♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi, folks I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet. - In our opinion,
of course, Bob. - Today, Brad,
you wanted to talk about what science says
about barefoot forefoot running.
You must know this if you're gonna be a runner, I would say.
- Right, and this all ties in
with the the mini-mana-list (laughs), can I pronounce it--
- Minimalist. - Yep, the minimalist shoes
or, you know, the shoes with the toes
that are made of Vibram,
and it all revolves around each other.
And the science on this, Bob, is--
- It's all over the map, isn't it?
- It kinda is, but we're just gonna discuss it,
and we have our favorite.
- Yeah, well, I mean, both Brad and I converted.
- (laughs) Right. - We're converts, aren't we?
- From heel strikers to forefoot runners,
but this whole thing, but before we go
any farther, Bob-- - Yeah, if you are new
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- There we go. - Yeah, we are doing
a giveaway, we're gonna probably put this up on Friday,
so we're doing a giveaway of the Kebado.
- Ooh. - It's a back support.
We're giving away three of those, so you just gotta go to,
the instructions or the link is there.
- Sure. - We got it fixed now,
'cause it was kinda broke. - Yeah, right, technicalities.
Anyways, nice memory foam backrest.
- Yeah. - All right,
so how did this get started, forefoot or barefoot running?
It's been around for centuries.
There's people that have been running barefoot,
and in the book that Christopher McDougall wrote,
in 2009 it came out.
Born to-- - Yeah, if you're a runner,
you should read this book.
It's called Born to Run, it's just really interesting.
- You took it away, I was just ready to say Born to Run
and he interrupted me.
Can you believe that? (Bob laughs)
Why, Bob, why? (laughs)
- I just can't help myself.
- Anyways, yeah, that book, we've both read the book,
and it really, I have a friend who read it.
He's a complete non-exerciser, and it said
I feel like going starting to run
after I read the book. - No kidding.
- He didn't, but he felt like it.
(both laughing)
- That's as close as he's gonna get.
- Right, but anyways, it is a good book.
Talks about running-- - Kind of inspiring
and that whole, what would you call 'em, a tribe?
- Right, yeah, in Mexico.
- In Mexico, yeah, and they--
- They're running long distances.
- Long distances and until they're elderly, right?
- Right, right. - I mean, if I remember right
until their 70s and maybe even 80s.
Over really rough surfaces, too.
- Right, they're going up mountains.
- Mountains and rocks and stuff like that, so--
- You runners out there, you know about ultras,
the people that run the hundred miles
and some are farther than that,
and they're not running on a flat road.
There's one up north of Duluth in Minnesota,
they're running up and down those hills
in the North Shore. - In extreme temperatures,
too, I mean-- - Oh, right? (laughs)
- I mean, in Mexico, so--
- So anyways, for the average person,
if you're thinking about becoming a forefoot runner
and you're not, the biggest reason a lot of people do
is because they feel it's safer.
You're gonna have less injuries.
- Right. - The science says,
and I just have been taking a course on this,
and the instructor's from Stanford.
They're big into research, and he's saying
there is no definite side, no complete conclusion
that forefoot running is gonna reduce injuries.
However, I'm thinking it's looking pretty good (laughs).
- Right, it's just not real solid yet.
- Right. - But over time,
it may become that way.
- There was one study done and it showed
that you have 12% less force on the tibia
and the femoral joint, the knee joint.
- Sure. - Okay, but on the other hand
it said you had more force into the ankle.
- Sure. - So it was like
you give one and you take back from another,
back and forth. - Right, the force
has gotta go somewhere, where is it going?
- Right, and then there's another study
and the researcher says it's in the hip joint,
in the femoral internal rotation,
so you gotta strengthen the hip to get better.
And then there's another researcher out of Madison.
He is saying change the cadence,
if you change-- - And that's how fast
your feet are hitting, or how rapid
your feet are hitting the ground.
- So if you really look into it,
it can get a little confusing, but Bob and I,
we're both gonna stick with forefoot running,
and if you want to find out more science about it,
the place you wanna look is under Dr. Irene Davis.
Now she's done a lot of studies,
been researching this for 20 years.
She happens to be a big proponent
of forefoot or barefoot running.
She's at the Harvard Spaulding Institute,
and if you go to her website, go Irene Davis,
barefoot or forefoot running,
you'll get a lot of information.
She has a protocol on how to change
if you're a heel striker to a forefoot runner,
because typically, it takes one to two years
for someone to change.
It took me about two years.
When I started doing it--
- It took me about five minutes.
- Five minutes. (both laughing)
Yeah. - Well, no,
I didn't think it took me that long, to be honest.
Maybe-- - Well, you might be faster,
but didn't you say you, when I did it, I used to get--
- Yeah, your calf-- - Strain, my calf muscle
would strain easily, even my hip muscle, my adductors
are strained. - Yeah, it shows you
that you're putting the stress on different,
you know, I feel like the calf muscles can take it better--
- Sure. - Than the joints can,
and that's where I started feeling it more.
There was the other book, The Pose Method?
- Yep. - That was another book.
That's the one I had read on telling you
how to become basically a forefoot runner.
And they're the ones that had mentioned in that book,
if you watch a race, if you watch a 5K race,
first the elite athletes come by, and you listen
to the sound as they're going by, and they're running by,
and you hear just lightly taps,
tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
Then later as you get into the race where I am (laughs)--
(Brad laughs) Then you hear
boom, boom, boom, I mean, people are not forefoot running
and they're not getting that rapid cadence.
- Right, right.
- And it makes sense, you know, to me at some level,
it's like if you're hitting your heel first,
that's gonna give a resistant force up through the leg.
- Well, yeah, the whole leg or all the way up into the hip.
- As opposed to if you're hitting your forefoot,
and we talked about being leaning forward a little bit.
- Right. - And that was
one component of it, too, instead of running back like this,
you're leaning forward a little bit more,
taking more weight on the forefoot.
- Right, I mean, we could get into a long discussion
on the gait, running of the gait, where the foot lands,
its relationship to your center of gravity.
But I know I changed to a forefoot runner
specifically to take the stress off of my back.
With my spondylolisthesis-- - And it did work?
- He interrupted me again!
- Well, no, I wanna verify you that it did work.
- You did. - Yeah.
- Well, yeah, actually, I'm running now.
I think I'm gonna get back to my times
of prior to my big flare-up with my back in 2000.
- But you had stopped, right?
- Well, I-- - You couldn't run
for a while. - I didn't totally stop.
I really decreased, I just ran enough
to get through a triathlon, so I did most of my training
on a bike and swim and I just got through running by--
- And you'd be hurting, though, right?
- Well, yeah, it wasn't fun.
- Yeah. - But anyways,
I've done a lot of core work and I changed my running style
and I think my back is fused between L4, L5 and L5-S1
with that condition, but this, when you don't have
that continual-- - Constant pounding.
- Right, exactly, but boy, I'm telling you, Bob,
it really, it probably took me two years
before I could run and not every now and then
strain my calf-- - Oh, sure.
Well, the other point, Brad, I was gonna make,
unless you want to interrupt me again--
(Brad laughs) Is that even with walking,
you can think about this a little bit.
I mean, when you walk and you're going
heel strike, heel strike, I mean,
you can actually pick up your cadence a little bit walking.
I've done this on the treadmill, and hit more my forefoot
and it's just more comfortable, do you know what I mean?
- Sure, great.
- So even with walking, you can lean forward a little more
and get kind of a faster pace.
- Right, and Irene Davis, I was reading on her website,
she talks about the natural running gait,
and she's saying that we put these shoes
with all this fat cushion over the heel
so they have this cushion, and it's just,
it's completely opposite of how we were made to run.
- And that was The Pose Method, too.
They talked about the same thing and that,
like if you watch animals, watch how they run,
they're on basically their forefoot.
- Right, they talk about the rear foot and,
yeah, well, I don't know, Bob.
One thing I remember on the book,
they said one of these elite marathon runners,
he was running across the bridge that had a high hand rail
and you couldn't see anything but his head,
and if you put a level across, his head was going--
- Like that. - You couldn't tell
that he was running because he wasn't going up and down.
His energy was rolling. - I read the same thing.
Was that, where did you read that?
- I don't know if it was the Born to Run or The Pose Book.
- I think it was The Pose Book.
That left such an impression with me, too.
It was like, you can watch this guy.
He's just going steady across, he's not going up and down.
- (laughs) So right now when I'm on the treadmill
because it's wintertime and I don't like to run in the ice,
I'll look in the window on front and look at my reflection
and I'll try to get my head to stop going like this.
(Bob laughs) But yeah,
there's lots of things you can do with your body,
but forefoot running or barefoot running,
they're basically the same thing.
The minimalist shoes, really thin soles
so that when you land on your foot,
you know, 'cause barefoot running,
I thought about maybe I should try barefoot running
to toughen up the soles my feet, and I'm thinking,
no, that's a bad idea for me.
- One thing I did after I read this book
and became a forefoot runner,
I didn't change my shoes as often.
I was like, you know, once they start wearing down,
I'm like, you know, this is like barefoot running,
do you know what I mean? - (laughs) Yeah.
- I would extend 'em longer, and I could extend 'em longer
because my feet were tolerating more.
- Right, yeah, so you know, it's another benefit
of forefoot running. - That's right.
You save money. - A little cheaper (laughs).
- If you're a runner out there, give us your opinion.
We'd like to hear it. - Yeah, exactly right.
- Just don't get the yoga people mad.
- Yeah, oh, my God, Bob, were you in trouble.
- That was my fault, I kicked that one.
- That's all right, it was fun anyways.
- Thanks for watching. - Take care.