The Lost Art of Running with Shane Benzie

Foreign.

Tribathlon podcast Finding out how ordinary people do extraordinary things.

And then my work with people like Damian and Nicky is about taking this natural human movement that I'm cracking the code of and then turning it into human performance.

So welcome to this week's edition of the Tribeathlon podcast. I recently read a book called the Lost I of Running by Shane Benzi, and I have to say it's one of the best running books, maybe the best books that I've ever read. Not really surprising given that it's written by the running coach of both Damien Hall, Nikki Spinks, just to name a couple. But what I love about it is the combination of technique woven into stories from runners all around the world. And not just runners, sharks as well, all sorts of different links to, to the world around us and how we can use that to learn how to improve our technique, how to improve our performance, and how to get us running more like the Ethiopians or more like the Kenyans. So it's a brilliant book and I wanted to get Shane on this podcast to kind of drill into it a little bit further. He's actually recently released a brilliant online platform@runningreborn.co.uk, which I highly recommend you check out. It's really brilliant in terms of giving you the tools to analyze your running performance and work out how you can improve it. And it's a. I think it only costs 30 pounds a year. It's incredible value for, for what you can learn from it. But it's a, it's a brilliant conversation with Shane going to the sort of more technicalities around running, like, you know, what should your cadence be? What tips has he got for dealing with bad form, tips for generating good form, the myth or not so of barefoot running, all those sorts of things, and really trying to understand how we as age groupers and amateurs can learn from the coaches that are coaching the best runners in the world. So I know you're going to love this. Shane insists on doing everything outside, which is fantastic. I love that. But it does mean that occasionally you'll get a little bit of wind noise. It's only very mild, but I'm sure you'll take that in the spirit that it was there because the quality of the advice within this podcast is fantastic. So I hope you enjoy the interview with Shane Benzie.

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This podcast is brought to you by Innovate Running Shoes. Anything that's good enough for Damien hall and Nikki Spinks to run the incredible distances along the trails that they do in and, and and actually sing the praises of is certainly going to be good enough for me. But I have to say I've really enjoyed running in the Terra Ultra shoe. It is a fantastic shoe, really light with fant grip, just a great shoe. And so innovate do a whole range of shoes and a load of range of clothing as well. So check it out at innovate.com that's inov-8.com innof-8.com I know you won't be disappointed and also hang on to the end of this podcast and I'll give you a discount code too. This podcast is also brought to you by the Tribeathlon app, the app that helps you find events to compete in, people to train with and also to know which events your friends are entering. You can download the app from tribeathlon.com so you can get training and get competing in a more fun and more easy way. Shane, I am really excited to be chatting to you. I genuinely loved reading the Lost Art of Running. I thought it was one of the best books I've ever read. So I'm so looking forward to chatting to you and kind of understanding more about what you put in that book. So thanks so much for joining me on the Tribathlon podcast.

Oh well, listen, thanks for the invite, I really appreciate it and thanks for buying the book.

Well, it was an absolute pleasure. I really enjoyed it and anybody that comes highly recommended by the likes of Nikki Spinks and Damien hall, it's got to be on a pretty good track already. But I just, I knew I was going to love that book from from the moment I picked it up because having gone off and done, I'm big into my scuba diving. I've done a lot of shark diving, but I've also been down to and done the cage diving with great whites twice. Amazing experience. And you start off by talking about great white sharks in Hans by but I can't genuinely remember the link from that to running. So tell me, remind me, why were you down in Hans by doing the work with the sharks? And how did you. What was the link to running?

So yeah, so before I was a movement coach for humans, I spent a lot of time working with sharks. I was actually on the board of directors of the Shark Conservation Society. And so my job was to kind of assess shark populations all around the world, understand kind of what they're getting up to, and essentially try and create kind of better government protection for them. And we did that in many, many ways. But I was really keen to get in the water with them as well. So instead of just studying them and looking at movements and tagging them, I was really keen to actually get in with the water with them and understand them better. So. And South Africa is, yeah, an amazing place for sharks. I mean, it's just a shark playground. Absolutely amazing. And I did a lot of work with, yeah, with looking at great whites, tiger sharks, bull sharks, and did a lot of work in Mozambique also with giant mantas and whale sharks. Spending time actually in the water with them and not always in the cage and just trying to understand them better because, you know, I'm fascinated by them because they've been around for about 400 million years and they're still here, they're still going. So they've seen off the dinosaurs, you know, so they do something very, very well and they've kind of adapted so that actually really what sharks do is swim around, eat and have baby sharks. They've just got amazingly good at that. So I was kind of fascinated to see them move and just to understand more about them. And so, yeah, did a lot of that work. And at that time, I was an ultra runner, so I was running around, doing ultras and also traveling around the world running ultras and absolutely loving it, but not very good at it. Like, you know, was really surviving on blood and guts and, you know, kind of, you know, hurting myself, really, you know, and. And so I kind of thought, right, you know, I don't want to give up the sport because I really love it. But, you know, this is really. This is really hurting me and I'm just not getting any better at it either. So I was getting lots of injuries and not getting any better at it. So I kind of went off on this journey to find a better way to run, and that was pretty fruitless as well, because everything seemed to be on a treadmill and none of it really, really made sense to me. So I kind of. Then I went out to America to study to be a coach, came back and started coaching and enjoyed it, but still didn't really feel as though I was tapping into how humans should move. We seem to. Everything seemed to be moving in a very manufactured way. And then I kind of thought back to the time that I'd spent with the sharks and watching them move and how they'd become amazing and evolved to just move in the beautiful way that they do. And I thought, well, you know, if I'm having to spend lots of time underwater with sharks to understand how they move, why wouldn't I do the same with humans? You know, why wouldn't I kind of try and understand how a human moves, not study biomechanics, you know, which I think is maybe the way engineers tell us about movement and just go and have a look at some humans and see how they move. But maybe not in the Western world, because I think one of the things I found about running is that your dynamic movement is kind of largely based on your everyday movement. So how you sit, stand and walk creates this sea of tension in your body that you then take into your dynamic movement. So it's hard to study maybe natural movement in the Western world because we're not actually moving that naturally. So what I actually did was I kind of thought, right, where are the best runners in the world? And East Africa was kind of what came to mind. You know, they have amazing runners in Ethiopia and Kenya. So I kind of down tools and I just started going out to East Africa to study humans moving in the way that I'd studied the great white sharks and the tiger sharks.

Amazing.

And I've been on that journey for 10 years, still doing it well.

And so just to finish off that story. So since you've kind of gone out to East Africa and some other places to explore, tell us about kind of how your coaching stories evolved and how you've got involved with the likes of Nikki and Damian and other people.

Well, so I think what I. What I. Very quick, as soon as I went out to East Africa, I think the very first time I went, I went out to Ethiopia and I went up, up into the Rift Valley and to a place called Bekoji. I tracked down this amazing coach out there, absolutely fantastic guy. And he, you know, he's brought through many, many, many amazing athletes, you know, coached them from youngsters and brought them through Tirinesh, Di Baba, Bekele are just a couple of them. And so I went out to the Rift Valley and I had to fly out to Addis Ababa and then get a few vehicles to get me up into the Rift Valley. And I got to Bikogi, which is a little town very late at night. You know, there's no Internet there, only been a concrete road laid to it about a year before. So it really was out in the sticks. And I got there late at night and I excitedly got up the next morning, went down to this kind of dirt track that the runners used. It was really early in the morning and there was one lady on the track running around, this Ethiopian athlete. And I sat and watched her run around the track and I thought, wow, what is that? Because I just. We don't move like this. What is this? What is this? And I didn't know, you know, I now I chase elasticity and tense equity and all of this kind of stuff, but at the time I just thought it was amazing and pretty much there. And then I kind of vowed to become a movement coach rather than just a running coach because I started to see running as a. As a beautiful movement skill rather than the blood and guts kind of approach that I'd always taken to it. So I then thought, right, I'm going to be a movement coach. That's what I want to be. And I'll just look at how people move when they're running. And so that kind of developed and developed and developed. And I've spent time all over Africa working with incredible athletes, world record holders, and living in training camps to really understand how these men and ladies move. And then I took it one step further and thought, right, I want to drill down and I want to understand more because some of this is coached, you know, some of this movement isn't maybe natural, it's coached. And so I started to spend time with tribes and indigenous people because there's no coaching there and actually they don't. Many don't even run. So that was that. That changed the whole game again because I was going to living the jungle with people at the Batek tribe who climb trees or in the Amazon jungle, going out to outer Mongolia or the Sahara or the Arctic around India and all over Nepal with the Sherpas, just hanging out with them, living with them and just understanding how they do their everyday movements and do incredible things with their bodies. You don't have to have a race number on to do something amazing with your body. And so all the time understanding what is beautiful movement. And then my work with people like Damian and Nikki is about taking this natural human movement that I cracking the code of and then turning it into human performance. So we, yeah, we move naturally like a human, but then we want to do some amazing things because Nikki and Damien do some pretty crazy stuff, which actually our hunter gatherer ancestors would never have done. So it's about taking that natural human movement and then squeezing performance out of that.

And for you, a lot of that is taking us back to basics almost, isn't it?

Yeah, it's just, it's a very what I would call an anthropological view of an athlete. If you move the way a human is designed to move, I think that by default makes you a good athlete because, you know, I Think it's. It's not a breaking news that we were actually evolved to walk and run. That's kind of what we used to do, you know, once we became hunter gatherers, that's what we used to do. So, you know, if you're playing golf or swimming, you know, they're great sports, but they're not necessarily what we evolved to do. They're things we've come up with in our spare time, and they can be very challenging because actually they're not natural to us. Running actually is. So it makes sense to drill back down into how we evolve to do it. What are we looking for from the human foot? Foot. Because if we understand how the human foot works, that gives us a really, really good idea on how we should go out and use it when we're running.

Brilliant. And so you're right, we didn't evolve to play golf and swim, but they don't tend to cause us as many injuries as the running does.

I think you're absolutely right, because I think when you're playing golf and swimming, you don't constantly have two and a half times your body weight, because coming back at you. So Newton's third law. Any action is met by an equal and an opposite. So when you're running, the average person, if there is such a thing, is creating about two and a half times their body weight coming back at them with every footfall. But, you know, this is where this is one of the biggest, kind of, and the most exciting things that I found, and I'm working really hard to dispel. One of the big urban myths of running, is that impact is bad for runners. Impact for a runner is a beautiful thing, okay, because impact turns into elastic energy and throws you forward. Impact has never injured a runner, ever. It's mismanagement of impact that injures us. So if we move well, we dramatically reduce our chances of getting injured and turn that impact into elastic energy, which throws us forward. And, you know, elastic energy is great because elastic energy doesn't want any oxygen, it doesn't want any calories, it doesn't produce lactate. It's kind of a free energy source for us. But because we're scared of impact, we're kind of moving around in a way where we don't want to hit the ground, we don't want to get any height in our stride. And ironically, by default, that means we're moving in a way where we don't anticipate the impact. Well, and it does come back to give us a hard Time.

I suppose, for those people that haven't read the book yet, just explain the whole concept of elasticity and fascia and maybe even also how you kind of stumbled across this, this being such a key element to what you do.

Yeah. So if I go back to the lady running around the track in Bakogi in Ethiopia, I didn't know what I was seeing, but what it felt like was movement that was very synergistic and connected, fluid and elastic. Couldn't quite put my finger on it, but that's what it looked like. And I actually spent a month in that village working with Coach Scinteo, watching the athletes and living with them, and kind of never really understood what I was seeing, but had a good feel for it. I then came scurrying back to the uk, get onto some good WI Fi and kind of find out why people might be elastic almost. And very, very quickly identified what's called the fascial system, the elastic system in the body and this concept of tensegrity, which I get incredibly excited about. So our fascial system is essentially our tendons and our ligaments and something called myofascia, which is an elastic connective tissue which runs all through our body. And so one of the, one of the most exciting ways to think about it, if you imagine your skeleton. Okay. Whenever we imagine the human skeleton, we kind of always see it in this upright position, don't we? You know, if it's in a, if it's in a book or if it's in the natural history museum in a glass case, that skeleton is always kind of just stood there looking at us. And we grow up with that vision of the skeletons. So I think we could be forgiven for thinking that the skeleton is the main rack of the body. It's the main structure of the body and it works as a series of levers powered by muscles. But actually, the skeleton is actually 206 bones just floating in a sea of elasticity created by your tendons and your ligaments. No bone touches another bone in your body. They're all free flowing. And every single bone sits in its own little elastic trampoline. So when you move, you're not this heavy, clunky structure. You're actually 206 bones floating in a sea of elasticity. If you get beautiful height into your body, you load that elastic system, you create a beautiful sea of tension in your body so that every movement you make starts to create elastic recoil.

Fantastic. And how does that translate to the running form before we sort of start to Dive into. I know I've sent you some video footage of me running, so we might get a bit more specific about, you know, the errors I might be making. But what generally can people do to make the most of that elastic energy.

Is to put height in the body, is to, you know, and it sounds, you know, how long, you know, how long have coaches been telling people to run tall? You know, when I. When I was beating myself up, you know, it did say on the insulet a lot, run tall. And there was kind of these things of having a piece of cotton coming out of your head or a balloon making you tall or all these kind of things. So I don't think that running tall is breaking news. But actually, what I've really come to understand with runners, working with both athletes and tribes and indigenous people, is that your movement, if you think about your movement yourself, it's heavily based on your perception of it. So what we assume is happening as we're running around with our body governs or has a big influence on the way we actually move. And you might say, well, I don't have a perception, I just run. We do all have a perception, and it tends to be one of biomechanics, because that's the diet we grow up on. If we can change our perception to being one of that, if our skeleton is floating, and actually, if we do stand tall and get elastic, then we start to move with elastic recall and the skeleton sits in its own sea of tension. Change people's perception and that changes the movement itself. So for the people listening, what I would urge you to do is think about running with a lengthened spine, nice and tall, and trying to get that head with the eye line up on the horizon. Of course, you need to flick the eyes down to kind of see where you're going, to make sure that you're not running down a rabbit hole or something like that. But the default position of the head should be up, because these lines of elasticity in your body go right up into your skull so that the head is the end of your elastic chain, if you like. And then I talk about this thing called the center line. We're actually going to discuss it when we have a look at your running. Now, your center line, if you. If you imagine this, it's a line, an imaginary line that runs from your belly button all the way up through your chest, underneath your chin, and up through your face to the top of your forehead. What I want you to do when you're running is to think about that centre line and to just open up the chest and to put a bit of a bow into that centre line. Okay. That will get your upper body over your center of gravity. It will actually put even more tension into your elastic system because you're creating more surface area with will also bring the hips forward and get that pelvis into a more neutral position and engage the core. So for people listening, a lengthened spine, head up, eye line on the horizon and just open up that chest area a little bit.

And in the book, there's some fascinating facts around the weight of the head and how much when that head's out of place, it impacts the run incredibly.

That's extraordinary. You know, the human head weighs 12 pounds or 5 kilos, I guess, if we're doing metric, whichever you prefer. But pounds is showing my age here. So the human head, when it's on top of the body with equilibrium, it kind of weighs 12 pounds. For every inch forward it comes, it weighs another 10 pounds. So if you're running around looking at the floor, your head is probably 3 inch forward, 3 inches forward, weighing 42 pounds and it's your spine that has to take that weight. Or actually, if you're sat in front of a computer all day or you're looking down at your mobile phone, your head is quadrupled in weight. Amazing. And you know, we are developing in the western world into a species where the head is just coming further and further forward because our everyday life is based around looking at small devices. That means our head is tilted, proceed forward. And actually, I say in the western world, that's happening all over the world now because mobile phones are spreading everywhere. You know, I think, you know, back in the day when I first started going off and living with Sherpas and stuff, you had to wait three days to get near a phone to ring home. Now, now the Sherpas are complaining they can't get a signal on their mobile. So everybody, everybody's got these things. So it's becoming this pandemic. It's spreading all around the world, this bad posture. But it is something we can take on and it is something we can change because actually this elastic system in our body that creates this sea of tension for our skeleton, you know, it's never more than seven months old in.

The sense that it's constantly renewing itself.

Yeah, it's constantly renewing itself, re architecting itself, rebuilding itself based on how you spend your day. So if you went out this afternoon and ran around and made beautiful tall elastic type movements tonight, while you're asleep, the fibroids are going to be moving around your elastic system thinking, oh, hello, this is interesting. It's a bit more springy than we normally get, but they will repair what you broke down, allowing you to do that task. That's what I like to think of as Darwinian fitness. Fitness to perform the task. It isn't just about cardiovascular fitness, it's about moving beautifully to re architect yourself a body that's very, very good at the task. And that's what human evolution is, isn't it really?

Yeah. Fantastic. So let's get to get a little bit more specific and I don't know, we haven't talked about what you're about to tell me prior to, prior to recording this, so. But I obviously sent you some video of, of me running just to give you a little bit of context. I did my first ultra run at the weekend and I packed up after 41 miles because my right knee was causing me a lot of pain.

So that is interesting. I don't know if you've seen the videos that I've sent you back yet.

Well, no. So all I've done is you sent me some information. But what you did say on one of them was right foot contact. So I was going to ask you specific because I, when I read your book, I was like, right, there's some good stuff in the, great stuff in here. I need to implement this. And I've tried. But you also point out, maybe we can come back to this, that actually when we try and implement a new running technique, because we're thinking about it, actually it affects our running more than you would anticipate. But I have tried to implement a lot of what you've put in the book. So I'm really intrigued to know what you saw, but also what might be causing my knee issue.

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. That's really interesting. So have a look, have a little, have a little look. It's literally about a two second clip of your left foot landing and your right foot landing. So just have a look and you tell me what you see.

Well, I did look at this before. Is my right foot slightly pronating, pointing outwards, is that right?

It's not so much that it's pointing outwards. If you, if you look at the left foot, the left foot is landing really nicely and what I would call a tripod landing. So the ball of the foot and the heel of the foot are coming down at the same time to create that nice tripod landing. We'll talk about why a tripod landing is good in a minute, but if you look at the right foot, it actually lands on the ball of the foot, and the heel doesn't really come down.

Now, that's interesting. So that is probably as a result of Born to Run. So as a result of really Born to Run, I instantly did what. Well, I did what lots of people do, which is go into a vivo barefoot store and say, I need some shoes. And they said, have you just read Born to Run? And they sent me away and said, learn how to run first before, because you're just gonna get yourself injured. Which was good advice, but. So I spent a long time trying to run on the balls of my feet, thinking that that's what I'd been told in that book.

So.

So talk to me about that and what I should be doing differently and the importance of the tripod landing.

Yeah, so I think. I think when Born to Run came out, it kind of brought everybody's attention to, I think, heel striking, didn't it? And kind of, you know, said, you know, basically, heel striking isn't good. And I think that's true. I don't think that landing on a heel when you're running is a good thing. It's what we're designed to do when we walk. A walking gait for a human means that you do land on your heel, but for running, that's not good. But actually, nor is landing on the ball, nor is landing very much on the forefoot. In fact, I'd say that's worse. If you had to choose between heel strike and forefoot, I would go with the heel strike, because at least the. You know, at least it's a big, heavy piece of bone, the calcaneus, the heel, and it will cope with it better. It isn't efficient, but it will cope with it better. But of course, what we're looking for is to maximize the foot stability. So this is what we were talking about earlier when I was talking about taking an anthropological view of a human. Before we work out how an athlete should run, what we should do is look at the attributes of the human foot and understand what we want from it. And so really, what I want you to think about and your listeners to think about is start to think of your foot as the interface between you and the ground. Okay? It's got five really big tasks to do, this interface. And if we get the foot landing well, it will do those for us. The foot needs to create stability. And that's why I like the tripod landing, because the very word tripod would tell us that it will give us a very stable landing. There are quarter of a million nerve endings on the bottom of the foot. If we land the foot correctly, those quarter of a million nerve endings send lots of really exciting information up into the body, telling us about the ground and how to interact with it. You have a big piece of elastic on the bottom of your foot called your plantar fascia, which should you land with a tripod landing, you load that plantar fascia and it helps you to spring off. The foot is also shaped like a dome. If you look at the arch of the foot, if you look at the shape of the foot, it's shaped like a dome. If you land with a tripod landing, that dome effect dissipates the impact out before it gets to the ankle joint. So as soon as you hit the ground, you're spreading that impact out. And where the foot lands in relationship to the body will determine how much you decelerate when you hit the ground. And deceleration is very important for a runner. I think we're a bit. What, what's happened in the past is we've thought about heel strike on a straight leg in front of us as being a brake and landing underneath us on a softer knee as not breaking. But that's a bit black and white and it isn't really true anyway. So what I want you to start thinking about is when your foot hits the ground, you decelerate. Everybody decelerates when they hit the ground. You, me, kipchoge, everybody decelerates. What we've got to do is manage that deceleration and make sure it's a good trajectory of deceleration because it does turn into elastic energy and throw you forward. So your foot landing on the right hand side, the heel doesn't really come down. So you never get that tripod landing on your right hand side, which means there's very little stability. It also means not very many of the nerve endings are sending information back up into your body to give give you your spatial awareness, tell you how hard you hit the ground and what the ground felt like. You never really load the plantar fascia properly and the dome effect of your foot doesn't work. So you're not dissipating that impact properly. It's coming into certain hot spots into the foot and then into the body. So it doesn't surprise me that your right hand side is the side that would pick up a problem, because on the right hand side, you're not using that impact and turning it into elastic energy, you're allowing it to come back.

And get you interesting. And that just poses lots more questions. So is there any way, because I would imagine, am I right in saying that this would not be the most common problem for a runner? Heel striker would be more of a common problem than. Than.

Absolutely. So I've worked with over 3,000 runners one to one on analysis now and goodness knows how many in groups and even in groups, because I'm a researcher as much as I am a coach. And so even when I'm coaching groups and certainly when I'm coaching individuals, every single time I make a note of who does what to build up this picture. And so probably thousands of runners I've worked with 84% heel strike.

Really? Okay, so what would. So firstly, from a selfish point of view, are there any techniques that I can use to try and make sure I am removing my forefoot, landing on the ball of my foot and making sure I'm getting that tripod landing. And secondly, what should somebody that is heel striking do to get to that tripod landing?

Okay, so for yourself. Well, what did you do to get yourself in that position, do you think?

To get myself onto landing on the ball of my foot, yeah.

What did you do? Can you remember the thought process? I probably.

Yeah. Well, I suppose I just. I would think about bouncing off the balls of my foot was what I was probably thinking when I first red Born to run and maybe trying to kick up the heel a bit. I'm not entirely sure.

Okay. Okay. So I think what we tend to do is if we. A lot of. What a lot of people do, if they want to come off of their heel, they tend to plantiflex the foot. So by. So dorsiflexing is sticking the toes in the air and plantar flexing is dropping the toes. Okay. So if you suddenly wake up one day and think, oh, I'm a heel striker, I don't want to be a heel striker. What we tend to do is change nothing else about the body, but just run around dropping the toes to make sure that you don't land on a heel. But you know, that's not good because actually your foot is. It's the stuff. Your foot is the start of your proprioceptive chain in as much as the foot hits the ground. And all that beautiful information comes up into the body, you know, and it's the interface between the ground, so it creates all the stability. But actually how the foot lands, it's the end of your running chain. What you do with your arms, your cadence, your posture, your legs during your stride. They all dictate where the foot lands. So if you change nothing, that made you a heel striker above the foot, but then just plant the toes down. You've actually now got two different running games going on in the same body, and that's why it doesn't go well.

I see. And so what could I do? Are there any kind of training exercises I can do to try and fix that problem?

So if you have a look. So I'm on your. On your video, I've sent you one that will say examples. So this one isn't new. This is an example of how you might want to have a look at doing it. Now, this person's running pretty quick. And the reason I've chosen this one for you is just because it's very big in the movements and it's in primary colors, and it's easy for you to see. So just have a look.

So I've watched that. Yes. And by the way, I'll be putting all of these clips into the show notes so that people can watch them as well.

Perfect. Okay, perfect. So does anything grab you there? What sticks out?

Well, they definitely bounce a lot. A lot more than I do. But, I mean, looking at the foot, they're landing very flat, but also their heel nearly touches their backside.

Right, Good. Okay, so we'll talk about the heel in a minute, because actually, that throws everybody across curveball. Because whenever we ever see a beautiful runner, our eye always goes to the heel, kicking ourselves in the backside. But, you know, running is largely in front of you, not behind you. So I think, you know. But everybody's eye does go to that. It always does. Mine used to. But actually, our stride and everything is in front of us. So I think it's important what happens in front of us. So. Okay, well, if the notes are going to be. If the video is going to be on screen at some point, I'll talk in a way so that your listener can be a viewer as well. So this runner, he's imagining as he's running, he's got a bungee cord attached to his chest. Okay. And the other end of the bungee cord. The book talks about this. The other end of the bungee cord is attached to whatever it is you're running towards. Okay. So when you're running, when you push off into the air, I want you to imagine that you've got this bungee cord attached to your chest, and the other end is attached to the car in front of you or the bend in a track or a tree or whatever it is, so that when you push off, you really feel as though you have this forward trajectory taking you through the air. Okay.

Okay.

And as you're going through the air, I want you to think about circling and cycling your legs underneath you.

Okay.

Do you think about the legs? You know, other than getting that foot down? Do you. Is there a thought with the legs?

Probably not a conscious one that I can think of.

I think running is the beautiful thing about running, but also running's nemesis, is that it's a very autopilot thing.

Yeah.

It's why we love it. It's headspace, isn't it? It's amazing. You can go out for an hour, forget everything, and just run. And I wouldn't want people to lose the beauty of that. But if you want to get better at the skill, you kind of do need to be a little bit cognitive about it. And so because it is just an autopilot thing, you are quite literally just putting one foot in front of the other without any real thought process with it. So what I want you to. When you go out this afternoon or when, tomorrow, whenever you run next, I want you to think about as you get air or oscillation in. In your stride and you are going forward through the air, I want you to think about circling and cycling your legs underneath you. That will allow the foot to get back underneath you and allow that tripod landing to happen. At the moment, you're just prodding kind of out in front of you to make sure that that foot gets down on the ball of the foot, because that's what you thought you wanted to do.

Okay, fascinating. And again, the best way to assess that, I suppose, is to do what you told me to do in the book, which was to record it again and then kind of watch look at yourself running on the video.

Absolutely. I mean, it's the best thing you could ever, ever, ever do. You know, my work involves almost. You know, I put very clever sensors on runners to look at deceleration and impact and oscillation and stride length and all sorts of really interesting things. But actually, the most powerful way that I can coach somebody is to video them and to show them. It's amazing. And what's absolutely amazing is that we just don't do it. And everybody listening to this almost certainly has got a device in their pocket or within a meter of them where you could video yourself. So everybody should get out and start videoing themselves, buddy up with another runner, you know, Buddy up with someone or a group of runners if you can, and just start videoing each other and start to see what it is you're actually doing. So you can have these thought processes yourself. Go back out, run, get some video done and see if you're doing it well. You can actually just run past your own phone. You can just set it up. You don't have to have a buddy, but I think it's good if you can.

Brilliant. And as I said to you before we started recording this, I'd often thought that that would be a good idea, but never got around to it. But one of the things that your book definitely did was make me think that would make a lot of sense. And I've learned a lot from seeing it already. But, yeah, that's amazing. So great advice. Thank you. Is that when you look at. Just as a way of using it to highlight some other things that you talk about in the book. When you look at my running technique, are there any other aspects that you think could be improved, particularly in line with what you talk about in the book?

Yeah, so definitely. But I think one of the things, there's actually some really good stuff that you do as well, and this is just a quick. I just want to say this quickly is, you know, running analysis, movement analysis should be about celebrating what's good as well as kind of picking the bones out of what could be better. Yeah. Because your movement is based on your perception of it. So if you do something well, if you know why you do it well, you might just do it that little bit more beautifully. So anybody who's having running analysis, it shouldn't just be about what you're not doing well, it should be about what's good. You need to know why it's good. Okay. Because then you can make it better. I work with some of the best athletes out. Out there who can clearly run. I mean, they're amazing runners, but if you can tell them why they're amazing, they might just be that little bit more amazing tomorrow. So it's not just about the. The bad, it's also celebrating the good as well.

Brilliant.

Okay. So having said that, your left arm is an interesting one. So I don't know if you saw it on the videos. I haven't put it in your Dropbox, actually, I don't think. But your. I don't know if you saw it on your. The videos of. You did. You did yourself when you watched yourself back. But you'll let. What we're looking for, runners as runners, is balance and symmetry in the body. Okay. So if you remember one thing from today, it's that balance and symmetry beat power any day. If you get beautiful height in your body to load this elastic system and then balance and symmetry in your movement so that every movement you make creates elastic recoil for the next movement. Yeah, every movement you make invests in the next. But you must have balance and symmetry in your movement for that to happen. Now, our arms are on the outside of our body, so they have a big bearing on the balance and symmetry in our movement. And your arms are also incredibly dominant over your legs. What your right arm does, your kind of left leg follows. And what your left arm does, your right leg follows. We have this kind of crossover. So when you're running, actually your left arm crosses across the body. It comes across the body.

Yeah, I can just see that briefly from this video, actually. Just from. Yeah, sorry, carry on.

Yeah, no, absolutely. You can see it from the. From the foot one. Yeah, so. So what. Basically, my eye, when I see that, what I see is your upper body is spinning around to the right hand side because the left arm is coming across the body and it's making you spin to the right. So there's no balance and symmetry in your movement. So there's no, you know, you're not maximizing that elastic recoil for the next movement. You know, this is when I kind of got my head around this. I just found it absolutely incredible. If we move beautifully, it's almost like you've got a dynamo inside of you, because if you run, you're burning oxygen and calories to power your body. Okay. But the very act of moving, should you have height and balance and symmetry in your movement means you create elastic energy on the go. Yeah. So just like if you had a dynamo, if people have still got dynamos on bikes, I'm showing my age again here. But if you had a dynamo just by the wheel turning, it turns the dynamo and lights up the lights. Well, we have the same ability that if we move beautifully, we burn oxygen and calories to make the movement. But we create elastic energy just through our kinetic movement. It's too good to be true. And this elastic energy doesn't want any oxygen or calories. So you create free energy by moving should you move well. But you must have balance and symmetry. So one arm must do exactly the same thing as the other.

I see. So. So my left arm is coming across my body, but my right arm is. Is going more straightforward. So which one is. Is the right one to correct or to keep okay.

So really, we don't want either of them going forward. What we're looking for from the arms is a dynamic movement to the rear. Okay. So just think about having a super soft, relaxed shoulder. Really, really soft hands. And all the work of the arm is done by the elbow. And the elbow drives back. So the elbow starts at the rib cage at a right angle. It drives back so that the hand comes back to where the elbow was. It drops back into position and then drives back. So everything is to the rear. Everything is to me. That way you won't get that crossover in front of you.

Yeah, it's interesting. I'd never. I didn't pick up that on that from looking at the video and. But it does explain why I will. If I'm wearing a race vest, I'll often get rashes on one side, on the inside of one arm, but not on the other. So that answers a completely different question that I never realized.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's so fascinating. And because we can all kind of video ourselves and get out there and do this. You know, your movement is like your fingerprint. It's different to anybody else's on the planet. It really, really is. You know, your. But, you know, your movement is essentially an accumulation of idiosyncrasies and contraindications that you've built up over the years. So. So it's, you know, it's unique to you. So you have to see you. Because, you know, I've tried to write a book and, you know, to give good information, and it seems to be working. It seems popular. But you can't beat seeing yourself and becoming a student of your movement. So the book should tell you, you know, good things to do and what to avoid. And then you need to get out and have a look at yourself to see if you're doing that or not, because your perception can be very, very different from. From reality.

Yeah. Well, I'm realizing this rapidly. And looking. When I look back at my own video, I didn't pick up on the things that your expert eye has picked up on, even having read the book. So it'd be good to understand how you work with people in terms of, you know, one to one. I know you do workshops, but, you know, if. Let's say somebody has buddied up, what are the different approaches with which you work with people?

So if I was doing a session with people, and you can take this as a template for doing it for yourselves as well, if I was working with somebody, what I would Immediately get them doing is just. I would just get them to run around a bit. Yep. Run around without too much discussion. So that you don't really put any sort of preconceived ideas into the person's head. Because it's amazing, once you start poking a camera at somebody, they get, you know, they start moving like something out of Chariots of Fire or something, starting. Start acting for the camera. And of course, if you do that, then you're. You're masking those idiosyncrasies that we've been talking about. So I would immediately just get somebody running around after I've kind of said hi to them, get them running around, video them from the back, from the side, from the front, like you did for your videos, and at different speeds. And then once I've got that video, I will sit down with the runner and play back through those videos and just have a look. And because, you know, the workshops aren't generic. They're based on that runner. So we don't know what's. We don't know where the workshop's going to go until you've seen what it is you're going to work on. And then so you run through the videos and kind of think, right, okay, well, what's good? What isn't so good, what needs work on? And then I start to immediately start working on that runner's perception of movement. You know, you're running. If you go and change your running this afternoon, think, right, okay, I'm not going to let that left arm swing across, and I am going to get that right foot down with the tripod landing. You're not creating new muscle memory to do that. Muscles don't really have a memory. They're not that interested. You're rewriting your software, your very, very clever brain, your software. That's what you're rewriting here. So that's why it's incredibly important that you understand why and how to do it. Because it's. It's a brain thing that you're changing, not a muscle memory thing. So I would explain to the runner what's good, what's bad, what needs changing. Do some theory and then get them to run around and practice that theory with more video, come back, sit down, have a look, and you kind of just go through that process of discussion. Theory, practice. Look at it, see how it looks, see how it feels. Seeing how things look to do them right and how they feel to do them right and put them together. That's an incredibly powerful way of learning you know, very, very powerful.

Brilliant. And so a workshop, is that, is that in a group of people or is it just you want working one to one with somebody?

All of, all of the, all of the above, really. I mean, obviously since March, I haven't been working with groups because it's been tough to get in, into groups. So my work since March has been one to ones, which is, you know, where a lot of my work is on one to ones. But I do do groups and, you know, there are queues and queues, lots of running clubs, and everybody's kind of waiting until we can get back out and be in groups again. And I will get out and do groups, but so, yeah, so I work with up to 20 people at a time and I. And I work one to ones and kind of everything in between, really. So, yeah, all sorts of. And I also work remotely, so, you know, literally on six continents. I do what I'm doing with you now, essentially, to a degree, which is look at, look at. Get people to video themselves running in a very set way. They send me those videos, I critique them, send them material back, and then we have an hour's work workshop based on what we've seen and do exactly what we're doing. And I think again, since March, that's gone crazy, absolutely crazy, I guess, because people couldn't get to me. But now I'm literally doing it all over the world. It's really grown. And because you're coaching somebody's software, you don't have to be able to touch them on the shoulder. You just have to be able to get them to understand how they're moving and how they would change it. In fact, if you came to see me today, I couldn't touch you on the shoulder anyway. So, you know, you can't touch anybody. So it's not that different. And it's been amazing what we've been able to achieve with runners just by them looking at themselves and sharing that video and working on their perception of it.

Incredible. And for those people that do have a buddy that want to work on this stuff together in a pair, as opposed to doing work one to one work with you, is there any approach that they can take?

Well, what I'm really, you know, I'm really, really passionate about getting people to do this because, you know, people should be able to just help each other. You know, you don't have to be constantly going to a coach all the time. Of course you can't beat going to the coach, but not everybody can. So what I so the book, I wanted the book to inspire people to do it. But what I've also worked on and is now, is now launching, in fact, it's out now, is a digital platform, which brings everything that's in the book onto. Yeah, a digital platform, so that any work I create can constantly just drop in there. And there's lots of how to's on the digital platform. So my idea is people can buddy up, watch all of the downloadable how to's and all the theories behind it and then literally go outside and video each other and kind of see if you're doing it. And if you're not, then be able to track back to the how to's to have a look and get some theory behind it and some visuals and, you know, and that's geared up for everybody on the planet to be able to do that. You know, if you can, if you can get WI fi, then, you know, you can, you can download this stuff and body up with a group or an individual, or you could even do it on your own, because again, you can. A lot of people who send me video are just running past their phone and it's fine as long as you get the angles right. So you could do it on your own. But I don't think you can't beat the power of the group. I think that's one of the things I've learned, is that we're more powerful as a group, even if it's two of us, and it's a great way to do it.

I think this sounds like a fantastic idea because having watched these videos back, I wouldn't have picked, even having read the book, I wouldn't have picked up on the detail that you've identified. But by having something, an online tool or online platform to be able to constantly refer to and say, well, look at this and look at that. And then having a buddy to work with, I think it sounds like a great idea. And particularly in a lockdown environment, what a brilliant way to improve your running.

Yeah. And I've already got runners who are literally on different continents who have kind of budded up and are helping each other. So, you know, they're sending each other their video and kind of, you know, helping each other. And it's amazing. Yeah, it's so more, so far more doable than you would imagine. We just need a bit of information. I mean, if you now had a friend send you their video analysis, even after our chat here, you'd have a better eye, wouldn't you?

Yeah.

And that's What I'm keen for the digital platform to do is to kind of give that kind of information so that people can then look and, you know, I can't drive past a runner without looking them and critiquing them. And, you know, you, you know, it's good. You start to take a fascination in what people are doing. A little bit of knowledge is amazing. You know, you can do a lot with it. You really, really can.

And where can people find out more about that particular digital platform?

Well, that's. So it's Running Reborn. So running Reborn is me. That's me. So, yeah, if you just Google Running Reborn, then you'll find my website and then the digital platform is all kind of built into that and there's lots of interviews with a lot of the experts that I use as well, so that you can get some really good theory behind stuff that you can't get into a book, you know, a book it's hard to get everything into. Whereas this, you know, I can sit down with someone for an hour and chat to them and then that's there to be seen. So it kind of drills much deeper than the book ever could.

Fantastic. I think that sounds brilliant. I'm going to be checking that out afterwards. So one of the things that really fascinated me about the book was you said that the single best investment to improve your running technique from a technology or kind of product point of view. I was thinking it was going to be some flashy shoes or something like this. But you reckon that the best investment was the standing desk. Now, I'm a massive advocate of a standing desk. I can see that, as you can see, in fact, so much so that I bought my entire team standing desks. Not that most of them use them very often. They tend to sit at the standing desk, which seems to defeat the object of the investment. But not that I'm bitter at all, but tell us why a standing desk is such a brilliant way of improving our running and why people should, should look at this concept.

Yeah, I think, I think it's huge. So I said a little bit earlier on when we were chatting that your dynamic movement is only ever going to be an extension of your everyday movement. How you sit, stand and walk creates this sea of tension that your bones float in that you then take into dynamic movement. And of course, if we are sat all day, and you know, many of us are, it can be a huge, huge problem. You know, we're basically. Our body is largely rejuvenating and re architecting based on being weight bearing so just sitting down all day, you know, we're massively changing the sea of tension in our body, you know, when our bones aren't going to remodel themselves to be strong. And it's a real, real problem. And I think rather than just look at it as a negative, look at it as a positive from a running point of view. You know, I can see you now. You're stood. You're stood at your desk. So if you were stood on tripod feet, we now know what a tripod foot is. If you were stood on tripod feet, a nice lengthened spine, your head up, eyeline on the computer, a neutral pelvis so that your core is engaged, breathing into the bottom third of your lungs. If you work like that, you're training for nine hours because your dynamic movement is going to be an extension of that. Whereas if you sit huddled over a laptop or an iPad or something for nine hours, you're detraining now, you know, really, we should really be taking it one step further. You don't have to be a runner to get excited about having a good sea of tension in your body. So if for some reason you're listening to this and you're not even a runner, you should be, but if you're not, then actually we should be standing more anyway. It's such a huge investment. You might not live any longer, but you'll have a much, much better quality of life. Seriously, it's bone remodeling, you know, muscle re architecting, fascial rejuvenating. A lot of this stuff is based on being weight bearing. You know, people are working home, which a lot of people are at the moment, and that could be the same, you know, that could be. That could be ongoing. You know, you could wake up in the morning, you could sleep for eight hours, wake up in the morning, walk from one room to another, sit down all day, stand up, walk to another room, have something to eat and then go back to bed. You could. And you could do that for five days of just not being weight bearing. That's quite scary. That's quite scary. So, yeah, I think, you know, standing desks are brilliant. And I know you mentioned Damien hall and Nikki Spinks earlier, so I know now Damien has a standing desk. He works at a standing desk. And I'm not sure Nikki ever sits down, to be honest with you, because.

She'S always out on the farm anyway, isn't she?

Oh, my goodness. Absolutely. The first time I ever went to work with Nikki, I got there and I kind of Knocked on the door and there was no answer and I kind of wandered around a little bit and then kind of Nikki shouted me, she was actually delivering a calf as I kind of got there and sort of finished off delivering the calf and then kind of said, right, okay, what are we going to do? Let's go. So, yes, Nikki's kind of cross training all day, I guess, but isn't that amazing?

And actually if you read something like Feet in the Clouds, you realize that a lot of the top fell runners were the sort of people that were out walking the fells during their day, you know, because they were farmers as opposed to, you know. So it is interesting, an interesting way of thinking that, yeah, you're essentially training for nine hours a day as opposed to detraining.

Yeah. Often we'll look out of the window like, I wish I was out running today. I wish I was training today. Well, you know, obviously you can't do that every day, but you can, you know, if you're stood a lot more during the day, you're actually training and you know, and there's no wear and tear on the body either because, you know, you haven't, you know, you haven't got that constant impact coming back. Now impact is good and we turn it into elastic energy. But you can only take so much of that. You know, sometimes the body needs to rest so you can rest in a position where you're still weight bearing. Don't throw away your chair because when you first start to do it, it can, it can be tiring. It can be tiring. And so, you know, you need like any training, you need to bring these things in gently. And I know for me this probably says more about me, but if I have to really, really concentrate, then I do have to sit down. But for 90% of what I do, if it's emails or magazine work or creating stuff, then yeah, I stand and it's amazing.

Yeah, I actually find that, I think better at a standing desk. I definitely speak better at a standing desk.

Yeah, I think you can tell when you're on the phone if somebody sat, can't you? And if, or if they're stood up and just maybe moving around a bit, you can just tell the energy in their voice, I think.

Yeah, you definitely can. And actually standing desks nowadays don't have to be particularly expensive and in fact you can buy some add ons to a normal traditional desk that will turn it into a standing desk. So it doesn't have to be an expensive thing on this point. Would you do you think just standing at a desk like this is best? Or would you have them all on a balance board or even better, a treadmill or, you know, is there any way of enhancing, enhancing the standing desk experience to make it even better?

We're always trying to push the limits, aren't we, and get better and better. Typical athletes or what? It's so. Yeah, well, I guess, literally don't run before you can walk. I think if you go from sitting to start to standing for nine hours on a wobble board isn't going to go well. So I would just start. I think standing's fine. I honestly think standing's fine. If you. Yeah, you might want to introduce something where you've got to create a bit of balance, but I think just stand and move around. You know, I do a lot of CPD work for osteopaths, so I kind of teach them how to video their, Their patients and look at how they're moving. And, you know, a good osteopath, they will tell me that there's no such thing, bad thing as posture as long as you're not in it for more than 20 minutes. So I guess the message is keep moving. The 20 minutes flies by and I think if you stand, you do shift and move, whereas sitting, you know, you really. You can be there for hours. But of course, you must stand well, so you must have even weight on your hips. So when you are stood, you must feel for that tripod foot and then you must have even weight on your hips and stand nice and tall. Because if you're just slumped onto one hip and what, the other foot's poking out at a strange angle and you're leaning forward, then actually you're not really. You're not really creating what you want.

Particularly if you've got tired legs, it's easy to find yourself leaning against the thing, leaning on one leg. And. Yeah, so that's.

And I think because. Because we don't tend to stand on tripod feet, we tend to stand. I mean, everybody does different things, but generally we tend to stand. So we lean back a bit and we're actually only on one point of the tripod, which is the heel. So any tripod that's only got one point touching is of course not going to be very stable. So I think we lock into these slightly strange positions with our hips because we're trying to find stability. Whereas if we stood on the tripod feet, we'd have that stability and we'd have that quarter of a million nerve endings on the bottom of the foot constantly telling you your spatial awareness and what your contact with the ground is like. So. So your dark, silent skull is going to feel a lot more comfortable if it knows what's going on with the ground. So try and do it in bare feet or just socks as well if you can. That would be even better.

Okay, fantastic. That's great advice. Thank you. And speaking about the feet and staying on the concept of products, what are your beliefs, what are your thoughts on shoes? You know, we've obviously, the shoe world has gone through a pretty massive revolution in recent years. We've got these massive soled ones, or we've got the, you know, the vapor flies and we've got the barefoot running shoes. Where do you stand on, excuse the pun, the shoes?

I think. I think it's a real shame, actually, that we are going down the route of just trying to buy our way out of trouble or just. Just assuming that the trainers will do the job for us, you know, so it'll do the bounce for us, it'll do the cushioning for us, it'll make us fast, it will make us efficient, it'll stop us heel striking if we have a certain drop and all that kind of stuff. And I think that's a real shame because it takes our eye off the ball of the foot being this ingenious thing, you know, so it should be all about the foot. And then really, you're slipping the foot into something that will allow you to move through the environment. So I do some project work with Innovate and I really like working with them because I think they've got this thought process. It's quite refreshing. So they will make a pair of trainers that will allow the foot to interact with the ground, so grip to rock or move through mud or be able to move on a track or over concrete. It allows your foot to interact with the environment, but it doesn't tell the foot what to do. It doesn't try and second guess the foot. It allows this ingenious interface to do its work. And I think that's where we kind of need to be. Otherwise we just take our eye off the ball and assume because we've spent some money, the work's going to be done for us.

Yeah, I. Yeah, I. Actually, it was. It was Innovate shoes that I did my Ultra in at the weekend. And. And it was. Yeah, they're a great company that seemed to be trying to innovate in the right ways, which is. Which is brilliant.

Yeah. And I think, you know, Sometimes, you know, I think we're all guilty of this is sometimes we try and reinvent the wheel and we try and come up with new things, whereas sometimes you just have to dial back and look at what, why wait know why, why we're good runners and walkers and work with that and then try and squeeze some performance out of that. That's what I try and do with my work with the coaching. And I think that's what, I think that's what innovate are trying to do as well, is look at the attributes of a human foot and see how they can allow it to move through an environment, protect you from the environment, because you have to be protected from stones and stuff like that because our feet can't cope with that, but at the same time allow that foot to move through the environment and interact with it. And if we can do that, I think running is more pleasurable. And you know, the best shock absorber in the world is self preservation. You have to understand the ground to be able to absorb that shock and interact with it. So I don't think we should be protected from that. And you know, really, this is a really interesting point. I think if I could put all of the 10 years work into one paragraph. This is where I think it is at the moment, is we've become two generations of runners that see good running as the ability to move over the ground and save energy, not to waste energy to save it. I think beautiful running is the ability to move over the ground and create energy. Impact creates elastic energy and propels us. So should we be wearing footwear that claims to protect us from impact because it's the very thing that throws us forward. So I think we have to ask ourselves, you know, what do we want from our trainers? You know, we're becoming too obsessed with not getting injured and actually moving in a way where we're more likely to get injured. If we moved more free flowing, got air, got our feet circling underneath us and landed well, we, I, we would get less injuries and enjoy our running more. So I think we need footwear that allows us to liberate and do that. Not, not, not harnesses. But I am not saying go minimalist because I, you know, that's what most people expect me to say, but I don't think we should, I don't think that we should go minimalist because that we're just not ready to.

And that is because of things like the rocks and those sorts of things that will cause you damage in other ways. Is it?

Yeah. And I Think, you know, the thing is, you know, if we're talking about running, taking an anthropological view of an athlete and saying, right, we should run how our ancestors ran to be good athletes, you know, that is true to a degree. But you know, two things a hunter gatherer would probably are actually running. When it was persistence hunting would probably only have run about a half marathon at about a four hour marathon pace, something like that. So a lot of people that are out there doing stuff are doing stuff far in advance of what a human was actually evolved to do. So it's not enough to just wear next to nothing and run like a hunter gatherer, because they wouldn't have done what you're trying to do anyway. Plus, certainly in the western world, we haven't spent time in bare feet really and running around in zero drop. So I think if you're really keen to do it, there's a big transition into it, but I think there's a middle ground of the, of the trainer supporting you, helping you, protecting you from the environment, but allowing you to interact with it. And any good, you know, if you go to a good shoe store, you know, they should, they should be able to talk you through that. The drop's important that you want a nice wide toe cap and then it's just working out how much rubber you want underneath the foot and what that rubber is made of, depending on what you want to interact with.

Brilliant. Fantastic. Thank you. And just kind of wrapping up. I would honestly say that, you know, I've said for years that Born to Run was the best running book I'd read because it wasn't just so much the technique, but it was the stories around it that got me, it got me to enjoy running. You know, having previously been somebody that described running as sport with all the fun bits taken out, it really, I got it as a result of that book. But I can honestly say that your book is equal to, if not better than that book. I absolutely love reading it and there was so much good advice in there, as I'm sure people are picking up from this podcast. But other than those, your book and Born to Run, are there any books that you regularly recommend or any books that were really helpful in you getting to where you've got to now?

Oh my goodness. Well, you know, the reason I went on my, on my journey was because I really couldn't find much. And that sounds, you know, there wasn't, you know, that's why I had to go and look, to be honest with you, because there wasn't anything I could find that made me think, right. I get. I get it. You know, I really couldn't. So there isn't anything that really jumps out. I mean, I listen to huge amounts of audiobooks and, you know, I'm a big Daniel Lieberman fan. I think he's an amazing anthropologist. So I get a lot of my, you know, he. I do a lot of my research looking at his work. So I think he's absolutely fantastic. And he's a runner as well, which is great. So he kind of, you know, a lot of the stuff he comes at, he comes from a. From a running point of view. So, you know, anything by him I would happily devour, but other than that, not really. And, you know, I think what's amazing is when I. When I sat down to write the book, I thought. I thought, does everybody know something that I don't? Because it just didn't seem to be anything out there that was kind of like it. There was running stories and there was kind of some stuff on technique, but nothing in that middle ground, really, that would get me understanding the technique. And I think that's one of the reasons I sat down and wrote it was because there wasn't really too much out there like it, to be honest with you. So it's hard to recommend anything.

That's great advice anyway. But what I loved about your book is by the time I got to the end of it, I could kind of think about each part of the body and think, right, well, okay, with regards to feet, I know I need to be thinking about this. With regards to bounce or with regards to legs, I need to think about cadence. Something we haven't touched on today. But it was a big part of the book. You know, there was things to do. My chest, my arms, my head, my eyes. So it kind of. I basically got this visual, this image of me, and it made for a really easy checklist to kind of reference back to what you were talking about. Was that intended? Is that something that you use in your coaching?

Exactly. I just tried to write it as if I was coaching. That's exactly. You know, if you came along for a workshop, you know, that's exactly how I coach. It's just to get people to really start to almost step outside of themselves and look at themselves. Well, that's actually what video analysis is. So, you know, that's. That's what I'm really, really keen for people to do. So, yeah, I tried not to use any technical terms, really, as best I could. Listen, I'm not very Clever. So I just wrote it in a way where I would get it. So I would assume that everybody would get it. Yeah, it's just very simple. And I almost wrote it just thinking, well, if I bought this at Heathrow and went on a long haul flight, I could sit and read it and jump off the other end and have a go. And that's. That's kind of what I tried to do, really. And then if anybody kind of is excited by the stuff in there, then you know that that can be the catalyst for their research. So they can go off and research fascia more tensegrity more. Look at some of the experts that are in the book a little bit more track the athletes. There are loads of athletes in the book, both elite and beginners, who have done incredible things. So it's really just almost a flag in the sand to just say, hey, look, you know, there's a different way of visualizing your movement here. It's really exciting. Go out and have a go at it. And hopefully it's the kind of start of their journey to seeing their movement in a different way. And that's what I was really, really keen to do.

Well, I think it's that blend of stories with technique that makes it such a brilliant read because you're reading about chapters on Nicky Spinks and Damien and the Sharks and the Ethiopians and kind of, there's so many great stories in there, but load, you know, woven through it is loads of brilliant technique.

So, yeah, and there's this and there's people in there that you wouldn't recognize. So, you know, I've worked, you know, I've worked with, you know, amputees that are in the book blind runners, runners coming back that have kind of been sort of battling cancer and have gone on to do amazing things. Some pretty well known runners who have come back from injury and are just really, really excited to run a park run. You know, people being age group winners in marathons where they could never have dreamt of it. And so there's lots of everyday stories as well because the elites are amazing and they show us the way. But, you know, it could be a little bit difficult sometimes to kind of associate ourselves with that, you know, but, you know, everybody has their Everest. Everybody has whatever's in front of them. You know, everybody has their Everest. But it's amazing how people's horizons change once they start to move differently. Suddenly what they're looking at now is nothing like what they were looking at six months ago. From the point of view of Events or races or challenges. It's incredible what you can achieve.

Fantastic. And one final question. What are you. What, over the course of the next year or so, what are you most excited about?

Oh, my goodness. Well, I really miss the traveling, so, you know, we had a beautiful summer and so I was. I've been okay. But, you know, my work is, you know, largely about travel because with my research work, so I haven't been on a plane since I think I just got back from Africa, just got back from Kenya as we were kind of locking down. So I've got some amazing research through ethics, pass through ethics with the University of East London. We're going to do some incredible research all around the world with 20 sensors that go all over a runner's body, that tracks their movement, all their running dynamics, creates all sorts of data, but also has mobile gases as well. So it looks how much oxygen and CO2 people are producing as they're running around the trails. It's never really been done before, so I'm incredibly excited about that. And that's going to be taken all around the world and put on in indigenous people as well, getting them joining in and moving around. So you can literally see 3D images of people running in the natural environment with loads of exciting data and understanding what the lungs and the gases are doing as well. That's going to be incredible. So I'm excited about that.

Well, it sounds really fascinating stuff and I'm excited about seeing how that evolves over, over the course of the next few years.

Yeah. And the idea with the digital platform is, of course, as soon as that, as soon as I do that, that drops straight in. We haven't got to wait, you know, I've got to wait some time. I can hopefully, as soon as I get back to Wi Fi, start dropping the information in as we create it. And that, that and I guess the platform is what I'm really, really excited about is just starting to interact with everybody because not everybody can get here. So it would be good to. To get that information out to literally everybody. Everybody who wants to run or move, actually.

Yeah, well, and as you said before, I think maybe before we started recording, you know, it's all very well and good putting in a book, but it's always 18 months out of date as a minimum in a book. Whereas the digital platform, you can get it out straight away.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. It's a far more interactive way. But I am working on the next book as well. And books are, you know, people love books and they are Exciting and I love doing it. So I am working on the next one already looking at the, you know, the power of the group, how we interact and we're stronger as groups with the tribes and you know, the runners in the camps that I've lived with so we can learn a huge amount from that. So I think both, both work alongside each other really nicely and of course you just can't get, you can't be getting in front of people as well and getting them running around and talking about it. I love it. What's not to love? It's good.

Well, it sounds like we need to keep in communication because the power of the group ties exactly into what we're trying to do at Tribathlon with helping people train and compete with a group of people. So, Shane, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. I could chat to you all day, there's so many more questions but you've been extremely generous with your time and thank you for the coaching and the advice on my own run technique. I'll be out there tomorrow morning trying to fix some of that but yeah.

Normally it works in six week cycles so you can get out there, have a practice and then maybe in six weeks send me some more video and we'll have a look and see, see how it's moving on. You'll be able to tell me.

Fantastic. That sounds like a good deal. Thank you very much. No, Shane, it's been absolutely brilliant and yeah, I really look forward to seeing all of that stuff evolve over the course of the next year or so.

Yeah, my pleasure. We'll do it again.

I'm sure you'll agree. What a great guy. So many brilliant stories, so many wonderful experiences and so much brilliant advice for us as runners on how we can improve our running. I really recommend you check out runningreborn.co.uk and also that you read the book the Lost Art of Running. As I say, I know I keep repeating it but it's a fantastic book and the Lost Art of Running is also an audiobook so I would suggest that you get that version and you listen to it while you're running. It certainly worked really well for me And I'd also suggest you check out the running reborn.co.uk there's just some brilliant advice in there as you would expect having listened to, to Shane talk and you know, I'm sure that we can use this advice to really improve all of our running so I hope you enjoyed that conversation. If you want to give me any feedback, the best place to do that is on our Instagram page. Would love to hear any feedback from you on these podcasts. Also, any recommendations for people that we should be approaching to get on the podcast. And in the meantime, keep on training. This podcast is brought to you by Innovate.com incredible running shoes that keep Damien hall and Nikki Spinks, amongst others, flying along the trails. If you go to innovate.com that's inov-8.com and if you use the discount code Tribathlon 10, that's Tribathlon in all capitals 10. You can get 10% off your purchase at innovate.com I know you will love their shoes. In particular, I love the Terra Ultras. So go check out innovate.com and don't forget to download the triathlon app for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete, and to build your tribe.