I often say that when we're talking about footwear, we're really talking about form, not footwear. So people say, well, can you run with proper form in regular shoes? Let's take a look at that in a little rant on today's episode of the movement movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet for those things that you're a foundation. And we break down the propaganda, the mythology and the lies that you may have been told about what it takes to enjoy in a fashion, efficiently and effectively run and walk and hike and play into yoga and cross with all those different things.
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You know the drill. If you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. So a couple weeks ago, my wife, Lane and I were in the Czech Republic because we have an office there in Prague for our European business. And then we took a couple days and went to an unbelievable, beautifully gorgeous, looks like a fantasy wedding cake on acid, town, college, and all that.
And then we took a couple days and went to a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, fantasy wedding cake on acid town called Carlo Vivari, K-A-R-L-O-V-Y, Carlo V-K-R-L-O-V-Y, Vari, V-A-R-Y. Look at it. Spectacular. Well, they were having a half marathon.
It just happened to happen while we were there. So I sat watching the marathon enjoying a locally made dark beer, delicious, by the way. I'm even much of a beer drinker, but it was really good. And I watched the runners run by.
And the majority of the runners, definitely got the guys in the front, the guys in the front, and all the way, mostly back all the way to the back of the pack in many ways, or many situations. Everyone was running with great form. They had a landing on their midfoot underneath their center of mass that Cadence was just about right. You know, a lot of really, really good form of the biggest thing was landing midfoot, not heel striking, not over-striding, not reaching out, putting the brakes on with every time they land, not putting all that force that's going into your heel, not being absorbed by the cushioning, and then going straight into your joints.
So you would think that I was happy about that. Sounds like I was kind of happy about that. But there was one other thing that was really interesting. They were all still wearing big padded shoes with giant elevated heels.
And most of the time their heel wasn't coming all the way down to the ground. Again, you would think I'm happy about this. Why is that? Not the case.
I will tell you why. It's because they had basically trained themselves to limit the amount of you sick and get out of their Achilles tendon. By not letting their heel come down, and by not being in a shoe that would let their heel come all the way down, they weren't using the biggest spring you have in your body. The thing that literally does, that tendon literally captures energy and returns energy if you let it.
Now, it wasn't because their Achilles has, quote, shortened. And by the way, I see this with the really accomplished runners in my neighborhood as well. Their Achilles hasn't shortened. But what they've done is they've trained their brain to only let them use their Achilles to a certain amount.
You could untrain your brain to do that. I've seen this with a guy actually, he was a, pardon me, a felding Christ practitioner, which is a bodywork style. And he had somebody who had a frozen shoulder, could not lift her arm above shoulder level. And what he had to do was lean down in the direction of the arm that was problematic and lift her arm from that angle.
And she got her arm up next to her ear and then he had her stand up and there's her frozen shoulder fixed because it basically reminded her brain, oh, you can move this much. Well, the same thing that happened if you're not used to letting your Achilles be fully extended, get the maximum spring out of it and maximum spring back into it. In other words, these people were not being as efficient as they could be because they weren't letting their body do what's natural because from wearing higher heel running shoes with a whole lot of padding, they've trained their brain to not use their body correctly. So this is the world's shortest little rant I've ever had because I'm going to end it there.
What I'm going to tell you is take a look around and watch people running in regular shoes. If it looks like they're landing midfoot underneath their body well, see if they're using their Achilles properly. And if you're not, you want to basically, I'm not even sure the best way to do this where you need to retrain your brain about what's possible. Maybe we'll figure that out in a subsequent episode.
If you're not sure, there's going to be some testing about this. Actually, you know what it is? It's, I got one. Stand up and bare feet facing a wall, maybe be a couple feet away from the wall and see how far you can lean forward, keeping your heel on the ground.
Don't try that, you know, overly stretch. Just see how far you can go. And my bet is that you can go much, much further than what you would need to do when you're running to let your heel come all the way down the ground. Because when you're running, maybe you're at about a 15, 20 degree angle, you know, maybe a tiny bit more.
I bet you can lean way more than that when you test against a wall. I'll see if I can find some way to demonstrate that so you can really check and remind your brain about what you can really do if you're not letting your brain do it. If your brain isn't letting you do what you can do, but just pay attention to this whole Achilles thing and see what you discover. Let me know.
Anyway, once again, head over to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. Find previous episodes, find other ways you can interact. And if you have any suggestions about how to tweak, you know, play with this idea that I just tossed at you or any recommendations about things where we can say more about this. Or if you just want to reach out and give me a recommendation about someone who should be on the show, someone maybe who thinks I have cranial reorientation syndrome, just drop me an email.
Move, M-O-V-E at JoinTheMovementMovement.com. But until then, go out, have fun, and live life-feet first.