
Yes.
And so if we can help peoplekind of sprint through the
(05:24):
lifespan, and that doesn'tnecessarily mean a hundred
percent effort, but you know,70, 80 percent effort, as long
as we've built up to it, I thinkthat's a fantastic forum through
the whole, whole lifespan.
Yeah, there, there are somestats I don't kind of want to
throw out just so I, I smell andsmart.
Cause I know that you're goingto deliver a whole lot of value,
but I heard, I heard, I heardthat the grapevine, this is not
(05:45):
by research, but like, I thinkpeople were the age of 35, like
90 percent of them stoppedsprinting, something like that.
And then I know for sure thereis a stat that says like it, the
average time to cross the streetis like 2.
2 miles per hour.
So like, that's.
That's why they actually timeout the, the green light so that
you have enough time to getacross the street.
But if you walk slower than 2.
(06:06):
2 miles an hour, meaning thatyou become slower, less balanced
overall you increase the chancesof falling and fracturing your
hip by four folds.
So, anybody that's consideringlike, okay, well running is at
least, Four miles an hour on a,on a, on a, at least an average
jog, you should continue to runas long as you can, because
otherwise you are going to slowdown.
You're going to increase yourlikelihood for falls.
(06:26):
And then generally quality oflife goes down from there.
Yeah, that's, that's one of thethings that we measure in our
lab.
We have some walking softwarethat, that we'll do with folks
to be able to look at their.
Gatesby and their mechanics, butyeah, 2.
2 is even on the slow side forwalking.
No, I agree with that.
Yeah.
Especially if it's like a lot,especially if it's like a Las
Vegas block or something, thosewalks are ridiculous, right?
(06:48):
That's for sure.
Yeah.
Well, let's talk about this.
Cause I was going to segmentinto this.
Obviously we, we now know, andwe conclude that running is in a
great form of exercise for mostpeople.
However, there are a lot ofpeople that make training
errors.
Some people don't know the rightrunning mechanics.
They don't have the rightrunning shoes.
They have no running experience.
So why is it often, why issometimes it's running is often
(07:10):
deemed like bad for your kneesand hips.
What would you say to like, youknow, other possibly like
doctors and other people thatsay like running is bad for your
hips, running is bad for yourknees.
And what would you say aboutthat?
How would you go about that?
Yeah, so thankfully in my area,I get invited to speak to
community events and doctorategroups pretty regularly, and so
(07:30):
I get to share this message.
The short answer is I don't knowwhere that came from, other than
there is There, there's a highnumber of injuries in runners,
but we'll, we'll talk about whyI think that's the case, but
inherently running is not badfor you.
When we look in the literature,we actually see that runners
have a lower incidence ofarthritis compared to non
(07:52):
runners when they do imaging Orof marathoners after an event,
they'll take, they'll put therunners through the MRI tube and
look at their cartilagethickness before and after the
run.
And we actually see theircartilage thickness increases
after they do a marathon.
Right.
And so.
When we do movement, we have,you know, those little cells
(08:12):
inside of our cartilage, theirjob is to just absorb and soak
in nutrients.
So when we are moving andrunning, we are helping to move
healthy fluid through ourcartilage.
So.
There, I think there is a bellcurve and the data is pretty
clear on some correlative datato say, if you're going over 70
(08:33):
miles a week, which isincredibly high volume, it's,
it's really hard to get 70 milesa week, unless you're a
professional or you're a highlevel, like college runner those
folks, you will actually seesome like arthritic changes if
they do that through the courseof their life.
But I mean, under 70 miles aweek, I've done multiple
Ironman, multiple 50k, 50 miletype races, and I've, I've never
(08:58):
gone over 70 miles in a week,except for a competition week,
if so in general.
Running actually shows to be ahealthy choice for our joints on
well, and we'll talk about someof the things to help supplement
that so that it goes really wellfor us.
But I think where it gets deemedas an unsafe exercise is just
(09:19):
because we do see so manyinjuries.
And I think most of that's dueto training error rather than
actually the activity itself.
I totally agree with you.
I was going to say that when Igot my like running
certification and I don't treathalf as many runners as you, but
I've always, you know, you kindof just always, always see it as
like when you have like arunning injury, it's generally
(09:40):
not, I mean like, yeah, granted,if you step on a rock and sprain
your ankle, that's just by pureluck, but 90 percent of the
time, it's just purely an overtraining error.
You, you change out your shoestoo fast to like a more
minimalistic shoe.
And then all of a sudden yourfeet start to hurt.
or you increase the mileage oryou try a terrain that your body
is not accustomed to, andtherefore that's when the
(10:01):
injuries occur.
I mean, if you can learn how tojust train around pain.
Provide the right strengthexercises to supplement, you
know, a proper running program.
There's no doubt that likerunning is actually a very
beneficial exercise for theaforementioned things that you
said, but it just has to be donein the right way in a calculated
manner.
Yeah.
Just reading a book by JayJohnson, who's one of the elite
(10:23):
high school coaches in thecountry and has a, he had a
pretty good college career atthe university of Colorado.
And in his book, where he'saddressing parents and high
school runners, he just talksabout like, there's zero reason
why a high school runner shouldever get hurt.
Unless it's like what you weretalking about, like where they
tripped on a rock on a trainingrun in physics, just one, but
we, we really shouldn't see.
(10:44):
Overuse injuries.
If you're a pro or an Olympianin that vein, you probably will
see some overuse stuff justbecause you're walking that
tightrope of trying to push formax performance.
But outside of that, I'm, Idon't think that we really
should have injuries for themost part with, with running,
you might get to make some painshere and there, but we'll talk
(11:07):
about how to minimize the riskof those as well.
Absolutely.
So let's talk about that.
Like, let's talk about injuredrunners, right?
We're talking about recreationalrunners, not high level elite
people, but People that justwant to run recreationally or
pondering, you know, usingrunning as a means of good
cardiovascular activity.
So why do you, why do somerunners get injured specifically
(11:28):
when they start a runningprogram and what factors are
kind of at play and what do yousee in your clinic?
Yeah.
So when we, we take a reallydetailed history for folks that
come in and their past injuryhistory, and we want to know a
lot about their training, likewhere they come from, what have
they been doing and.
And almost inevitably whensomeone is coming in with a
running related injury, it'sHey, I got the running bug,
(11:52):
whether it's someone bought me anew pair of shoes or my friend
was running and they almostalways just do too much too
soon, too fast.
And so we really try to adviseour runners, especially newbies,
really all runners, if they'recoming off an injury, but anyone
that's new to the sport.
I always say let's do do lessthan you think that you should,
(12:13):
and you should finish every rungoing.
I could have gone farther and Icould have gone harder.
And so we really want to spend agood amount of time, whether
that's 6 or 8 weeks, sometimesmore, sometimes a little less,
just trying to build time onyour feet.
So we're not really worriedabout speed.
Initially, we just want togradually build it up.
I'm a huge fan of a walk, walk,run or run, walk progressions.
(12:37):
So if someone's brand new to thesport, Hey, Jason, why don't we
have you run for two minutes?
You're going to walk for oneminute and I want you to repeat
that six or seven times.
You're going to end up gettingabout 20 to, you know, 20
something minutes, depending howmany reps we do.
And we're, we're just really bigon saying, just listen to your
body.
(12:57):
If something doesn't feel right,just acknowledge it.
And we don't, we, if we assignseven rounds and you get five,
That's awesome.
That's five more rounds ofrunning than you had before you
started the day.
And so we just, we really likeslow, slow and smooth.
And, and we use the cheap, theanalogy, it should be like an
airplane taking off, not ahelicopter.
(13:19):
You know, if you're trying to dolike a couch to 5k programming,
probably get away with it.
If you're trying to do a couchto marathon program, I can
almost guarantee it's not goingto go well for you.
But.
Yeah.
So if, if, if running amarathon, something that you
really want to do.
I would really recommendgetting, you know, a year or two
of running underneath your beltbefore you just go and tackle
(13:39):
it, because we always sayrunning is supposed to be fun.
It shouldn't be a grind.
I mean, there's some, I mean,there should be some points
where you're working throughsome new barriers and boundaries
and finding your new.
end of your comfort zone.
But for the most part, runningshould be enjoyable and, and
most of it should be pretty easyas well.
You should be able to have aconversation while you're
(14:00):
running with someone for most ofit.
I really liked the, so no punintended, but I liked the
airplane.
Like you have a runway analogy.
That's the right way.
You have a runway versus just.
Going from a helicopter andtrying to go from like zero on
the ground.
So like just straight up to theatmosphere.
It's such a good analogy.
I really love that.
And I also really incorporate alot of the run walk intervals,
(14:23):
whether it's a beginner runneror somebody returning from
injury.
It's just honestly, it's thesafest way to go.
Something that I really like toincorporate in my clients is
like.
Okay.
It's like, well, strengthtraining, right?
Strength training in general islike more metabolically taxing
per unit of time.
So you wouldn't just get abarbell squat and be like, I'm
going to do this for six minutesstraight, right?
Or like eight minutes straight.
You wouldn't do that.
Like your body actuallyphysically tells you take the
(14:46):
rest period and actually dothat.
And it's the same thing goes forthese, for anybody that's
considering running, like Wedon't perceive it as like,
sometimes we have to find thatbalance between cardiovascular
capacity versus like actualmuscular capacity and joint
capacity.
Some people might have thecardio, but their joints can't
tolerate it yet.
So I love that.
Like, obviously have aconversation cardiovascularly.
(15:08):
It might be, it might be taxingto you, but you're still getting
your joints and muscles.
Yeah, I mean, just the, theloading of running, most of it
is what we would call eccentricloading.
So that's the muscle is underload while it's lengthening
which is a pretty big force,right?
So when we run, it's, you know,six to eight times our body
(15:31):
weight going through the groundthrough our tendons.
And so we need to have thatmuscular capacity to be able to
tolerate that.
And in addition to thateccentric loading, what we're
really trying to do is to trainour tendons to be elastic.
And so if we can capitalize onthese awesome springs that God
(15:52):
gave us for, for Achillestendons and our glutes and all
of these other big, longtendinous structures that we
have in our body.
When we build up that system andwe can run with good form,
essentially, we're just tryingto harness elastic energy and
then release it so that we canmove in a forward direction.
And so that comes with strengthtraining and we'll get into some
(16:13):
plyometric stuff as well andwhat that means.
But yeah, you know, for me, evenlike to go back to your question
on, on getting someone intorunning and building them up.
I'll, I'll have them do thatwalk or that run walk and then
say, Hey, why don't we, I'drather you cut your run five to
10 minutes short and then gostraight into some strength
work.
Even if it's just body weightwork, because that can almost be
(16:36):
like supplemental miles withoutdoing the strain of the
repetitive movement.
And so we can do some differentstrength and mobility circuits
within that.
session without adding a lot ofextra time to their day.
So that might be step ups on acurb or core work on a yoga mat
next to the car, if they're atthe park all kinds of different
(16:58):
ways that you can supplementbuilding that muscular capacity
so that running can go well foryou.
Yeah.
Do you, do you feel, I mean,this is actually, everyone has
different trends of thought.
I've always been somebody thatsays like, well, if you want to
be a good runner, you also wantto incorporate some strength
training on the background in aclosed environment.
So one to two days of strengthtraining and specifically
(17:22):
working on triple extensions,step ups, deadlift squats,
certain mechanics around there.
Do you agree with that?
Like every good runner shouldhave a strength training in the
background.
It is the lowest hanging fruitthat we joke about in our clinic
all the time.
Like if a runner comes in andthey tell me, Hey, I want to run
a great 5k or I want to run agreat marathon.
(17:42):
We will ask them about theirstrength training work because
if they're not doing that, theyare leaving performance on the
table every time.
I don't care how strong yourrunning program is.
If you're not.
Incorporate industry training,you're leaving performance on
the table and I wish I couldremember the references off the
top of my head, like, some of mycolleagues that can just like
spit out medical journals.
(18:03):
But there was an article about10 years ago.
When I find it, I'll send it toyou because you'll love it.
It's a group of runners like methat we, we like to run.
We're pretty like, we're fairlycompetitive for our age group,
but no one's paying us to run.
Right.
Like we run regularly.
But we, we really enjoy it.
And so they took a team of like20 and 30 somethings.
(18:24):
And they said, Hey, half of youguys, you're just going to do
your normal training.
You're going to just run, dowhat coach has for you for the
other half.
The only thing that we're goingto do is barbell back squats
twice a week, four sets of four.
Like the most basic, simplestrength training exercise, they
tested them on, I think it waseither a two mile or a 5k time
(18:45):
trial before they started thestudy.
And then after six or eightweeks, they retested them.
And so they, both groups arefollowing the exact same running
program, but the groups thatonly did 32 squats a week,
significantly improved theirtime and their running economy.
Like every measure that theytracked, they improved in.
(19:06):
Like that's the world's mostbasic strength training program
and got a benefit.
So yes, I completely agree thatthe strength training is a must
for any runner.
That's crazy.
I, I actually, I was trying tolike, while you were saying, I
was like, I kind of know theresult, but then you said four,
just four reps, like four byfour, four by four, like 32 reps
(19:30):
roughly per week.
That, that's insane.
I think anybody that's listeningright now.
Yeah.
If you're somebody that like,you love the runner's high, you
love to run, but maybe you'reconsistently getting injured.
I mean, yeah, you're, you'reliterally 32 reps and it's not
even like a custom program.
It's not like it involves like aton of coronal plane work and
sagittal plane work.
(19:50):
It's like your basic squat.
I find that insane and I'm, I'm,I'm glad I'm doing barbell
squats, right?
But yeah, it's crazy.
So, so in regards to going intothe strength training, like.
If you were to program somethingfor A recreational runner.
What are some of those like goto exercises that you generally
go for, for runners?
(20:12):
Yeah.
So if someone's new, just likenew to fitness in general, we
just want to try to keep it assimple and basic as possible.
It's doable.
So we want to get buy in fromthem.
So, We might go, is there a typeof exercise that you enjoy doing
the most?
And we're going to probablytailor it around, not probably,
we'll tailor it around that.
(20:33):
Yeah, but we, I love kind ofprogramming it thinking we're
going to warm up.
We're going to do some kind ofcompound movement, meaning that
we're going to move multiplejoints at the same time.
So that example would be like asquat or a step up.
And so for running, I, I likedoing split stance kind of work.
So lunges and step ups, I thinkare a great place to be
(20:57):
certainly squats.
I mean, my favorite exercise isa hex bar deadlift.
I love it.
It's my, it's my favorite thing.
And when I'm consistent withthose, my running just feels
good because I'm getting thattriple extension.
Like you're talking about, I'mworking my My backside and so if
I were to program someone, Iwould probably say we're going
to warm up five to 10 minutes.
(21:18):
We're going to do somesupplemental kind of work.
If they haven't, if they're, ifthey're brand new, I'm not, I'm
not going to introduceplyometrics yet.
So we'll go right into it.
Compound exercise, probably justpick one and we'll do a one or
two ramp sets at a comfortableweight for them.
So then they can work into theirworking sets where it's going to
(21:38):
be a little bit heavier.
And if they're brand new at it,I'm going to say we're going to
do somewhere between one andthree sets.
And I want you to do eight to 12repetitions.
Let's just get comfortable withthe movement.
You should be able to at leastget eight.
If you get to 12 and you'relike, ah, I could probably do
like five to 10 more.
It wasn't heavy enough.
If you're struggling to get toeight, it was probably too much.
And so we'll adjust the weight.
(22:00):
Yeah, and then from there we'lldo some supplemental work to
work different planes like youwere talking about so I might Do
like a side step up or I mightdo a lateral lunge.
Yeah and then I might pick oneMaybe two supplemental
exercises.
So like some hamstrings or acalf raise and then I'll
(22:21):
probably go pick A core exercisethat kind of checks some of
those boxes as well.
So I might do a modified sideplank for them, plus or minus
where they lift their top legwith it.
And that should take 15 to 20minutes, maybe 30 minutes if
they're getting into it and theweight's heavy enough, they're
having to rest a little bit.
(22:43):
Yeah, that all sounds solid.
I mean, I think I'm in agreementwith every single one of those
triplanar stability, eventuallystarting people off on like the
most basic squat, but thentransitioning to more single leg
work, considering that There's alot of single leg movement and
running, right?
That's right.
People don't realize it is asingle leg sport in itself.
And the, I think one of the bestbang for your buck exercises
(23:04):
that I probably never leave offthe table.
And it's like the simplest thingyou've probably done in PE
class.
It's just like calf raises,right?
Cause your calves and your footcomplex is like the first thing
to hit the floor.
So if you're absorbing shockeccentrically very well through
your calves, then it diminishesthe stresses to the knee, the
hip.
The entire skeleton, the wholepelvis.
And I know a lot of people getchronic back pain as a result of
that.
So cab raises, super simple.
(23:27):
Anybody like even at the age ofalmost 80, 90 can still do that,
but just if you have to do soprogressive with obviously like
barbells and yeah, and anybodythat's, that's new to running or
new to strength training, youknow, a good goal for a runner
is they should be able to dosingle.
25 single leg calf raises.
(23:48):
And when we say that, I mean, Ireally want people to feel all
five toes on the ground.
So you'll see someone that iseither weak in one part of their
calf, or just not, doesn't havea good strong foot.
Their foot will start to roll tothe outside towards that pinky
toe.
So we'll really encourageclients to keep their big toe
down.
(24:08):
You should feel like you'repushing up through the ball of
your big toe.
And so we'll, we'll play aroundwith that and have them do those
for, for their calf raises.
And we might start with 12 repsor whatever the case may be.
But the goal is you should get,25 consecutively at a nice
(24:28):
smooth tempo.
And we're not, not using thatelastic component of the
Achilles.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, there's, there'sall kinds of tests that you can
do for that, but setting ametronome for 60 beats a minute
and trying to get 30 reps in isa great test.
Nice.
I think that segments me topotentially the next question.
And I think we might get alittle bit more granular and
(24:49):
focused with like optimalrunning mechanics, but yeah,
let's talk about likepotentially if you were to have
somebody like on video, right?
Like I actually do a good amountof run analysis.
Sorry.
Track people from like the frontview, back view, side view.
Things that I kind of look forare like cadence, foot strike,
over striding, all that.
So even shoe wear as well.
So let's talk about that.
(25:10):
Like what is kind of likeoptimal cadence, foot strike?
Is there optimal cadence, footstrike?
I'm sure there's some debateamongst.
Running clinics and instructors.
So yeah, let's talk about that.
Yeah.
And I love to hear that you'reusing video because once someone
can see how they look, then theycan internalize that and go, Oh,
okay, I see what you're tellingme.
And so in our lab where we'refortunate, we use 3d gate
(25:33):
analysis.
So we've got the 3d markers onour runners and we're watching
them.
I use another.
Product called the run easy sowe can do some work outside of
the lab as well because it'ssome some metrics but yeah I
think the cadence is one of thebest places to start so we can
get as granular in our lab as wewant down to Single joint
(25:53):
angles.
Yeah, but most of the dataactually shows us that Looking
at just one joint angle probablydoesn't matter that much but our
three things that we can look atare cadence.
Are we looking at our verticaloscillation?
So like how much is that runnergoing up and down?
And then in our lab, we canmeasure vertical leg stiffness.
(26:16):
And so just how well are weusing those elastic levers?
And so when we're looking.
Either 2d or like you're able todo with your video analysis or
3d.
I think the joint angles matterwhen we're starting to look left
and right.
Are we noticing some asymmetriesbecause of injury history or
whatever?
But cadence is a, is a fun onebecause.
(26:37):
You know, for whatever reason, Idon't know if it was an article
in runner's world or where itcame from, but there's this like
myth that myth that 180 stepsper minute is the perfect
running cadence.
And we should all be at 180.
And I don't know.
I don't know how tall you are,but we laugh in my clinic all
the time because I'm 6 1 and I'mmostly legs with a really short
torso.
And my, my other running PT inthe clinic is like five foot
(27:00):
three and ran collegiately.
And I was like, there's zerochance you and I are going to
have the same cadence.
And I've worked really hard toboost my cadence.
So kind of going on a tangent.
So let me answer it first.
There is no magic number.
Yep.
Anything below 165 steps perminute is considered a low
(27:21):
cadence.
And so if someone's below that,we probably are going to try to
encourage them to get above thatnumber because you're going to
start having a much moreimproved running economy.
If we go back to that example,like my, my teammate who runs at
180 steps per minute, becauseshe's the perfect build for
that.
If I try to be at one 80, I'mjust going to be burning so much
(27:44):
energy.
Like I can't do that unless I'msprinting.
Or if I'm doing like 400repeats, my cadence, I start to
sneak up closer to that, but ifI'm just going out for a long
run.
I can tell now I've been doingit long enough.
If I start dipping below 162,164, I just feel a little more
achy.
And so then I know like, okay, Igot to make sure my form is on
(28:05):
point.
And so posture becomes a bigdeal.
So I think.
For any runner that comes in, weare looking at their cadence and
we're going, is there anopportunity to help this runner
be more efficient and utilizethose elastic springs and their
tendons?
So that's, that's a big onethat, that we'll look at.
And then shoes, I think matter alot.
(28:26):
And so we can look on the videoand, and see, does the shoe
match with this person?
So, you know, I, I've hadrunners that have, you know,
really rigid feet come in andthey have a stability shoe on.
And so they already have a rigidfoot.
(28:47):
Now they've got a rigid shoe andthey wonder why their IT band
hurts.
And you're like, man, you just.
You aren't utilizing any kind ofnatural or shoe shock
absorption.
And so that, that'd be anexample.
But we'll look, we'll film themin different pairs of shoes and
whatever they feel best and lookbest in is usually the right
(29:08):
pair for them.
I don't know how much you wantto dive in into shoes.
Yeah, no, no, no.
I'm, I'm big on this.
I actually, I wrote my own likereally short running ebook when
I did a bunch of runningseminars in the San Francisco
area.
So like this, this tickles myfancy in every way.
I think that every single thingthat you said, as far as like.
The three primary things you seeis exactly what I look at.
(29:29):
And I, I look at sometimesthings as like rocks, pebbles,
and sand, because like whenyou're doing a run analysis,
what are the biggest rocks thatyou actually have to solve now?
If you want to get a little moregranular and try to like get
like the exact like The exactlike hip symmetry and like exact
angles you can, but tellingsomebody that change your angle
of their shin from like seven to15 or 15.
(29:52):
It doesn't matter as much asactually optimizing their
cadence, which is like thebigger rock, which automatically
fixes like an over strider,getting their shins to be more
vertical upon.
Foot strike and then also likeonce you increase the cadence,
they're going to have less ofthat vertical translation
anyways.
Right.
I kind of say, I say theponytail sign with the females,
(30:12):
like, you know, really jumpingup and down that point feels
like really going up, but youfix cadence and you fix certain
things around like shoe wear.
Then a lot of that starts tounfold and you don't really have
to fix some of the moregranular.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, when we're in thelab, if, if we gave someone a
(30:32):
cue, whether it was cadence or,you know, we'll, we can film
them and we have a big TVmonitor in front of them.
We don't have the mirror, butthey can see what their run
looks like.
And so we can tell them tochange the shape, like, of the
teardrop of their foot.
The.
The software draws the lines forthem.
So we can play around with it,or I can have the iPad up and
(30:53):
tell them to make that, make itlook more symmetrical side to
side.
And if they're struggling withthat, normally what that tells
us is that there's a motorcontrol issue or a strength
issue.
And so that's somebody, thetraining's probably going to
take a little bit longer andthey have some, just.
Some work to do on the strengthside.
So they need to be in the gym,working on glute strength,
(31:16):
hamstring strength, calfstrength, whatever it may be.
If it's somebody that I can givethem that cue and they can
change it.
It was more of just They havethe foundation probably in a
pretty good spot and now we canwe can tweak in more real time
For them, so it just kind oflets us know what what are our
biggest?
Things that we need to go afterso if someone can make a change
(31:37):
in session and they feel betterin that form Change sticks,
like, okay, they, that's what weneed to spend our time on is
running drills and doing some ofthis form stuff.
If they're really not getting itto stick, Hey, we need to spend
a little more time building upyour base in the gym and
building a foundation so thatthen we can address these, the
(31:59):
running mechanic side.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially when it comes down tolike the people that you can,
you can kind of tell like whenthey get them on a treadmill,
Yeah.
That and they, they can tell youby the subjective that like,
okay, I haven't really done muchstrength.
And you see like hugeTrendelenburg issues.
You see like they're a hugeoverstriker, their hip flexors
and everything can't even keepup with the, with the, with the
(32:19):
belt itself.
So they're running at, you'retelling them to run at one, one
70 cadence.
And they're like, I still can'tkeep up.
Right.
So they can't keep up with likethe bare minimum.
So I definitely would say thatstrength training, obviously,
like I to reiterate.
The simplest thing you can do asquat and transition to single
leg activity.
But I think other levers to pullbesides volume and intensity is
also speed, right?
So at some point you can getthem into more speed work.
(32:41):
You can get them into high kneesat a quick level, but then also
transition to plyo because plyois going to.
So there I might, I might've cutout for a bit, but when it comes
to the shoe wear and I do wantto talk about that too, the
(33:02):
thing that I've done, and Idon't know if you kind of like
have seen this before, but I'vekind of been trained to be like,
Hey, like I see somebody runningwith a specific shoe and then
just for the kick of it, I'll belike, Hey, why don't we see how
you run without shoots?
Like just get on the treadmill,run barefoot for 15 to 20
seconds.
I'll obviously get it.
A good, good understanding oflike their baseline to not hurt
(33:23):
them for like, but it's just 15to 20 seconds just to make them
aware of like what they feellike striking the floor without
shoes.
I'm curious what your thoughtson that and like, whether
that's.
You know, whether it's optimal,whether you can kind of see like
significant changes that as aresult of having that one little
15 to 20 second sprints ofbarefoot running.
(33:43):
Yeah.
I think when you can havesomeone experience that running
without a shoe on, it is really,it's really powerful, especially
for our either slower cadencefolks, or folks that are over
striding and their foot'slanding way out in front of
their body.
That's what we mean when we sayover striding.
It's really, it's fascinating.
So Irene Davis, who's the headof the Spalding Running
(34:04):
Institute up in Boston did alecture and she showed some
native runners who typically runbarefoot over dirt and rocks and
just like all the stuff.
And I'm not, I'm not saying I'madvocating for that for American
runners that are in shoes mostof the time yet, but she videoed
them and saw where their footlanded under night underneath
(34:26):
them in a perfect position.
And then she had to put sockson, so like, not even a big Shoe
with a big stack on it, just asock.
So anything on the bottom of ourfoot will, we will automatically
start to stride out in front ofour center of mass a little bit,
isn't that crazy?
So like as little, as little asa sock.
So then you start putting astandard running shoe on there
(34:48):
that has a high stack and youcan just imagine, like we start
running with our foot landingway out in front of us and it's,
it's a little bitcounterproductive because we
think Well, now we have this bigcushion on our shoe.
And so, well, of course, I'mgonna get good shock absorption.
But when we look in theresearch, we actually are
getting greater ground reactionforces and greater joint
(35:10):
reaction forces because whenthat squishy shoe is hitting the
ground, Our brain is getting animperfect input.
And so it's kind of like whenyou walk on ice, your muscles
just want to tense up.
And so that same thing canhappen with, with our shoe, if
it's too squishy and we're notlanding with our foot underneath
us.
(35:30):
And so I think it's fascinatingthat.
Letting someone run withouttheir shoe on now, they can
start to feel what it's like tolet their natural springs and
levers do the work.
And so, yeah, we use it all thetime just to help them feel what
it's like to get a little bitbetter forward lean, let them
feel their foot land underneaththem.
(35:51):
Yeah.
So.
So, yeah, I, I agree completely.
And we might do some drills thatway for anyone that hears this,
like, if you're consideringdoing any kind of barefoot
training, be extremely slow withit, when born to run came out in
2010 or whenever that was, I gotway, way into it with the
(36:12):
barefoot shoes and like rampedmy mileage up real fast and I
should know better because it'swhat I do for a living and my
foot, foot and Achilles just,you know, it's.
I hated it.
It took me a long time to, toovercome that.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I, I, I, I love that ifpeople can incorporate a little
(36:32):
bit more barefoot training, Imean, it's going to strengthen
the intrinsic muscles of yourfoot.
But I do agree that like, again,we're talking about too much,
too soon.
These people are like, Oh myGod, these devos and these
zeros, you know, it's the fadand all of a sudden they go from
like a Hoka, you know, or, orsomething that's like super
supportive and doing that ahundred percent to zero, it's
like, it's not going to work inyour favor.
(36:53):
So my general rule of thumbcould be like, I actually have
like a website that has like ashoe database of like how
minimalistic it is based on Theweight, the capacity, they they
healed a toe drop, for example.
And usually I recommend like a10 to 20 percent increase in
minimalistic percentage overlike every single month.
And for some it's even slower,just depending on like where the
(37:16):
baseline strength and mobilityis.
Yeah.
I, I think, you know, you canget really good shoes in some
cases.
Patients might even need anorthotic.
I'm kind of rare, but we do dosome of those, but I always say
it doesn't matter what any ofthose things are.
We, we need to work on themachine that we're putting
inside of the shoe called ourfoot.
(37:37):
And so, typically, before weeven change shoes, if the shoe
looks okay for them, and theylike it.
Let's do some footwork and thenstart making some of those
changes.
Like you're talking about of,then we can go from a 10 mil
heel to toe drop.
Let's try, let's find a six toseven.
And then if we need to go downto like a four, we can.
(37:58):
And, you know, for instance,like I run in the ultra forward,
if I'm running on the road, Ijust, I can't run in a zero
drop.
I've tried to do all thefootwork.
I'm a great patient.
I try real hard.
And my, my Achilles just.
Doesn't like it.
And I've been at it for, youknow, 15 years of running and,
and I, I do my footwork and fourmils about where I feel really
(38:21):
good from trail running.
I can do well in a zero drop,but on the road, I just, I'm at
four, but you know, I startedback in a Brooks launch way back
when it was probably like a nineto 11, depending on which model
it was at the time.
And so I've worked my way downto a four.
And that's probably just whereI'm going to be forever.
Hey so I mean in regards to Ithink we cut out for a bit, but
(38:43):
with regards to the minimalisticwhere it's something that people
can strive towards for sure, isit right for everyone?
I think that, sure.
I mean, you can always talkabout optimizing certain ones,
running mechanics.
I think they used to say likeUsain Bolt had like the worst,
like start off the, off theline.
But if you're talking about, youknow, wanting to optimize, like,
(39:05):
whether it's like, it's, it'ssomething that's out of the
norm.
I mean, would, I don't, when,when it comes to that, like
Usain Bolt, for example, wouldyou want to opt, would you want
to try to optimize the runningmechanics or changes running
mechanics, especially when it'slike, when it's, When he's one
of the fastest runners in theworld, there, there is some sort
of I guess, intricacies withthat.
Right.
You know, cause some people thatlive in a certain area they've
(39:28):
learned to adapt to a certaintype of running stance and by no
means does everybody have totransition to like minimalistic
wear, but it's always good tohave, To try what's going to be
the right shoe for you based onyour goals, your needs, your
preferences, the type of mileagethat you're going to run.
And so, yeah, I, I currently, Ican run roughly three to four
miles and like bare minimalisticshoes.
(39:49):
But you know, after a certainpoint You know, I started to
develop the same type of issuesin my Achilles as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think for anyone that'slistening, if you're been injury
free, if you're running career,don't make any big changes.
If you have, if you have anevent coming up, don't make any
big changes.
These are your changes to eitherdo coming off of an injury or
(40:11):
you're in the off season, or youmight be thinking about.
Some changes based off of pastperformances in the previous
season.
So we want to be very strategicwhile we're making changes to
somebody.
And that's where someone likeJason or myself can come in and
help you decide on, on what thatneeds to look like and how we
(40:31):
can sprinkle some differenttypes of exercises into your
training regimen as well.
And we just want to make surethat we're doing it.
Intelligently.
Yeah, for sure.
Well anyways, yeah, I mean, Ifeel like we covered a lot of
ground and obviously for anybodylike this is catered to those
recreational runners, but also,I mean, even if you're a very
(40:54):
experienced runner is you canget a lot of value from like
understanding the little nittygritty details of like
biomechanics and cadence, thefoot strike, pulling certain
levers around strength training.
But I guess.
Couple side questions here.
It's like, what are yourthoughts on, for example, like
zone two cardio, you know,versus sprint training, what is
most optimal for even justcardiovascular capacity?
(41:16):
What are your, kind of yourthoughts on that?
Yeah.
So I think build like zone twohas been shown to be.
Excellent for developing ourmitochondrial health.
And it's a great way to helpbuild our cardiovascular
capacity.
I think it is a way that we cantrain and train longer and build
(41:36):
up a more robust base because wedon't want a base.
We don't want too big of apercentage of our runs to be
coming from only high intensity.
So it helps to buffer againstour harder workouts.
So I think it's important tohave those in there.
But when we do those highintensity workouts, whether it's
running at a race pace or doingtrack intervals, It is a good
(42:00):
way to boost your VO2 max so itcan kind of superimpose on that
base training that you're doingto help push you into a new
stratosphere for training.
So I think both are important,but I think having a really
systematic approach to throwingthose workouts into your week or
your month or training block is,is, is critical.
(42:20):
And so you want to make sure youhave plenty of time to recover
after a really hard workout.
So if you're hurt.
Doing those zone four or fiveworkouts where you're going
towards that max effort that youcan sustain for a short amount
of time.
You really need a week to 10days to recover before you do
that again.
If you're doing them within aweek of each other, you probably
(42:41):
need an off week of that.
So then you can jump back intoit again.
So there's only so much capacityto work at your upper end
register.
So that I love training thathard intensity stuff.
I was doing 400 repeats thismorning on the track.
I think it's important to beable to do, but we always say
that if you can hang out in yourzone to, to build a big base to
(43:06):
work from, you're going toreally buffer against that risk
of injury and fatigue and justoverall burnout.
Yeah.
And like we said, it's the.
The vast majority of people thatare getting hurt nowadays with
running and then that they havethis negative perception of what
running is, is those people thatagain, do too much too soon.
So you don't go from.
(43:27):
Zero or like even just like alow level running, like you just
jog in and you decide to do hillrepeats or like sprints.
It's just not the smartest thingto do.
And then again, finding optimalshoe where indoctrinating some
form of strength training on thebackend so that you can continue
to have those runner high and bea good recreational runner
throughout the year.
The decades of your life.
I think all of those are superimportant to think about.
(43:49):
Yeah.
And just one other rule that Iwould throw in there for people
listening is you don't want yourlong run to be more than 50
percent of your weekly volume.
So that, that can be a, where alot of folks can get in trouble
as the week got crazy for themand maybe they missed a run or
they cut another run short.
They had that long run on theschedule for Saturday or Sunday,
and they still go forward withit at that planned distance or
(44:13):
time.
And so just be careful if yourlong run is starting to make up
more than the majority of your,your weekly mileage.
Yeah, that's a great point.
I actually didn't know aboutthat.
And I, I think I might stealthat from you.
That's okay with you.
So, yeah, please do.
I'm sure I didn't come up withit.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, generally Scott,like I, I definitely appreciate
your time.
You've amongst various podcaststhat people that I've
(44:36):
interviewed I know that you'veclearly have some of the most
advanced knowledge from arunning perspective, and I'd
love to continue theseconversations with you and keep
in touch to continue to helppeople educate the masses.
I, you know, I, I take on acertain percentage of runners.
I obviously treat.
I treat a little bit more likelarger spectrum of people from
nine year old kids to, you know,80 year old lacrosse players.
(44:59):
But, you know, I get my smallpercentage of runners and I
still do run analysis.
So it's just great to speak tosomebody that you, that like you
have like a specific, likeaudience and clients that you
specifically serve.
And like, I can tell that youdefinitely know.
A time.
And so like for those that, Imean, two questions, one is
like, is there anything elsethat you think the recreational
(45:20):
runner should know and like to,to kind of lead them off and
where can people find youspecifically?
Yeah.
So I always, anytime I getinvited to be in these four
formats, I would say runningsupposed to be fun.
So for the recreational runner,make sure you're keeping it fun
because it's supposed to be partof our recreation.
And, and just take it slow.
(45:40):
It's a process, you know, if youused to run an 18 minute 5k in
high school and don't let thatbe your expectation 20 years
later, if you haven't run, likejust, you Be okay with the
journey because it's just partof the process and it's a whole
lot of fun and don't rush it.
And then, as far as finding us,we're at Zone Physical Therapy,
so it's zonept.
com, we're on Instagram, YouTubeFacebook, all of the, all of the
(46:04):
platforms.
We, we try to post a ton ofrunning content, you'll see it
on there.
We do virtual consults similarto how you do as well, so if
anyone has any running relatedquestions, we, we can train you
no matter where, where you live.
Well, I definitely will post allof that into the description.
So definitely give Scott Koehlerand his team a follow.
(46:26):
And then if you are interestedin any virtual consultations, I
think that if you are somebody,again, you're a couch to 5k guy,
you never ran in your life orwhether you consistently keep
hitting the, the injury bug,right?
Cause too much, too soon.
And you want somebody that'sgoing to optimize.
Your running mechanics will alsogive you the right strength and
the right guidelines.
I think there's not a lot ofpeople better than Scott to to
(46:48):
handle this situation.
So, but that means it says, Godthanks so much for your time.
I'll post all of that into thedescription and that's it for
the one by one live podcast.
So if you have any questions forus, or if you'd like.
The content that we're puttingout, definitely give us a five
star review and also leave youknow, any feedback for us.
We'd love to learn more aboutwhat you guys want to hear on
this podcast.
And I guess I'll leave you guyswith always the message I always
(47:10):
do, which is we only have onebody, one life, make every
action you make be one thatmakes you a better version of
you.
So take care.
And thanks so much for beinghere, Scott.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
All right, so welcome to the WonBody Won Life Podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, Dr.
Jason Won, Lifestyle PhysicalTherapist.
I'd love to talk to you today.
Be insightful and provide youguys knowledge on how to
optimize your health, optimizeyour fitness.
And I also like to bring inamazing guests as well.
And so what we have, what wehave today is how to improve and
optimize running mechanics andendurance for recreational
(00:22):
runners.
I have a very special guest.
His name is Dr.
Scott Kaler.
He is a he has a sportscertification.
He also treats a ton of runners.
Not just how to rehab frominjuries, but also how to
optimize their running for thelong run.
So I think we have very similarphilosophies and that's why I
only bring in people that are, Iwouldn't say similar to me, but
just have a similar philosophy,but Scott, how are you doing
(00:43):
today?
I'm doing great, Jason.
Thanks so much for having me on.
I'm looking forward to thisconversation and just talking to
all things running, cause Iabsolutely love it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So I, I'm definitely a personthat I, I do a good amount of
strength training, but I stilldo some two to three weeks of
recreational running.
I've, you know, I've, I used torun a lot in high school and I
(01:04):
know that you generally treat alot of runners.
So let's start off with this.
Like why don't you first kind ofjust introduce yourself, get it,
let us know a little bit aboutyour background and like, you
know, who you serve.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, I've been a physicaltherapist for a little while
now.
So I'm in my 15th plus year ofdoing this residency trained.
I've been a fellowship trainedas well.
(01:26):
So I've worked in college andprofessional sports and that
just, it wasn't really thelifestyle my wife and I wanted.
And so we started a practicehere in the upstate of South
Carolina.
Where we get to serve my fellowendurance athletes.
And so one of my goals was tocreate the best running lab in
South Carolina.
And I think we've done a reallygood job of pursuing that and
(01:47):
getting that going.
And so my background, I ran atrack in high school, played all
the other sports as well.
And that just catapulted me intowanting to run.
So ran recreationally throughcollege and then in grad school,
got into triathlon.
And so for me, I've just beenpursuing all, all things
endurance over the last 15 plusyears.
(02:09):
And so we've done Ironman, I'vedone 50 mile trail runs, you
name it.
I usually will want to try it.
Perfect.
That sounds amazing.
And I feel like you have a lotto bring to the table.
And so over the next 25, 30minutes, I hope that you guys
can definitely tune in,especially if you're somebody
that is thinking about running,like pondering running as like a
(02:31):
good mode of.
exercise or cardiovascularactivity or whether you're
overcoming an injury.
I think you guys would be veryexcited to hear some of the
things that we have to saytoday.
So let's start off withsomething, a more generalized
question.
Is running a good form ofexercise in general.
And if so, why is that?
Yeah, I think it's a great formof exercise.
(02:51):
I think it checks a lot ofboxes.
So when we are building ourcardiovascular system, that is
one of the primary ways that wecan live a long and healthy
lifestyle.
So when we can.
promote a cardiovascular systemwith healthy cells and we can
take in oxygen and utilize thatoxygen to help provide energy
(03:13):
and burn fat.
All that stuff is amazing.
I really think it's a goodexercise because that's how I
get a lot of my community.
So I think there's a big mentalhealth aspect to it.
So whether I'm out running withmy friends, Or I want to go
solo.
I think that's helpful as well,just to clear my mind and just
try to be present with the runthat I'm doing.
I don't listen to any music orpodcasts while I'm running.
(03:34):
I just try to be in the momentof what I'm doing.
So running just checks a wholelot of boxes.
And I think that we're.
Designed to run.
And so it can be a good way to,to get out and strengthen and
build a cardiovascular system.
Yeah.
The runner's eye is real.
I definitely do a mixture ofboth.
So sometimes if I just need toclear my mind, it is one of the
(03:56):
absolute best things tomentally, you know, like if I
need, honestly, I wouldn't saythat like, you know, when it
comes like kid stress, like, youknow, we were kind of lacking
sleep and like the kids aregoing through their own phases.
I have like really young kids.
It's amazing.
Just like get outside my housein Daly city, the weather's
relatively cold.
It's not super hot.
So I can just run for days andjust clear my mind.
(04:18):
There are times where I want tokill two birds with one stone
and listen to a podcast at thesame time.
So whatever kind of like checkthe boxes for you and how you
want to use running.
But I, I strongly agree.
If you have the capacity to run,you should run.
You know, disuse, right?
If you stop running, you willlose the ability to sprint, to
run, then walking becomes harderfor you.
(04:40):
So overall cardiovascularly,that's a clear indicator and
correlation with longevity.
But also just mental andphysical health and like putting
the right stresses through theskeleton to.
Keep your hips, knees, andhealth and ankles healthy, if
you will.
That's right.
And I don't know, we'll get intoit more on the injury side, but
I just think like through thelifespan.
And we'll talk about strategiesto do this, but being able to
(05:01):
move quickly is really importantas we age so that we can age
well.
And so, you know, a lot of myclients that want to get into
running, haven't had to runsince they were in high school
and how it's been 20 or 30years.
And, you know, one of the,Things that can lead to falls is
just not being able to move yourlegs fast.
Yes.
And so if we can help peoplekind of sprint through the
(05:24):
lifespan, and that doesn'tnecessarily mean a hundred
percent effort, but you know,70, 80 percent effort, as long
as we've built up to it, I thinkthat's a fantastic forum through
the whole, whole lifespan.
Yeah, there, there are somestats I don't kind of want to
throw out just so I, I smell andsmart.
Cause I know that you're goingto deliver a whole lot of value,
but I heard, I heard, I heardthat the grapevine, this is not
(05:45):
by research, but like, I thinkpeople were the age of 35, like
90 percent of them stoppedsprinting, something like that.
And then I know for sure thereis a stat that says like it, the
average time to cross the streetis like 2.
2 miles per hour.
So like, that's.
That's why they actually timeout the, the green light so that
you have enough time to getacross the street.
But if you walk slower than 2.
(06:06):
2 miles an hour, meaning thatyou become slower, less balanced
overall you increase the chancesof falling and fracturing your
hip by four folds.
So, anybody that's consideringlike, okay, well running is at
least, Four miles an hour on a,on a, on a, at least an average
jog, you should continue to runas long as you can, because
otherwise you are going to slowdown.
You're going to increase yourlikelihood for falls.
(06:26):
And then generally quality oflife goes down from there.
Yeah, that's, that's one of thethings that we measure in our
lab.
We have some walking softwarethat, that we'll do with folks
to be able to look at their.
Gatesby and their mechanics, butyeah, 2.
2 is even on the slow side forwalking.
No, I agree with that.
Yeah.
Especially if it's like a lot,especially if it's like a Las
Vegas block or something, thosewalks are ridiculous, right?
(06:48):
That's for sure.
Yeah.
Well, let's talk about this.
Cause I was going to segmentinto this.
Obviously we, we now know, andwe conclude that running is in a
great form of exercise for mostpeople.
However, there are a lot ofpeople that make training
errors.
Some people don't know the rightrunning mechanics.
They don't have the rightrunning shoes.
They have no running experience.
So why is it often, why issometimes it's running is often
(07:10):
deemed like bad for your kneesand hips.
What would you say to like, youknow, other possibly like
doctors and other people thatsay like running is bad for your
hips, running is bad for yourknees.
And what would you say aboutthat?
How would you go about that?
Yeah, so thankfully in my area,I get invited to speak to
community events and doctorategroups pretty regularly, and so
(07:30):
I get to share this message.
The short answer is I don't knowwhere that came from, other than
there is There, there's a highnumber of injuries in runners,
but we'll, we'll talk about whyI think that's the case, but
inherently running is not badfor you.
When we look in the literature,we actually see that runners
have a lower incidence ofarthritis compared to non
(07:52):
runners when they do imaging Orof marathoners after an event,
they'll take, they'll put therunners through the MRI tube and
look at their cartilagethickness before and after the
run.
And we actually see theircartilage thickness increases
after they do a marathon.
Right.
And so.
When we do movement, we have,you know, those little cells
(08:12):
inside of our cartilage, theirjob is to just absorb and soak
in nutrients.
So when we are moving andrunning, we are helping to move
healthy fluid through ourcartilage.
So.
There, I think there is a bellcurve and the data is pretty
clear on some correlative datato say, if you're going over 70
(08:33):
miles a week, which isincredibly high volume, it's,
it's really hard to get 70 milesa week, unless you're a
professional or you're a highlevel, like college runner those
folks, you will actually seesome like arthritic changes if
they do that through the courseof their life.
But I mean, under 70 miles aweek, I've done multiple
Ironman, multiple 50k, 50 miletype races, and I've, I've never
(08:58):
gone over 70 miles in a week,except for a competition week,
if so in general.
Running actually shows to be ahealthy choice for our joints on
well, and we'll talk about someof the things to help supplement
that so that it goes really wellfor us.
But I think where it gets deemedas an unsafe exercise is just
(09:19):
because we do see so manyinjuries.
And I think most of that's dueto training error rather than
actually the activity itself.
I totally agree with you.
I was going to say that when Igot my like running
certification and I don't treathalf as many runners as you, but
I've always, you know, you kindof just always, always see it as
like when you have like arunning injury, it's generally
(09:40):
not, I mean like, yeah, granted,if you step on a rock and sprain
your ankle, that's just by pureluck, but 90 percent of the
time, it's just purely an overtraining error.
You, you change out your shoestoo fast to like a more
minimalistic shoe.
And then all of a sudden yourfeet start to hurt.
or you increase the mileage oryou try a terrain that your body
is not accustomed to, andtherefore that's when the
(10:01):
injuries occur.
I mean, if you can learn how tojust train around pain.
Provide the right strengthexercises to supplement, you
know, a proper running program.
There's no doubt that likerunning is actually a very
beneficial exercise for theaforementioned things that you
said, but it just has to be donein the right way in a calculated
manner.
Yeah.
Just reading a book by JayJohnson, who's one of the elite
(10:23):
high school coaches in thecountry and has a, he had a
pretty good college career atthe university of Colorado.
And in his book, where he'saddressing parents and high
school runners, he just talksabout like, there's zero reason
why a high school runner shouldever get hurt.
Unless it's like what you weretalking about, like where they
tripped on a rock on a trainingrun in physics, just one, but
we, we really shouldn't see.
(10:44):
Overuse injuries.
If you're a pro or an Olympianin that vein, you probably will
see some overuse stuff justbecause you're walking that
tightrope of trying to push formax performance.
But outside of that, I'm, Idon't think that we really
should have injuries for themost part with, with running,
you might get to make some painshere and there, but we'll talk
(11:07):
about how to minimize the riskof those as well.
Absolutely.
So let's talk about that.
Like, let's talk about injuredrunners, right?
We're talking about recreationalrunners, not high level elite
people, but People that justwant to run recreationally or
pondering, you know, usingrunning as a means of good
cardiovascular activity.
So why do you, why do somerunners get injured specifically
(11:28):
when they start a runningprogram and what factors are
kind of at play and what do yousee in your clinic?
Yeah.
So when we, we take a reallydetailed history for folks that
come in and their past injuryhistory, and we want to know a
lot about their training, likewhere they come from, what have
they been doing and.
And almost inevitably whensomeone is coming in with a
running related injury, it'sHey, I got the running bug,
(11:52):
whether it's someone bought me anew pair of shoes or my friend
was running and they almostalways just do too much too
soon, too fast.
And so we really try to adviseour runners, especially newbies,
really all runners, if they'recoming off an injury, but anyone
that's new to the sport.
I always say let's do do lessthan you think that you should,
(12:13):
and you should finish every rungoing.
I could have gone farther and Icould have gone harder.
And so we really want to spend agood amount of time, whether
that's 6 or 8 weeks, sometimesmore, sometimes a little less,
just trying to build time onyour feet.
So we're not really worriedabout speed.
Initially, we just want togradually build it up.
I'm a huge fan of a walk, walk,run or run, walk progressions.
(12:37):
So if someone's brand new to thesport, Hey, Jason, why don't we
have you run for two minutes?
You're going to walk for oneminute and I want you to repeat
that six or seven times.
You're going to end up gettingabout 20 to, you know, 20
something minutes, depending howmany reps we do.
And we're, we're just really bigon saying, just listen to your
body.
(12:57):
If something doesn't feel right,just acknowledge it.
And we don't, we, if we assignseven rounds and you get five,
That's awesome.
That's five more rounds ofrunning than you had before you
started the day.
And so we just, we really likeslow, slow and smooth.
And, and we use the cheap, theanalogy, it should be like an
airplane taking off, not ahelicopter.
(13:19):
You know, if you're trying to dolike a couch to 5k programming,
probably get away with it.
If you're trying to do a couchto marathon program, I can
almost guarantee it's not goingto go well for you.
But.
Yeah.
So if, if, if running amarathon, something that you
really want to do.
I would really recommendgetting, you know, a year or two
of running underneath your beltbefore you just go and tackle
(13:39):
it, because we always sayrunning is supposed to be fun.
It shouldn't be a grind.
I mean, there's some, I mean,there should be some points
where you're working throughsome new barriers and boundaries
and finding your new.
end of your comfort zone.
But for the most part, runningshould be enjoyable and, and
most of it should be pretty easyas well.
You should be able to have aconversation while you're
(14:00):
running with someone for most ofit.
I really liked the, so no punintended, but I liked the
airplane.
Like you have a runway analogy.
That's the right way.
You have a runway versus just.
Going from a helicopter andtrying to go from like zero on
the ground.
So like just straight up to theatmosphere.
It's such a good analogy.
I really love that.
And I also really incorporate alot of the run walk intervals,
(14:23):
whether it's a beginner runneror somebody returning from
injury.
It's just honestly, it's thesafest way to go.
Something that I really like toincorporate in my clients is
like.
Okay.
It's like, well, strengthtraining, right?
Strength training in general islike more metabolically taxing
per unit of time.
So you wouldn't just get abarbell squat and be like, I'm
going to do this for six minutesstraight, right?
Or like eight minutes straight.
You wouldn't do that.
Like your body actuallyphysically tells you take the
(14:46):
rest period and actually dothat.
And it's the same thing goes forthese, for anybody that's
considering running, like Wedon't perceive it as like,
sometimes we have to find thatbalance between cardiovascular
capacity versus like actualmuscular capacity and joint
capacity.
Some people might have thecardio, but their joints can't
tolerate it yet.
So I love that.
Like, obviously have aconversation cardiovascularly.
(15:08):
It might be, it might be taxingto you, but you're still getting
your joints and muscles.
Yeah, I mean, just the, theloading of running, most of it
is what we would call eccentricloading.
So that's the muscle is underload while it's lengthening
which is a pretty big force,right?
So when we run, it's, you know,six to eight times our body
(15:31):
weight going through the groundthrough our tendons.
And so we need to have thatmuscular capacity to be able to
tolerate that.
And in addition to thateccentric loading, what we're
really trying to do is to trainour tendons to be elastic.
And so if we can capitalize onthese awesome springs that God
(15:52):
gave us for, for Achillestendons and our glutes and all
of these other big, longtendinous structures that we
have in our body.
When we build up that system andwe can run with good form,
essentially, we're just tryingto harness elastic energy and
then release it so that we canmove in a forward direction.
And so that comes with strengthtraining and we'll get into some
(16:13):
plyometric stuff as well andwhat that means.
But yeah, you know, for me, evenlike to go back to your question
on, on getting someone intorunning and building them up.
I'll, I'll have them do thatwalk or that run walk and then
say, Hey, why don't we, I'drather you cut your run five to
10 minutes short and then gostraight into some strength
work.
Even if it's just body weightwork, because that can almost be
(16:36):
like supplemental miles withoutdoing the strain of the
repetitive movement.
And so we can do some differentstrength and mobility circuits
within that.
session without adding a lot ofextra time to their day.
So that might be step ups on acurb or core work on a yoga mat
next to the car, if they're atthe park all kinds of different
(16:58):
ways that you can supplementbuilding that muscular capacity
so that running can go well foryou.
Yeah.
Do you, do you feel, I mean,this is actually, everyone has
different trends of thought.
I've always been somebody thatsays like, well, if you want to
be a good runner, you also wantto incorporate some strength
training on the background in aclosed environment.
So one to two days of strengthtraining and specifically
(17:22):
working on triple extensions,step ups, deadlift squats,
certain mechanics around there.
Do you agree with that?
Like every good runner shouldhave a strength training in the
background.
It is the lowest hanging fruitthat we joke about in our clinic
all the time.
Like if a runner comes in andthey tell me, Hey, I want to run
a great 5k or I want to run agreat marathon.
(17:42):
We will ask them about theirstrength training work because
if they're not doing that, theyare leaving performance on the
table every time.
I don't care how strong yourrunning program is.
If you're not.
Incorporate industry training,you're leaving performance on
the table and I wish I couldremember the references off the
top of my head, like, some of mycolleagues that can just like
spit out medical journals.
(18:03):
But there was an article about10 years ago.
When I find it, I'll send it toyou because you'll love it.
It's a group of runners like methat we, we like to run.
We're pretty like, we're fairlycompetitive for our age group,
but no one's paying us to run.
Right.
Like we run regularly.
But we, we really enjoy it.
And so they took a team of like20 and 30 somethings.
(18:24):
And they said, Hey, half of youguys, you're just going to do
your normal training.
You're going to just run, dowhat coach has for you for the
other half.
The only thing that we're goingto do is barbell back squats
twice a week, four sets of four.
Like the most basic, simplestrength training exercise, they
tested them on, I think it waseither a two mile or a 5k time
(18:45):
trial before they started thestudy.
And then after six or eightweeks, they retested them.
And so they, both groups arefollowing the exact same running
program, but the groups thatonly did 32 squats a week,
significantly improved theirtime and their running economy.
Like every measure that theytracked, they improved in.
(19:06):
Like that's the world's mostbasic strength training program
and got a benefit.
So yes, I completely agree thatthe strength training is a must
for any runner.
That's crazy.
I, I actually, I was trying tolike, while you were saying, I
was like, I kind of know theresult, but then you said four,
just four reps, like four byfour, four by four, like 32 reps
(19:30):
roughly per week.
That, that's insane.
I think anybody that's listeningright now.
Yeah.
If you're somebody that like,you love the runner's high, you
love to run, but maybe you'reconsistently getting injured.
I mean, yeah, you're, you'reliterally 32 reps and it's not
even like a custom program.
It's not like it involves like aton of coronal plane work and
sagittal plane work.
(19:50):
It's like your basic squat.
I find that insane and I'm, I'm,I'm glad I'm doing barbell
squats, right?
But yeah, it's crazy.
So, so in regards to going intothe strength training, like.
If you were to program somethingfor A recreational runner.
What are some of those like goto exercises that you generally
go for, for runners?
(20:12):
Yeah.
So if someone's new, just likenew to fitness in general, we
just want to try to keep it assimple and basic as possible.
It's doable.
So we want to get buy in fromthem.
So, We might go, is there a typeof exercise that you enjoy doing
the most?
And we're going to probablytailor it around, not probably,
we'll tailor it around that.
(20:33):
Yeah, but we, I love kind ofprogramming it thinking we're
going to warm up.
We're going to do some kind ofcompound movement, meaning that
we're going to move multiplejoints at the same time.
So that example would be like asquat or a step up.
And so for running, I, I likedoing split stance kind of work.
So lunges and step ups, I thinkare a great place to be
(20:57):
certainly squats.
I mean, my favorite exercise isa hex bar deadlift.
I love it.
It's my, it's my favorite thing.
And when I'm consistent withthose, my running just feels
good because I'm getting thattriple extension.
Like you're talking about, I'mworking my My backside and so if
I were to program someone, Iwould probably say we're going
to warm up five to 10 minutes.
(21:18):
We're going to do somesupplemental kind of work.
If they haven't, if they're, ifthey're brand new, I'm not, I'm
not going to introduceplyometrics yet.
So we'll go right into it.
Compound exercise, probably justpick one and we'll do a one or
two ramp sets at a comfortableweight for them.
So then they can work into theirworking sets where it's going to
(21:38):
be a little bit heavier.
And if they're brand new at it,I'm going to say we're going to
do somewhere between one andthree sets.
And I want you to do eight to 12repetitions.
Let's just get comfortable withthe movement.
You should be able to at leastget eight.
If you get to 12 and you'relike, ah, I could probably do
like five to 10 more.
It wasn't heavy enough.
If you're struggling to get toeight, it was probably too much.
And so we'll adjust the weight.
(22:00):
Yeah, and then from there we'lldo some supplemental work to
work different planes like youwere talking about so I might Do
like a side step up or I mightdo a lateral lunge.
Yeah and then I might pick oneMaybe two supplemental
exercises.
So like some hamstrings or acalf raise and then I'll
(22:21):
probably go pick A core exercisethat kind of checks some of
those boxes as well.
So I might do a modified sideplank for them, plus or minus
where they lift their top legwith it.
And that should take 15 to 20minutes, maybe 30 minutes if
they're getting into it and theweight's heavy enough, they're
having to rest a little bit.
(22:43):
Yeah, that all sounds solid.
I mean, I think I'm in agreementwith every single one of those
triplanar stability, eventuallystarting people off on like the
most basic squat, but thentransitioning to more single leg
work, considering that There's alot of single leg movement and
running, right?
That's right.
People don't realize it is asingle leg sport in itself.
And the, I think one of the bestbang for your buck exercises
(23:04):
that I probably never leave offthe table.
And it's like the simplest thingyou've probably done in PE
class.
It's just like calf raises,right?
Cause your calves and your footcomplex is like the first thing
to hit the floor.
So if you're absorbing shockeccentrically very well through
your calves, then it diminishesthe stresses to the knee, the
hip.
The entire skeleton, the wholepelvis.
And I know a lot of people getchronic back pain as a result of
that.
So cab raises, super simple.
(23:27):
Anybody like even at the age ofalmost 80, 90 can still do that,
but just if you have to do soprogressive with obviously like
barbells and yeah, and anybodythat's, that's new to running or
new to strength training, youknow, a good goal for a runner
is they should be able to dosingle.
25 single leg calf raises.
(23:48):
And when we say that, I mean, Ireally want people to feel all
five toes on the ground.
So you'll see someone that iseither weak in one part of their
calf, or just not, doesn't havea good strong foot.
Their foot will start to roll tothe outside towards that pinky
toe.
So we'll really encourageclients to keep their big toe
down.
(24:08):
You should feel like you'repushing up through the ball of
your big toe.
And so we'll, we'll play aroundwith that and have them do those
for, for their calf raises.
And we might start with 12 repsor whatever the case may be.
But the goal is you should get,25 consecutively at a nice
(24:28):
smooth tempo.
And we're not, not using thatelastic component of the
Achilles.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, there's, there'sall kinds of tests that you can
do for that, but setting ametronome for 60 beats a minute
and trying to get 30 reps in isa great test.
Nice.
I think that segments me topotentially the next question.
And I think we might get alittle bit more granular and
(24:49):
focused with like optimalrunning mechanics, but yeah,
let's talk about likepotentially if you were to have
somebody like on video, right?
Like I actually do a good amountof run analysis.
Sorry.
Track people from like the frontview, back view, side view.
Things that I kind of look forare like cadence, foot strike,
over striding, all that.
So even shoe wear as well.
So let's talk about that.
(25:10):
Like what is kind of likeoptimal cadence, foot strike?
Is there optimal cadence, footstrike?
I'm sure there's some debateamongst.
Running clinics and instructors.
So yeah, let's talk about that.
Yeah.
And I love to hear that you'reusing video because once someone
can see how they look, then theycan internalize that and go, Oh,
okay, I see what you're tellingme.
And so in our lab where we'refortunate, we use 3d gate
(25:33):
analysis.
So we've got the 3d markers onour runners and we're watching
them.
I use another.
Product called the run easy sowe can do some work outside of
the lab as well because it'ssome some metrics but yeah I
think the cadence is one of thebest places to start so we can
get as granular in our lab as wewant down to Single joint
(25:53):
angles.
Yeah, but most of the dataactually shows us that Looking
at just one joint angle probablydoesn't matter that much but our
three things that we can look atare cadence.
Are we looking at our verticaloscillation?
So like how much is that runnergoing up and down?
And then in our lab, we canmeasure vertical leg stiffness.
(26:16):
And so just how well are weusing those elastic levers?
And so when we're looking.
Either 2d or like you're able todo with your video analysis or
3d.
I think the joint angles matterwhen we're starting to look left
and right.
Are we noticing some asymmetriesbecause of injury history or
whatever?
But cadence is a, is a fun onebecause.
(26:37):
You know, for whatever reason, Idon't know if it was an article
in runner's world or where itcame from, but there's this like
myth that myth that 180 stepsper minute is the perfect
running cadence.
And we should all be at 180.
And I don't know.
I don't know how tall you are,but we laugh in my clinic all
the time because I'm 6 1 and I'mmostly legs with a really short
torso.
And my, my other running PT inthe clinic is like five foot
(27:00):
three and ran collegiately.
And I was like, there's zerochance you and I are going to
have the same cadence.
And I've worked really hard toboost my cadence.
So kind of going on a tangent.
So let me answer it first.
There is no magic number.
Yep.
Anything below 165 steps perminute is considered a low
(27:21):
cadence.
And so if someone's below that,we probably are going to try to
encourage them to get above thatnumber because you're going to
start having a much moreimproved running economy.
If we go back to that example,like my, my teammate who runs at
180 steps per minute, becauseshe's the perfect build for
that.
If I try to be at one 80, I'mjust going to be burning so much
(27:44):
energy.
Like I can't do that unless I'msprinting.
Or if I'm doing like 400repeats, my cadence, I start to
sneak up closer to that, but ifI'm just going out for a long
run.
I can tell now I've been doingit long enough.
If I start dipping below 162,164, I just feel a little more
achy.
And so then I know like, okay, Igot to make sure my form is on
(28:05):
point.
And so posture becomes a bigdeal.
So I think.
For any runner that comes in, weare looking at their cadence and
we're going, is there anopportunity to help this runner
be more efficient and utilizethose elastic springs and their
tendons?
So that's, that's a big onethat, that we'll look at.
And then shoes, I think matter alot.
(28:26):
And so we can look on the videoand, and see, does the shoe
match with this person?
So, you know, I, I've hadrunners that have, you know,
really rigid feet come in andthey have a stability shoe on.
And so they already have a rigidfoot.
(28:47):
Now they've got a rigid shoe andthey wonder why their IT band
hurts.
And you're like, man, you just.
You aren't utilizing any kind ofnatural or shoe shock
absorption.
And so that, that'd be anexample.
But we'll look, we'll film themin different pairs of shoes and
whatever they feel best and lookbest in is usually the right
(29:08):
pair for them.
I don't know how much you wantto dive in into shoes.
Yeah, no, no, no.
I'm, I'm big on this.
I actually, I wrote my own likereally short running ebook when
I did a bunch of runningseminars in the San Francisco
area.
So like this, this tickles myfancy in every way.
I think that every single thingthat you said, as far as like.
The three primary things you seeis exactly what I look at.
(29:29):
And I, I look at sometimesthings as like rocks, pebbles,
and sand, because like whenyou're doing a run analysis,
what are the biggest rocks thatyou actually have to solve now?
If you want to get a little moregranular and try to like get
like the exact like The exactlike hip symmetry and like exact
angles you can, but tellingsomebody that change your angle
of their shin from like seven to15 or 15.
(29:52):
It doesn't matter as much asactually optimizing their
cadence, which is like thebigger rock, which automatically
fixes like an over strider,getting their shins to be more
vertical upon.
Foot strike and then also likeonce you increase the cadence,
they're going to have less ofthat vertical translation
anyways.
Right.
I kind of say, I say theponytail sign with the females,
(30:12):
like, you know, really jumpingup and down that point feels
like really going up, but youfix cadence and you fix certain
things around like shoe wear.
Then a lot of that starts tounfold and you don't really have
to fix some of the moregranular.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, when we're in thelab, if, if we gave someone a
(30:32):
cue, whether it was cadence or,you know, we'll, we can film
them and we have a big TVmonitor in front of them.
We don't have the mirror, butthey can see what their run
looks like.
And so we can tell them tochange the shape, like, of the
teardrop of their foot.
The.
The software draws the lines forthem.
So we can play around with it,or I can have the iPad up and
(30:53):
tell them to make that, make itlook more symmetrical side to
side.
And if they're struggling withthat, normally what that tells
us is that there's a motorcontrol issue or a strength
issue.
And so that's somebody, thetraining's probably going to
take a little bit longer andthey have some, just.
Some work to do on the strengthside.
So they need to be in the gym,working on glute strength,
(31:16):
hamstring strength, calfstrength, whatever it may be.
If it's somebody that I can givethem that cue and they can
change it.
It was more of just They havethe foundation probably in a
pretty good spot and now we canwe can tweak in more real time
For them, so it just kind oflets us know what what are our
biggest?
Things that we need to go afterso if someone can make a change
(31:37):
in session and they feel betterin that form Change sticks,
like, okay, they, that's what weneed to spend our time on is
running drills and doing some ofthis form stuff.
If they're really not getting itto stick, Hey, we need to spend
a little more time building upyour base in the gym and
building a foundation so thatthen we can address these, the
(31:59):
running mechanic side.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially when it comes down tolike the people that you can,
you can kind of tell like whenthey get them on a treadmill,
Yeah.
That and they, they can tell youby the subjective that like,
okay, I haven't really done muchstrength.
And you see like hugeTrendelenburg issues.
You see like they're a hugeoverstriker, their hip flexors
and everything can't even keepup with the, with the, with the
(32:19):
belt itself.
So they're running at, you'retelling them to run at one, one
70 cadence.
And they're like, I still can'tkeep up.
Right.
So they can't keep up with likethe bare minimum.
So I definitely would say thatstrength training, obviously,
like I to reiterate.
The simplest thing you can do asquat and transition to single
leg activity.
But I think other levers to pullbesides volume and intensity is
also speed, right?
So at some point you can getthem into more speed work.
(32:41):
You can get them into high kneesat a quick level, but then also
transition to plyo because plyois going to.
So there I might, I might've cutout for a bit, but when it comes
to the shoe wear and I do wantto talk about that too, the
(33:02):
thing that I've done, and Idon't know if you kind of like
have seen this before, but I'vekind of been trained to be like,
Hey, like I see somebody runningwith a specific shoe and then
just for the kick of it, I'll belike, Hey, why don't we see how
you run without shoots?
Like just get on the treadmill,run barefoot for 15 to 20
seconds.
I'll obviously get it.
A good, good understanding oflike their baseline to not hurt
(33:23):
them for like, but it's just 15to 20 seconds just to make them
aware of like what they feellike striking the floor without
shoes.
I'm curious what your thoughtson that and like, whether
that's.
You know, whether it's optimal,whether you can kind of see like
significant changes that as aresult of having that one little
15 to 20 second sprints ofbarefoot running.
(33:43):
Yeah.
I think when you can havesomeone experience that running
without a shoe on, it is really,it's really powerful, especially
for our either slower cadencefolks, or folks that are over
striding and their foot'slanding way out in front of
their body.
That's what we mean when we sayover striding.
It's really, it's fascinating.
So Irene Davis, who's the headof the Spalding Running
(34:04):
Institute up in Boston did alecture and she showed some
native runners who typically runbarefoot over dirt and rocks and
just like all the stuff.
And I'm not, I'm not saying I'madvocating for that for American
runners that are in shoes mostof the time yet, but she videoed
them and saw where their footlanded under night underneath
(34:26):
them in a perfect position.
And then she had to put sockson, so like, not even a big Shoe
with a big stack on it, just asock.
So anything on the bottom of ourfoot will, we will automatically
start to stride out in front ofour center of mass a little bit,
isn't that crazy?
So like as little, as little asa sock.
So then you start putting astandard running shoe on there
(34:48):
that has a high stack and youcan just imagine, like we start
running with our foot landingway out in front of us and it's,
it's a little bitcounterproductive because we
think Well, now we have this bigcushion on our shoe.
And so, well, of course, I'mgonna get good shock absorption.
But when we look in theresearch, we actually are
getting greater ground reactionforces and greater joint
(35:10):
reaction forces because whenthat squishy shoe is hitting the
ground, Our brain is getting animperfect input.
And so it's kind of like whenyou walk on ice, your muscles
just want to tense up.
And so that same thing canhappen with, with our shoe, if
it's too squishy and we're notlanding with our foot underneath
us.
(35:30):
And so I think it's fascinatingthat.
Letting someone run withouttheir shoe on now, they can
start to feel what it's like tolet their natural springs and
levers do the work.
And so, yeah, we use it all thetime just to help them feel what
it's like to get a little bitbetter forward lean, let them
feel their foot land underneaththem.
(35:51):
Yeah.
So.
So, yeah, I, I agree completely.
And we might do some drills thatway for anyone that hears this,
like, if you're consideringdoing any kind of barefoot
training, be extremely slow withit, when born to run came out in
2010 or whenever that was, I gotway, way into it with the
(36:12):
barefoot shoes and like rampedmy mileage up real fast and I
should know better because it'swhat I do for a living and my
foot, foot and Achilles just,you know, it's.
I hated it.
It took me a long time to, toovercome that.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I, I, I, I love that ifpeople can incorporate a little
(36:32):
bit more barefoot training, Imean, it's going to strengthen
the intrinsic muscles of yourfoot.
But I do agree that like, again,we're talking about too much,
too soon.
These people are like, Oh myGod, these devos and these
zeros, you know, it's the fadand all of a sudden they go from
like a Hoka, you know, or, orsomething that's like super
supportive and doing that ahundred percent to zero, it's
like, it's not going to work inyour favor.
(36:53):
So my general rule of thumbcould be like, I actually have
like a website that has like ashoe database of like how
minimalistic it is based on Theweight, the capacity, they they
healed a toe drop, for example.
And usually I recommend like a10 to 20 percent increase in
minimalistic percentage overlike every single month.
And for some it's even slower,just depending on like where the
(37:16):
baseline strength and mobilityis.
Yeah.
I, I think, you know, you canget really good shoes in some
cases.
Patients might even need anorthotic.
I'm kind of rare, but we do dosome of those, but I always say
it doesn't matter what any ofthose things are.
We, we need to work on themachine that we're putting
inside of the shoe called ourfoot.
(37:37):
And so, typically, before weeven change shoes, if the shoe
looks okay for them, and theylike it.
Let's do some footwork and thenstart making some of those
changes.
Like you're talking about of,then we can go from a 10 mil
heel to toe drop.
Let's try, let's find a six toseven.
And then if we need to go downto like a four, we can.
(37:58):
And, you know, for instance,like I run in the ultra forward,
if I'm running on the road, Ijust, I can't run in a zero
drop.
I've tried to do all thefootwork.
I'm a great patient.
I try real hard.
And my, my Achilles just.
Doesn't like it.
And I've been at it for, youknow, 15 years of running and,
and I, I do my footwork and fourmils about where I feel really
(38:21):
good from trail running.
I can do well in a zero drop,but on the road, I just, I'm at
four, but you know, I startedback in a Brooks launch way back
when it was probably like a nineto 11, depending on which model
it was at the time.
And so I've worked my way downto a four.
And that's probably just whereI'm going to be forever.
Hey so I mean in regards to Ithink we cut out for a bit, but
(38:43):
with regards to the minimalisticwhere it's something that people
can strive towards for sure, isit right for everyone?
I think that, sure.
I mean, you can always talkabout optimizing certain ones,
running mechanics.
I think they used to say likeUsain Bolt had like the worst,
like start off the, off theline.
But if you're talking about, youknow, wanting to optimize, like,
(39:05):
whether it's like, it's, it'ssomething that's out of the
norm.
I mean, would, I don't, when,when it comes to that, like
Usain Bolt, for example, wouldyou want to opt, would you want
to try to optimize the runningmechanics or changes running
mechanics, especially when it'slike, when it's, When he's one
of the fastest runners in theworld, there, there is some sort
of I guess, intricacies withthat.
Right.
You know, cause some people thatlive in a certain area they've
(39:28):
learned to adapt to a certaintype of running stance and by no
means does everybody have totransition to like minimalistic
wear, but it's always good tohave, To try what's going to be
the right shoe for you based onyour goals, your needs, your
preferences, the type of mileagethat you're going to run.
And so, yeah, I, I currently, Ican run roughly three to four
miles and like bare minimalisticshoes.
(39:49):
But you know, after a certainpoint You know, I started to
develop the same type of issuesin my Achilles as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think for anyone that'slistening, if you're been injury
free, if you're running career,don't make any big changes.
If you have, if you have anevent coming up, don't make any
big changes.
These are your changes to eitherdo coming off of an injury or
(40:11):
you're in the off season, or youmight be thinking about.
Some changes based off of pastperformances in the previous
season.
So we want to be very strategicwhile we're making changes to
somebody.
And that's where someone likeJason or myself can come in and
help you decide on, on what thatneeds to look like and how we
(40:31):
can sprinkle some differenttypes of exercises into your
training regimen as well.
And we just want to make surethat we're doing it.
Intelligently.
Yeah, for sure.
Well anyways, yeah, I mean, Ifeel like we covered a lot of
ground and obviously for anybodylike this is catered to those
recreational runners, but also,I mean, even if you're a very
(40:54):
experienced runner is you canget a lot of value from like
understanding the little nittygritty details of like
biomechanics and cadence, thefoot strike, pulling certain
levers around strength training.
But I guess.
Couple side questions here.
It's like, what are yourthoughts on, for example, like
zone two cardio, you know,versus sprint training, what is
most optimal for even justcardiovascular capacity?
(41:16):
What are your, kind of yourthoughts on that?
Yeah.
So I think build like zone twohas been shown to be.
Excellent for developing ourmitochondrial health.
And it's a great way to helpbuild our cardiovascular
capacity.
I think it is a way that we cantrain and train longer and build
(41:36):
up a more robust base because wedon't want a base.
We don't want too big of apercentage of our runs to be
coming from only high intensity.
So it helps to buffer againstour harder workouts.
So I think it's important tohave those in there.
But when we do those highintensity workouts, whether it's
running at a race pace or doingtrack intervals, It is a good
(42:00):
way to boost your VO2 max so itcan kind of superimpose on that
base training that you're doingto help push you into a new
stratosphere for training.
So I think both are important,but I think having a really
systematic approach to throwingthose workouts into your week or
your month or training block is,is, is critical.
(42:20):
And so you want to make sure youhave plenty of time to recover
after a really hard workout.
So if you're hurt.
Doing those zone four or fiveworkouts where you're going
towards that max effort that youcan sustain for a short amount
of time.
You really need a week to 10days to recover before you do
that again.
If you're doing them within aweek of each other, you probably
(42:41):
need an off week of that.
So then you can jump back intoit again.
So there's only so much capacityto work at your upper end
register.
So that I love training thathard intensity stuff.
I was doing 400 repeats thismorning on the track.
I think it's important to beable to do, but we always say
that if you can hang out in yourzone to, to build a big base to
(43:06):
work from, you're going toreally buffer against that risk
of injury and fatigue and justoverall burnout.
Yeah.
And like we said, it's the.
The vast majority of people thatare getting hurt nowadays with
running and then that they havethis negative perception of what
running is, is those people thatagain, do too much too soon.
So you don't go from.
(43:27):
Zero or like even just like alow level running, like you just
jog in and you decide to do hillrepeats or like sprints.
It's just not the smartest thingto do.
And then again, finding optimalshoe where indoctrinating some
form of strength training on thebackend so that you can continue
to have those runner high and bea good recreational runner
throughout the year.
The decades of your life.
I think all of those are superimportant to think about.
(43:49):
Yeah.
And just one other rule that Iwould throw in there for people
listening is you don't want yourlong run to be more than 50
percent of your weekly volume.
So that, that can be a, where alot of folks can get in trouble
as the week got crazy for themand maybe they missed a run or
they cut another run short.
They had that long run on theschedule for Saturday or Sunday,
and they still go forward withit at that planned distance or
(44:13):
time.
And so just be careful if yourlong run is starting to make up
more than the majority of your,your weekly mileage.
Yeah, that's a great point.
I actually didn't know aboutthat.
And I, I think I might stealthat from you.
That's okay with you.
So, yeah, please do.
I'm sure I didn't come up withit.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, generally Scott,like I, I definitely appreciate
your time.
You've amongst various podcaststhat people that I've
(44:36):
interviewed I know that you'veclearly have some of the most
advanced knowledge from arunning perspective, and I'd
love to continue theseconversations with you and keep
in touch to continue to helppeople educate the masses.
I, you know, I, I take on acertain percentage of runners.
I obviously treat.
I treat a little bit more likelarger spectrum of people from
nine year old kids to, you know,80 year old lacrosse players.
(44:59):
But, you know, I get my smallpercentage of runners and I
still do run analysis.
So it's just great to speak tosomebody that you, that like you
have like a specific, likeaudience and clients that you
specifically serve.
And like, I can tell that youdefinitely know.
A time.
And so like for those that, Imean, two questions, one is
like, is there anything elsethat you think the recreational
(45:20):
runner should know and like to,to kind of lead them off and
where can people find youspecifically?
Yeah.
So I always, anytime I getinvited to be in these four
formats, I would say runningsupposed to be fun.
So for the recreational runner,make sure you're keeping it fun
because it's supposed to be partof our recreation.
And, and just take it slow.
(45:40):
It's a process, you know, if youused to run an 18 minute 5k in
high school and don't let thatbe your expectation 20 years
later, if you haven't run, likejust, you Be okay with the
journey because it's just partof the process and it's a whole
lot of fun and don't rush it.
And then, as far as finding us,we're at Zone Physical Therapy,
so it's zonept.
com, we're on Instagram, YouTubeFacebook, all of the, all of the
(46:04):
platforms.
We, we try to post a ton ofrunning content, you'll see it
on there.
We do virtual consults similarto how you do as well, so if
anyone has any running relatedquestions, we, we can train you
no matter where, where you live.
Well, I definitely will post allof that into the description.
So definitely give Scott Koehlerand his team a follow.
(46:26):
And then if you are interestedin any virtual consultations, I
think that if you are somebody,again, you're a couch to 5k guy,
you never ran in your life orwhether you consistently keep
hitting the, the injury bug,right?
Cause too much, too soon.
And you want somebody that'sgoing to optimize.
Your running mechanics will alsogive you the right strength and
the right guidelines.
I think there's not a lot ofpeople better than Scott to to
(46:48):
handle this situation.
So, but that means it says, Godthanks so much for your time.
I'll post all of that into thedescription and that's it for
the one by one live podcast.
So if you have any questions forus, or if you'd like.
The content that we're puttingout, definitely give us a five
star review and also leave youknow, any feedback for us.
We'd love to learn more aboutwhat you guys want to hear on
this podcast.
And I guess I'll leave you guyswith always the message I always
(47:10):
do, which is we only have onebody, one life, make every
action you make be one thatmakes you a better version of
you.
So take care.
And thanks so much for beinghere, Scott.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
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