Ben Greenfield says modern thick-cushioned running shoes cause marathon injuries, and runners shouldn't race in the same shoes they wear casually after logging miles. He also explains why a 40-year-old running easy at heart rate 140 is burning glycogen instead of fat, wasting their workout.
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A lot of the influencers are, you know, what I see is, you know, you got to put the time in, you got to struggle, you got to suffer. And my pushback to their pushback is you don't have to suffer. There's ways to do this that are going to generate improvement in performance, that are going to make you healthier, that are going to keep you from getting injured. Look, I mean, the injury rate among marathon trainers is, it's unbelievable. And much of it is due to the footwear, much of it is due to the shoes. And yet people are, you know, they're pimping the newest brand of thick cushion, whatever fly shoes that they're, that they're training and racing in. And then once they finish, once they've gotten four or five hundred miles in them, they relegate them to walking around town shoes, which is just as bad. So let's just say you're a 40 year old man and you start running. If you're running at a snail's pace and your heart rate's above 140, you're not in your fat burning maximum zone. You're not in your fat max zone. You're basically in what we call this no man's land of training. It feels like you're doing the work, but you're only burning glycogen, you're not burning fat.