Run Mechanics 101: Cadence, Shoes & Running Injury-Free Ep 112

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Rob Burkhorn.

He is a local physical therapist and his company is called Endurance Unleashed. And we're talking all about run mechanics. So I am excited to pick your brain a little bit and learn more about you and how you can help the community of listeners that we've got. So welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Chris. You know, I'm very excited to be here as well. Um, you know, especially talking about running mechanics and it's something that I do every week in my business working with people. Um, cuz for us, you know, we are, uh, a company that specifically works with endurance athletes, active adults to make sure that they stay healthy and fit for the rest of their life and keep doing, you know, what they love to do.

Love that. Run longevity is what I heard. It's like the new buzzword, you know, which is always kind of funny to me that I'm like, this is literally what's always been in our heads, like we're not doing this so that you, you know, stop doing this next year. We're doing this so that you can keep doing this because it's so fun.

And yeah, I mean, like I've been doing it now for almost 20+ years and I, you know, I wanna keep doing it for as long as I possibly can.

That's awesome. Very cool. So how did you get into this? And then of course you gotta, you gotta just dip your toe into a little bit of your like personal experience as an athlete too.

Right? Yeah. So I mean, like I, I usually when I explain it to people, I usually dip, dip into the personal anyway. So like, like I would say like my running career started in high school. Like I was— I played in a lot of sports when I was younger, but didn't necessarily have one I was specifically like good at. I, you know, like I delved into running in high school because I want to do some kind of a sport. So I did track and field and I stuck with sprinting because I didn't really know how much of it was going to be more of or how much I could tolerate with distance running. So I started with sprinting. I was always a very skinny kid too, so I wasn't the best sprinter, but I liked it. A lot, so I like going fast. So I was a 200, 400, 400 hurdle runner. And, you know, I went through high school, I went through my 2 years of college, and in between that I was doing volunteer work at a physical therapy clinic. So I knew I wanted to be involved in healthcare. I took an anatomy class in senior year of high school, and I really enjoyed that too. So I definitely knew I wanted to do something medical, but I didn't necessarily want to to be a physician. And this is somewhat my bias in the sense of I don't want to be handing out medication all the time to people. So I didn't think that was the best kind of side of things to help people. In some cases, obviously medication is obviously important for some things, but not just— that's not just what I wanted to do. So yeah, no, once I got into my undergrad at Sacred Heart University for athletic training, you know, I continued for 2 more years for my sprint career before I had to start taking care of other athletes in their sports, you know, soccer, football, lacrosse, everything across the board I was helping out with while I was a student. Um, and then from there I slowly transitioned into endurance running, 5Ks mostly. From there I went to PT school, got my doctorate in physical therapy, and while I was there I was recruited by one of my professors who knew I was a fast runner and asked me if I wanted to be on his triathlon team. To, to work with him and his, his, uh, physical therapy company. And, you know, like, I, it's been, you know, up and up from there. So like I've done, you know, 10K, a good number of 10Ks, half marathons, a good number of sprints and Olympic triathlons under my belt as well. So it's been, it's been a good road and, you know, I've had many injuries along the way. So I, I've experienced a lot of the things that people come to see me with. And at the same time, like I've also been, I would say healthy for the better half of a decade, other than a couple stupid things that I've done to, that we're gonna potentially talk about today with people and, and their, their training plans and also like their running mechanics.

Yeah. So such an interesting, I love that somebody else is into speed too, especially in the triathlon world. Like that, that's my jam. I always kind of joke with people like I wanna race and then be home for lunch.

Right. Yes, yes, yes.

So cool. So yeah, I mean, I, I know that this population is really interested in doing everything better, right? So when it comes to run mechanics, I mean, who's really taught how to run, you know? And so many, so many people pick up endurance sports later on in life. It's like, okay, well, you know, here I go. So what, so I'd like to talk about what, what does a beginner do? And then what are some more intermediate or advanced metrics that we need to think about? And then really digging into some of the metrics because our watches tell us everything now. So let's start with the beginner runner. If someone wants to get into running and they wanna make sure that they don't get hurt, do you have any tips or recommendations on how they should start?

Yeah, so I mean, I, I think a lot of the things that people kind of get hung up in and whether this is the person that likes to do their research before they do it, so you know, someone who delves into YouTube and Instagram and see all the quote unquote experts and influencers online that will teach them different things that they want to do before they get started. Or if it's someone who just wants to lace up and just start doing something, you know, it's, it's all good. But at the same time, we have to keep in mind where we're currently at. And I think that's where a lot of beginners kind of get lost. They want to be the best already right out the gate, and they get frustrated sometimes with not being good or not being able to do certain things that they feel like they could have done when they were younger. So I think that's where a lot of people kind of get lost in it. At the same time, the things to focus on is just getting consistent initially, setting a schedule for yourself, whether that's a couple of days a week. I would say 2 to 3 times a week, 3 times would probably be like, I'll get started. And it's okay if you're out of shape, if you're a little bit on the overweight side, if you're trying to get started with running too. Do a run-walk method. I mean, that's called the Galloway method. It's very effective, especially if you are trying to, you know, just kind of focus on finishing a certain amount of time or get to a certain distance, just getting there. However you want to get there, however you can get there, setting a specific interval, whether that means doing 3 minutes on of a little bit of a jog and then doing a walk for a minute or two, whatever that is, just try and Don't get frustrated. Be consistent with it. Slowly progress and slowly improve. You'll get there injury-free.

Okay, great tips. So basically like have some grace with yourself. Correct.

Definitely have some grace.

Because I, I know so many people are like, they went on 2 runs and then they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so bad at this. I am not a runner. And then they stop and I'm like, okay, well let's, let's not own that identity of being like, ah, running stinks. Like you gotta stick with it.

It's just like learning how to, Do anything, even for me as a sprinter, like when I was in high school, I didn't get good until middle of junior year of high school. And, you know, like once I even got to college, things completely changed. I went from, from being a very skinny guy to like a, I gained 30 pounds of muscle in my freshman year just cause I wasn't weightlifting. So I didn't get much faster just cause I added 30 pounds, but at the same time, you know, it was, it was definitely a jump and a change. So like there's different factors that happen with that too. So if there's someone who is out there is overweight and by By doing nutrition changes and, and getting started with running by losing some weight, could you just get better and faster by doing that? Yes. But you have to be consistent and stick with it. Um, so again, don't get frustrated.

Yeah, totally. And what I'm thinking of, especially from like a metabolic testing perspective, so like a physiological standpoint, what is your VO2 max when you start and then progress? Typically when you're a beginner, you're gonna make big leaps.

Mm-hmm.

In just starting to tune the heart and lungs for, from a cardiovascular perspective. And then there's the skillset of actually running, right? Which is obviously your specialty of like actual mechanics, running safely, running properly. And I love the run-walk method. So that, those are our beginners. So stick with it, y'all. Now we get into the folks who've probably been running for a while and now they're really starting to think about speed and maybe they've got little niggles here and there. And then, we've all got these fancy watches that tell us like our ground contact time and like, and our cadence and, What do we pay attention to? What do we not pay attention to? What's valuable? What's not valuable? And what are those next steps for the people who are really wanting to take their running to the next level?

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So I mean, like, as, as far as like the people who, like, I'll even branch it a little bit between the people who are, you know, like a little bit more advanced than the people who are transitioning from beginners. I would say like, if you're trying to find, now that you're a little bit more consistent, now that you're consider yourself even a runner, you know, I would say things to start looking at is just, well, look at one thing at a time. Don't focus on, you know, I'm going to focus on my, my cadence today along with my ground contact time along with hitting my, hitting the ground appropriately. Focus on one thing at a time, refine it, focus on becoming a little bit of a quote unquote expert at that, hit those appropriate mechanics, and then from there continue to, to add in different aspects of it. So I would say like a couple of things for the more advanced people. I would say the biggest thing that we could probably work on initially and the easiest thing to just implement very, very generally is your cadence. Cadence is something that is not only going to help, it's also going to help you more, be more efficient. A lot of the times I see athletes that are generally also still within that good cadence range. Um, and I'll talk about that in a second. Um, but at the same time, they'll still deal with injury and that we'll talk a bit, bit about that, I'm sure, as we go through. So it's not all about cadence, but at the same time, it's something that, that is important. Important to have. So cadence, the appropriate cadence range I would say is between 160 and 180, with 180 or 160 to 210 technically, but 180 is kind of like the, the, uh, kind of golden number, what we want to kind of get to. And the simplest, easy way for us to do that, especially if you listen to music while you run, is to just play music that's about 170, 180, whatever you're trying to hit for that day. If you're stuck at below 160, just gradually improve that kind of window of beats per minute in the songs that you like to listen to. So if you're at 140, bring— play something that's at 150s and just do that for your run and then continue to gradually build that up. You can also just put a metronome on your phone if you're running on the treadmill and just hit the metronome on your phone and just have it every time that metronome beeps, you're just taking that next step. So that would be the best for that. If you're able to improve your cadence, that's also gonna help with that ground contact time that we were talking about before. And that would be the next thing I would say we, we could talk about. 'Cause the more time that we're spending on the ground, the more force that's being exerted on our body. Obviously, if you've seen any of the research, you know, there is a lot of multiples of body weight that we're experiencing with every footfall. And if we're, for example, doing a 5K, we're going for about 5,000 steps per 5K. So it, it's a lot of weight. That we're experiencing. So we need to be able to not only absorb that force, but we also need to overcome it so we can take the next step. So that, that, that ground contact time is important in the sense that the more we're in the air being as an athlete overall and the less injured we're going to get. So that ground contact time number is going to be anywhere between 0.21 to 0.31 of a hundredth of a second. So basically, if we're within that range, it's going to be very beneficial in avoiding injury. Um, because the more time we're on the ground, like I was saying before, the, the more stress we're putting on our body, the more risk we're gonna have for injury, the most, the more time we're also gonna need to recover just cuz that, that exertion being put on our body.

So I heard you say cadence and ground contact time, and what's coming up for me is two things that I'm curious about. Is this all the time?

As, as close to perfect as possible, right? Yeah. So I mean, obviously it's not gonna be every step. You want to try and be as close to it as you possibly can throughout. I mean, as you get more efficient, as you become better, a better runner, as you become more in tune with how your body's feeling while you're running. And that's another thing we can talk about as well, if you want, just how, how you're, how you should be going about feeling your body as you're running. So like, as you become more attuned to what you should be feeling, knowing what 160 beats feels like or 180 steps per minute feels like, and also how long you feel like your foot's on the ground for, for a given period of time. You should obviously, once you get within that range, you know how it should feel. And therefore, if you're noticing it, it's either, oh, something's coming up or I'm fatigued for today and maybe I need to cut my run short today so I don't start feeling like aches and pains. Or if I'm starting to feel aches and pains, why is it happening? Do I feel like I'm within the range that I used to be? Can I, should I check my watch? Should I check Strava? Should I check Garmin? Whatever.

And then what about like, should do, do these numbers change if you're descending or climbing a hill?

Yeah, so obviously that's gonna definitely change and also depends on your mechanics while you're going up and downhill. Cause those are also different, different aspects too. I would say the better way to go about going uphill is to make more shorter, choppier steps just to help not only with, especially if you're not as much of somebody who can VO2 max-wise sustain your pace. As you're going over a hill. If you're someone who needs to slow down while you're going over a hill, I would say shortening up your stride, doing more shorter, choppier steps. So increasing that cadence is gonna be more efficient to not only not blow up the, the cardiovascular aspects, but also to not overload your legs, um, so that you're able to just get over the hill and, and work your way rather than trying to muscle it through. And then at the top of the hill, you need to stop because you're all blown up.

I hear that a lot. Like, you know, I'm gonna die at the top of the hill. So what I hear you saying is there's technique. There's technique for climbing and perhaps technique for descending too.

Yes. And there's, there's tech, definitely technique for going downhill too, cuz a lot of the people, what they tend to do, and this is where most people I would find when, when they're doing hill training that they tend to get the most injury just because descending eccentric control is what we would call it, is the harder muscle contraction. It's gonna be the hardest on your body, especially if you're someone who runs downhill and likes to brake. Themselves rather than, you know, allow gravity to somewhat take you down the hill. So, again, if you're someone who can't necessarily muscularly control yourself down the hill, I would say, again, shorter, choppier steps, just so you're not, like, breaking your, your foot into the ground and slowing yourself down intentionally, but taking those shorter steps. So, again, we're not putting so much stress into our body. And also, we're getting down the hill more gradually rather than just allowing our body to freewheel it and we start accelerating, accelerating, accelerating until we hit the bottom of hill like I sometimes do, especially when I'm racing. But you know, like I've been a sprinter, so I'm able to tolerate the higher leg turnover. So like that's, that comes with skill and experience as well. So that's, that's definitely a different, different kind of technique.

So is sound something that we should be tuning into at all when we're running? Like how heavily we slap the ground or touch the ground? Like, should we aim to be like a quiet runner? Or like, how does that play into it?

Right. So obviously we don't wanna be stomping into the ground. And at times I'm going to say once we're at faster speeds, well, we, we will tend to be a little bit louder into the ground. And I would say we wanna try and be as quiet as possible in the sense that we're transitioning from footfall to footfall because the, the less impactful we're putting direct force into the ground, you know, obviously we're taking some of that stress that's going back into our body away. 'Cause really what we should be focusing on is almost slapping the ground. And in the sense of like, if you, if you ever spin like a tire, so like, you know, for example, with you, Chris, like you flip your bike over and you spin the wheel. The only way to make it faster is to just smack the side of the wheel at a, if we're going to get scientific here, tangential angle, uh, that's going to be directly parallel to it. As long as you keep doing that, it's going to make that wheel go faster and faster. So the closer we can get to doing that, the better off we're going to be and the less injury we're going to have. So if you're just constantly mashing into the ground with your foot coming straight down, we're going to have greater force in our body and more stress leading to potential injury in that way.

So what— so let's get into some of the injury stuff because, you know, in theoretically we're all running generally softly and have this beautiful cadence and ground contact time. Like when, when do some of these things go awry? Like, is it usually from the ground up? Is it the top down? Like, Is it just no rhyme or reason? We're all just wonderfully unique and, and that's where you come in. Or so talk us through some of those common injuries.

Yeah. So I'll talk about some of the injuries first in relation to the mechanics, and then we'll also talk a bit about injury in the sense of the actual mechanical aspect or the running form itself too. I would say most injuries that happen or pop up And, and, and this is speaking not only to the beginners, but also to the people who are a little bit more advanced or trying to become more efficient or trying to get faster, and they're just not going the right way about it, is they become a little bit more of— this is more especially for the beginners. They just try to run fast all the time. They don't necessarily adjust their pacing. And this is where we start talking about zone training a bit, where we focus on a little bit more of the 80/20 rule, where a lot of our mileage is on the slower side. And we have a small percentage that's on a higher end, whether that's interval runs or, or VO2 max runs or, or, uh, you know, any of those kind of, kind of aspects of our running schedule. Um, and then also it's just, they're doing too much too fast too soon. They don't progress as well. Uh, or they don't, they progress too much as far as their distance that they're trying to run, whether they're someone who's a 5K that wants to start doing a half marathon and they want to do that training in less than 3 months, you know, that's a little bit of a tight schedule for somebody who's brand new to half marathon training. So if you have that kind of situation, that's where I do see a lot of it. It's just too much on the body all at one time that, that leads to general issues. As far as like the mechanics aspect and the running form, I would say it's specifically the way I like to look at people when I analyze their form is I do like to start from the bottom up, but at At the same time, I still focus from the central down to, and also what's going on higher up in the neck, the head, the neck, and the shoulders, because it all feeds into what's going on overall in the picture that you have for your body, because all that's going to affect the forces you impart into the ground and also the, the forces that are being imparted on you. So I would say the biggest thing that most people will have that are issues are too much pronation or not being able to control their foot. And also not being able to control their hip, which leads to most— what most runners deal with is running— is knee injuries. It's never the knee itself that's the problem. It's always the foot and/or the hip. So I always start— I usually target those, and those are the ones I really specifically focus most of my time on. But at the same time, if you're someone who doesn't have a strong core, so that could be your hips and/or your abdomen, if you don't have good control there either, that can also affect what's going on Higher up, down below, and can also lead to a bunch of different injuries. Yeah.

What's coming up for me is, um, we see a lot of like, especially women when we watch them from the back, their hips, like one hip will drop. So when you see something like that, for example, what could be potential injuries and then what could be potential things to help correct that? Is it mobility? Is it strength? Is it a little bit of both?

Yeah.

Or awareness techniques.

Right.

Yeah.

That's a very, that's a very good question. I mean, I, I don't know how much you guys also look at that from also a front, a side angle too, because sometimes you can also notice that their pelvis is also tilted forward. Or like when they go to push off, instead of pushing off from their, from their hip, they start pushing off from their spine instead. So that can lead to higher up injuries too. But yeah, now that's something I do see very common, especially with women. Partially that's because of the way that you know, women are developed wider hips and what we call the Q angle. So basically the angulation from where the hip kind of is in line with the knee, the larger that angle is, the more strong you need to be in order to counteract that force. So basically it's, it's mostly going to be strength, stability, and control generally. If— and this is where some athletes that I see that get frustrated with traditional physical therapy, unlike what we do here, What they get frustrated with traditional therapy is that they tell them that they're weak. You know, they're very strong women. They do their strength training, they do what they're supposed to do, they do their mobility work, but they're still dealing with either hip, low back, and/or knee pain, and they can't necessarily figure out what the problem is. And generally it's because they're not educated necessarily on what the real issue is, and it's really the control of that strength rather than the actual strength itself.

So this is not like, I squat amazing weight and I deadlift. It's so awesome. And I look at me holding my plank and yet I'm still having these issues.

It's correct.

Uh, almost sounds like a, like a, almost like a kinesthetic sort of awareness or connection, right? That they're needing to control. So yeah, tell me a little bit more about how your approach is unique in that respect.

Yeah, it's one thing that's different from, you know, the traditional physical therapist versus what we do is, you know, we focus number one on, you know, runners, endurance athletes, you know, that's, that's one thing. We have the knowledge, we have the background on what you're experiencing, unlike what most physical therapists do, and they just focus on a general aspect of things. I would say also in the sense that, you know, when we specifically look at your running form, your running mechanics, what you do specifically Outside of that, to make you a better runner, so like we were talking about the strengthening, you know, you squat, you deadlift, you, you do planks. It's, can you tolerate that in a single leg format? If you don't, if you're someone who doesn't single leg strength train, if you're someone who doesn't work on your balance and stability, your control, then obviously that's something that I'm first going to. If you're someone who does do that, are you doing it correctly or are you making, you know, compensations where you don't necessarily feel that you are, But I can see it based off of what I've been able to study and whatnot. So some people, you know, can compensate very, very well by things that shouldn't be doing that. And that's why they may be dealing with some of the pain. So for example, someone dealing with back pain but has a— so basically we would call contralateral opposite side hip. So if my, if my left back bothers me all the time, but I notice a hip drop or a hip side shift on the right side, It's because their low back on their left side is compensating and keep it— trying to keep their hip level on the right side, but it can't. That's not what it's supposed to do. So it's, it's a lot of things that go into it, but at the same time, it's very specific to, to those types of people. So that's what I try to really break down for people first so we can figure out root causes and kinda build you back up to not only make your squat, deadlifts, plank better, but also give you tools to work on the smaller fine-tuning muscles that help with that control and stability on top of That's cool.

And, um, somebody who's gone through your videoing process, it's always so like in your head, you're like, but I thought, and you're like, mm-hmm, but now we have evidence. And then, you know, slowing it down, what you think in your head may be happening may not actually be happening. So this, so, you know, having, going through the process like you do of videotaping people and pointing things out is obviously really important. And then, and then what are kind of like next steps that people do with that? It's like, okay, well, my— we see my hip is dropping. Now what? Or we see my— oh, you know, I'm pronating too deeply, or whatever the case may be. Then kind of what's, what's next steps for people? Because, you know, if you look at our— it's kind of like, well, what should it look like? And at least in my head, I'm like, I should look like an Olympian, shouldn't I? You don't know until you actually see it and then have somebody like you evaluate it. And then what do you do with that?

Right. Yeah. So I mean, I guess another unique thing about what we do or what I do specifically in my practice is, you know, I take an athlete like you, like you just competed in the XTERRA World Championships, right? So like you're, you're a high-level performer. So it's like, you know, you're doing great with what you have right now. And this is, this goes back to also, like you were mentioning the Olympians, the pros that are out there, there's a lot of pros out there that have quote unquote faulty mechanics. It's just like, is it working for them and why is it working for them? So we analyze that a little bit and then is it causing you pain? And like we focus on, on that aspect. So like if it's not causing you pain, it's allowing you to be, be great at what you do. I'm not going to change much of it. But at the same time, if there's things that are causing you pain and causing you issues, am I going to change it? Yes. But I would also focus on the building blocks too. So like if you're someone who has that hip drop that we were talking about and they can't control their hip very well, I'm going to, I'm going to bring you back down to a specific strength training level that's going to be very minute and specific to certain muscles that are going to help with that stability and then build you up from there. And at the same time, we'll bring you back in a couple of weeks later see if that hip drop's still happening. If it is, then we're going to start working on a little bit more fine-tuning of why is that still happening? Is it more balance and control? Is it your body awareness? So we focus a little bit more on that. And then we, we also try to, while you're running, focus on different aspects of what are you feeling as we're doing this? Do you feel like it's this? Can you try and exert this way? So for example, like if we're talking about the hip drop, if we can focus on as we're kind of pushing off that we're utilizing to extend our hip a little bit differently as we're, as we're pushing off with that foot rather than just going about and running.

You mean I shouldn't start there, just running up a mountain and hoping that everything goes well?

Correct. Yeah.

That sounds like an Achilles disaster is what I'm thinking about, which again goes into like the skill and mechanic of being able to appropriately run uphill. But what about shoes? Is that something that you look at or is that, you know, I don't shoot— I don't even know what the trend is these days. We went from zero drop to a lot of drop to like, you know, minimalist to maximalist foam, no foam. You know, somebody asked me the other day like, do you wear carbon-plated shoes? I'm like, carbon plates.

Yeah, fiber plates. Yeah. So yeah, I'm seeing all of it. Don't worry. Yeah. So I mean, that's a very good question. I mean, I definitely see the gamut too. I mean, I even had a few clients recently who every week would bring me in a new pair of shoes. Like, is this good for me? Is this good for me? So like, it's definitely something that's that, that people do focus on and it's okay to focus on it for a bit. But once you find something that's a good general fit, then it's, then it's good. You know, the first things I usually focus is does your foot fit the shoe? Because like, if your foot doesn't fit in the shoe, then, then obviously it's not going to be good for you. I don't focus on brand. Brand is the last thing, absolute last thing I focus on. First and foremost, it's your foot. And also like how your body reacts to just regular ground without any shoes on. So if you're someone who overpronates already, someone who overpronates while they're on, while they're running, then we're looking more towards neutral/stability shoes. For someone who has high arches and has trouble with stress injuries like, you know, shin splints, stress fractures, stress reactions, those kind of things, I'm thinking more cushion for you. But at the same time, obviously there's things terms out there called stack height, how much foam is in there, heel drop ratio, how much difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe. Those are all things that especially beginner runners get lost in all the time. And that's why if you are going to go to a store like Fleet Feet or seek out your specialized running physical therapist like myself, we can help you tease out that a little bit better, especially if you're a beginner runner, like what shoe is going to be best for you. But basically, you want your entire foot to fit within that sole of the shoe. You don't want to have it like if you stand on your shoe and you notice that either your pinky toe or your big toe is spilling out over the side of the shoe, that shoe is not wide enough for you. Additionally, you should be able to take your thumb and put it thumb's width over the front of the shoe. And if you can't touch your toe, then you're good. As far as like fit-wise, you want it to necessarily stay on your foot. You don't want it to be sliding off your heel. If you're looking for some— for a generalized shoe that's not minimalist, you don't want to be able to push down the back of the heel. You don't want to be able to wring it out like a sponge. You don't, don't want to be able to fold it in half. So all of those are all good basic things for you to focus on so that you don't have any kind of injuries pop up in that sense. But I will say that if you do get a shoe that has a lot of foam, I've seen plenty of runners, especially the whole time I was running New York City Marathon when the Alphaflys were super huge at the time. There are people that should not be wearing those shoes that had the inside of their ankles on the ground because there was too much foam in there for them to tolerate. And this was like, not even like towards the end of the marathon. This was at the beginning of the marathon. So I don't know how they did, but at the same time, there was nightmares that I was seeing the whole time. Now that, that doesn't include the nightmare of the heat and the vomiting and the passing out that I saw, saw during that race too.

Don't discourage people from running.

I know, I'm trying not to, but at the same time, like, that— like, like your race this past, past a couple weeks, like, that was not a great race for me either.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's— there, there are unique situations certainly in racing and, and definitely in running and definitely in marathon. Oh my goodness. So yeah, it sounds like we can, we can easily be caught up in the marketing and the trends, and when it may not all always be something that's beneficial specifically to our own personal running.

Right.

What about insoles? Is that, you know, so like we talked about shoes and we find a good shoe, but like, are insoles something that we should all just get or is that case by case? Does it differ like right foot to left foot or how do you approach that topic?

Yeah, so I mean, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up 'cause that is something I do get asked about a lot. And this is also the, and I'm blanking on the name of the company, but they, it's not a carbon plate, but it's like a fiber plate. I think it's called Vortex. That could be completely wrong. But they, they help with the extra sprain too. So I've, they help and all insoles and where if we're talking about orthotics as well, they help. But when I approach somebody with orthotics or someone who's thinking about getting orthotics or even the aspect of podiatrists who love to recommend orthotics just because it does cost a lot and they do get a lot of money for it is it's a tool. It's not something that you're— so like I have flat feet, I'm more of a supple flatfoot, but even when my foot's in the air and just basically— so I'll back up a little bit. Supple flatfoot is basically, you have an arch when your foot's not on the ground and your arch disappears when your foot's on the ground. You know, then there's also rigid flatfoot. So whether you're someone who has high arches, flat feet, whatever it is, your foot still needs to be able to be strong enough to tolerate stresses, whether that's everyday life stresses or running stresses, endurance sport stress, whatever it is. So I use insoles as a tool. So if you need them for now because your foot can't tolerate the stresses that are going through it, completely fine. But I want you to get out of it because not only by getting out of those is your foot going to be stronger and more supportive for you, but you're going to be more efficient. You're going to have better stability for when you push off, creating that stable platform, because that's where we're making first contact and last contact with the ground. We need that stable platform to set up what's going on in the rest of our body to not only push off efficiently, but push off very forceful and give us a good stride and also make us faster.

Are there things that can affect foot strength, foot mobility, whether we choose a specific insole or insert or whatever that are outside of that? Like, should we walk around the house barefoot all the time, or should we avoid our high heels, or I don't know, does it— does any of that factor into things?

Yeah, no, it does. It definitely does. And that, that we can talk about a whole nother podcast too if we wanted to. But basically, the basics for that is anything that we're going to have a tight toe box in is going to affect our feet. Having a tight toe box, that could be flats for our ladies, heels, and that's heels of any size, any shape also. Anything that's going to be tight in the toe box is going to lead to not only issues with the toes creating a pointed aspect where we have bunionettes and bunions forming, but also it's going to restrict how much our intrinsic or the muscles within our foot contract because if we can't spread out our our toes, if we can't grip the ground appropriately, we're not going to be utilizing those, those muscles appropriately to, to go through our normal gait cycle. And also if we're having shoes that aren't supportive, so, you know, like most women's flats, they're not very supportive whatsoever. If you're someone who has flat feet or doesn't have good control in their feet and needs that support, you know, obviously that's going to put more stress on the inside of the ankle, inside of the knee, outside of the hip, low back area, that can affect it too. Especially for wearing heels too. That affects the low back. It affects all the mechanics going up towards the spine and above, even up into your shoulders and neck. So all those types of shoes are, are not necessarily the greatest, but obviously for work or whatever, if you need to use them, try to walk to work or, or travel to work in different shoes before you go to work and put on those shoes. In addition to that, just regular everyday shoes or even going about your house. Personally, for me, I walk around barefoot all the time. In my, in my house, partially because that's what my wife has, but also, also in the sense that I love to utilize my toes, utilize my, my muscles in order to, you know, keep that stability that I do have that I've built up over the years. Because like I said, when we first started, for the better half of a decade, I haven't had any kind of injury. But when I first got started running, I had everything. I had, you know, shin splints, I had posterior tibialis syndrome, I've had ankle sprains, I've had plantar fasciitis, I've had the gamut. But at the same time, like, now that I've built everything up and, you know, despite me having flat feet, I don't deal with any foot issues because, you know, I've built that strength, that stability up over time. I've just kept it that way.

So there is hope.

There is hope.

Yeah. And as you're saying this, it's making me think of, like, from a longevity perspective, because so many people as they age, they trip and fall. And then of course falls become so much more of an issue later on in life. And then I'm also thinking of like the beginner runner of like, oh, I just, you know, should I have this big cushy shoe because I trip all the time? And that to me says like, no, that's your job, Rob.

Yeah. So I mean, like, it's really just, just to bridge part of what we were talking about just before, and then also with, you know, what we're going be leading into. I mean, you mentioned that the— we mentioned that the thick foamy shoe, and we also mentioned how feeling the ground is important by me walking around barefoot in my house and being strong and stable. Those thick foamy shoes don't allow you to feel the ground whatsoever. So that's one bad thing about that trend also that I don't like. It's— it feels like a very comfortable ride, but at the same time, you can't feel what's going on underneath you. You feel like you're running on a cloud, but at the same time, like, your foot doesn't know what to do. So like, if that I would recommend, like, if especially those higher-end performance shoes, I think one of my, one of my friends started running in the Adidas Speed 4s. I could be wrong with which one that one is, but it's a brand new shoe that they have out. And he says like he feels like it's all— it's very high stack height, very, very foamy. But he only uses that for speed workouts and his, his faster races. So definitely change out your shoes if you're going to have that kind of an aspect too. But like we were talking about, for that person who's dealing with issues with the tripping and whatnot and having that thick foamy shoe, yeah, that's going to be a problem. And that also leads into the trips and the falls, which leads into the strength training, which is going to be important lifelong and not necessarily just when I'm in season or when I'm in offseason. It's throughout the year. You're doing some level of strength training to either build during your offseason or maintain during your season, especially if you're racing a lot. So, you know, at the age of 35, we start losing muscle mass, both men, especially women, especially as we approach premenopausal, menopausal, and postmenopausal years. We— there's a huge dip in strength as we go through that just because of the hormone fluctuations and changes. So definitely, especially before we hit that kind of aspect, is to get on some kind of strength training regimen that is relatively heavy to you. Not necessarily that we're lifting hundreds of pounds, but we need to make sure that we're getting some good effort in it that's not related to a HIIT class or whatever, or boot camp class. We need some regular in-the-gym strength training with free weights is most likely going to be where I would put you to so we can work on those stabilizers so that you're not only going to stay strong and healthy, you're not going to have bone stress injuries as a female. You're going to have a strong, good-looking physique. And then at the same time, you're also going to be a better runner that doesn't trip all the time. Love that.

Okay. Yes. Strength training. I know we're, we're cover— we're covering all the things right now, Rob. So thank you for that. Which makes me think, okay, so we gotta be doing our strength training if we're gonna be running. And then is there something we should be doing before and after every run? Or should we just like lace up those fancy shoes and just hit right out the door? Or is there like a standard? Should we all be doing a dynamic warmup? Should we all be stretching or foam rolling afterwards? Or is it case by case?

I would say like based off of your specific run that you're going out for. So your warmup, and you should be doing a warmup every time, you don't want to, you want to make that warmup specific to what you're doing. So your warmup for your long run or a nice easier run is going to be different from your speed workout if you're gonna be doing any kind of speed workouts. If we are going to be doing a warmup, you want it to be as minimal as about 5 minutes, especially if you have a sedentary job to get that blood flow flowing again, to wake up your nervous system a little bit more, help get more nutrients to our tendons and our ligaments, cuz those don't necessarily have the best blood flow. So we want to flush out chemicals that have been sitting there all day, and we also wanna bring new nutrients to those tissues so that we don't have any kind of breakdown. And, and from there we want to get back gradually, go into our run. Same thing with cool down. We want to stretch, we want to restore normal, normal muscle length. We want to flush out chemicals for that we, that have built up, whether that's, you know, speed workout out lactic acid, any kind of waste products that could be sitting there if we just go sit on the couch after and stare at our phone for, you know, 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever it is. We want to make sure that we're flushing all that out so we can recover faster so that when we go out for our next run tomorrow or 2 days from now or whatever it is, that we can feel our greatest and, and keep going from there.

All right, so we've gone over a ton, everything from ground cockpit time, how to get started as a new runner, shoes, insoles, warmups, cooldowns. So if we could put all this together into like a little nutshell, what would be your top like 2 to 4 things that you want to make sure people come away with as it relates to running and mechanics?

Yes. Yeah. So as I kind of started off with, it's, it's stay consistent. Don't get frustrated. Work on one thing at a time. And if you're dealing with any pain, especially if it's been going on for longer than 48 hours, Talk to me.

And how do they get a hold of you?

Right. Yeah. So if you want to get a hold of me, you can head over to our website, www.endurance-unleashed.com, or you can give us a call, 919-516-9050.

It's so great that we have a wonderful running community and you will not be short on business, Rob.

I've definitely noticed that since I've been down here. There's definitely a lot more people down here who want to stay active and stay healthy. For long, long, long, like for their, the rest of their life, which is good.

Yeah. Longevity. Longevity. I tell you what. Yeah. Especially like just being at Worlds, you know, there were people in this 70+ age group. Mm-hmm. There was one person in, in the 80 age group. I have to look up whether they finished or not, but still, like, I mean, game changer. Like if I, you know, I would only dream of continuing to do this for a long time.

I saw a post yesterday that, or earlier this week, there was, um, a 2-year-old woman running a 36-second 100-meter dash.

That's insane. Yeah, I love— like, that just like amps me up so much. I— and as much as people like get in their own way of like, oh, I could never do that, oh, running is so hard, I'm like, no, you just need to— like you said, you just need to be consistent, start small, work on one thing at a time, and believe in yourself. Like, give yourself some dang credit. Like, we can do hard things, right? So cool. Awesome, Rob. This has been a wealth of information, and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. And I hope that people reach out to you. So don't, don't forget to, to go see Dr. Rob because he's fantastic. I've, uh, got my own fancy, um, run view, and man, it is eye-opening. Your own view. So it is eye-opening, you know, in your head again, like, you're like, I am an Olympian, and then you see the video, you're like, oh, I got some work to do. So fantastic. All right, well, Rob, thank you so much, and we appreciate you being on the Find Your Edge podcast. Thanks for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And if you're interested in learning more about our endurance coaching, sports and wellness nutrition, metabolic and sweat testing, triathlon training team, or our triathlon training library, be sure to check us out at theenduranceedge.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media at The Endurance Edge. Thanks again. And we'll catch you next time.