Welcome to the Movement Movement. The podcast for people who want the truth about having a healthy, happy, strong body. Remember, your body was meant to move. Now here's your host, Stephen Sashin.
You're a smart, educated, conscious, and conscientious consumer. Therefore, you want to buy products that are sustainable, because you don't want to destroy the planet when you buy things. And sustainable, that's going to be the thing that's going to be helpful, right? I don't know.
Let's find out on today's episode of the Movement Movement. The podcast for people who want to find out the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, feet first, because those things are your foundation. And on the Movement podcast, we break through the lies of mythology, the propaganda, about what it takes to run, walk, hike, dance, play, whatever it is you like to do, more enjoyably, more effortlessly. You know the drill.
If you like what happens here, please subscribe. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com to find out all the places that you can find this podcast, both the video version on our YouTube channel or on our website, of course, or on Facebook or Instagram, wherever it is you can find us. And then, you know, like, subscribe, review, all those things you know how to do. In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe.
And part of the tribe means simply this. We're trying to make natural movement, the obvious, better, healthy choice, the way natural food currently is. I like to say that with zero shoes, we're trying to become the gluten-free of footwear. And we want your help, because this is a communal event, this is something that's going to happen from the ground up, because it's definitely not happening from the top down.
And let's start with a movement. And this is going to be a simple, easy, little weird thing, just to kind of prove a point. My wife is currently having an interesting conversation with someone on Facebook, I believe, about whether high-heeled padded motion-controlled shoes are good for you or not. And I just thought of something that I want to teach her or have her talk about in this conversation she's having.
But we're going to do it really quick. And it's just showing something really interesting. I don't know if you're in a position where you can do this seated or standing, but you'll find a way to be able to do it however you want. And here's the movement.
I just want you to slam your heel into the ground. Just, you know, like, just hit your, I'm lifting up my knee and then putting it into the ground like I'm playing the drums. Like I'm playing a snare drum, not a snare, or cymbals actually, because I'm using my left leg. And just, you know, hit your heel in the ground and just feel the shock that don't do it too hard, obviously.
Just feel the shock that goes up into your joints. You can almost feel it going like through your bones, because there's nothing there to mitigate that and stop doing it, because if you can't do it, that would be unpleasant. But just you can feel it. And if you're doing it this way, the straight leg, you can feel it probably going like through your knee, into your hip, even possibly all the way into your back, maybe up to the top of your spine, up into your neck and just where you're cervical vertebrae, join your head.
Now, try something a little different. I want you to do that same motion, but land on your toes. And you'll notice it's almost impossible to get that same kind of force. And you'll also notice that your calf is kind of absorbing most of the shock.
It's actually your calf and your Achilles and your planar fascia. And so what you're experiencing, go back to your heel and feel that shock of force and go back to your toe and see if you can, or not on your toes, like, you know, the ball of your foot toes. And you might notice that it's like practically impossible to get the same amount of force. This is the fundamental difference between running in a barefoot natural style in a truly minimal shoe where you get a lot of feedback from the ground because there's not a lot of cushioning.
Versus being a highly cushioned shoe that encourages you to overstride and land on your heel with your heel in front of your body where you're applying these kind of shock, creating, breaking forces with every step. This is the fundamental difference. If you are using the muscles and ligaments and tendons that you have as springs and shock absorbers, that's one thing. If you are in a shoe that kind of inspires you to land on your heel, you're bypassing that incredible mechanism and just sending force into your body because there's no way that cushioning can possibly give you enough protection.
In fact, there's research that shows that highly cushioned shoes do not reduce impact forces because there's no way in fact, sometimes it's paradoxically, you can get more force in the ground when you have a padded shoe because your brain is trying to feel things from the soles of your body. When you have a bunch of padding, it can't feel and so it tries to land harder to get more feedback to know how to use your body. That's our movement for today, totally tangential from the point that I want to make and that's all about sustainability. Where this comes from is a conversation I was involved in at a trade show in Germany just recently where there were a couple people from other brands, other footwear brands, and one of the writers for Runners World in Germany.
The topic of sustainability came up and one of the other brands, and I'm not going to mention them by name because frankly, it doesn't matter and you'll hear why in a second. But they had just won an award for making a shoe that was somehow sustainable, something or other. And then the next guy chimed in about how their brand is doing paying attention to sustainable, whatever they're doing. And then the moderator turns to me and says, well, what do you think?
That was by the way my ridiculously bad German accent. And I said, I think we need to call this out and just be honest about this whole sustainable thing. These are brands all of us that are really tiny and even if we were able to use totally sustainable materials that are coming from the ocean and we're using plastic bottles that come from landfills or we're using algae to create some new form of plastic or rubber, whatever it is, the dent that we're making is minuscule at best. We are now producing, not you and me, but just I think around the world, I think this is worldwide not just America.
400 million tons of plastic every year, half of which ends up in the, wait, 8 million tons of that ends up in the ocean. 200 million of those tons are single use things like straws or whatever plastic bags they get thrown away. So we're creating a lot of plastic that just doesn't go away and with the other materials they're being used and things like footwear, there's even more. So these tiny little brands, you know, look, you're making a very small dent, if at all.
Let's also realize that some people are just using the word sustainable. It's a buzzword. It's something, it's, Laina refers to it. She's not the only one.
She was the first person I heard using this term. It's greenwashing. It's using this idea of being green to cover up whatever else you're doing and to just make sure that you're making a very small dent. So that's what you're doing.
And to just make it frankly so that people don't think about what you're really doing. They don't look more carefully. They go, oh, that's sustainable. Oh, that's environmentally friendly.
Oh, that's green because you said so. Well, that must be good. That must be better. One of the forms of greenwashing that I find most infuriating is when people say that they have a product that's recycled a bull.
Okay, so if you have an easy method of recycling that thing, like throwing it in your recycling bin that the trash people come and pick up, that's awesome. But there's companies that I know that will send you a bag that comes with their product and say, when you're done with it, just put it in the bag and send it right back. It's recyclable a bull. Nobody does it.
This is just, it just doesn't happen. It can make you feel good that you bought something that's recycled a bull. But I'm just wondering, boy, if you have ever used a recyclable thing, just post something or comment or send me an email to move at jointhemovementmovement.com. I'm just dying to know how many people have done it because I've never met anyone.
I've asked hundreds and hundreds of people. Maybe there's one or two of you who have a boy, you are the exception and certainly not the rule. Anyway, here's another thing about the whole sustainable thing. It's often very misleading.
So there are people who are using certain products. There's a product I think it's called Recover. And it's taking plastic and plastic bottles and reusing that, turning it into fibers that you can use. By the way, let me back up.
I'm all for making sustainable products. I'm all for trying to save the world. I'm all for using fewer resources. But what I'm also all for is not glossing over reality with simple sounding ideas that make people's brains turn off because they like the phrase.
And that's what I'm really complaining about here. So the second point is, so using something like Recover, it talks about how many bottles they're saving by making this product using the material that they create. Well, maybe it's true. I don't know.
I haven't audited it. I know someone who's in the materials business who tried to get them to show the data for how they calculate this and they wouldn't give him the data. So it's possible. I'm not suggesting that they are doing anything illicit or illegal or wrong.
I'm just saying that again, we often will look at this marketing information and just go, isn't this great? I feel so much better. I've just saved 500 bottles from going into the ocean and turning into fish food accidentally that then becomes things that I eat. So I then poop plastic, which I do on a regular basis, by the way.
So anyway, the thing that gets potentially greenwashed about this is the energy that it takes to get these materials and reclaim them and turn them into something else and then use them in a brand new product. So yes, you may have taken some number of bottles out of the trash ecosystem, but is it producing or is it using more energy and effort to do that than it would be to be making virgin products or maybe even just taking that trash and just throwing it away somewhere else rather than trying to reuse it for something. Again, don't know, but these are not conversations that come up. Here's a third point.
The simplest one that goes like this, these products, let me back up again a half a step. You may ask why Zero Shoe is not using some of these products. And the answer is really simple. They're expensive, like really expensive.
And so this is the third point that I made is because these many reclaimed products or upcycled products are so expensive to use, the only people buying them are rich people. What good is that doing? How is that really being the thing that's going to help? It's going to really drive change.
It's going to really help keep trash out of the oceans or wherever trash might be going. We don't want to go to, I mean, that's not really the solution, don't you think? So anyway, they did ask me, what are we doing in this sustainable thing? I said, well, let's get to the most important point of this.
Let's say you are reclaiming plastic from going into the ocean, that you found a way to turn those plastic bottles into something that it takes less energy to do that than it does to make brand new plastic, that you found a way to make the products affordable, that you've solved all the problems that I just mentioned. How durable are your products? If you're making a product with all these wonderful, sustainable things and they only use running shoes as an example, they still only last 100, 200, 300, 500 miles. Well, who cares?
In fact, if they don't last as long as the virgin materials, then you need to replace them more often and you have to factor that into whether you're doing something that's actually sustainable or not. So is it? This is the durability thing. And by the way, back to the greenwashing thing.
Oh, man, sorry, this is so rambly. But there are so many points about this. I didn't write them down because I didn't want to just look at them linearly. And this thing is still kind of fresh because I was just at this event in Germany very recently.
Frankly, I'm still kind of mad about it. I went around and the companies are saying things like, Hey, the midsole of our product is using 20% of this product called Bloom, which is a kind of a tolerance made out of algae. Congratulations. There's still 80% that's made from the regular other crap that you've all been using.
How much does 20% really matter? So that's again, when you look at the bigger picture, there's the whole sustainable context, but you've got to get into the nuance. You've got to get into the details. The devil is in those things and really look and say, Okay, congratulations.
You're using this, but is it really making a difference? So that brings me to the answer that I gave when they asked about zero shoes and I said, we're not a position where we can use really expensive materials. We're an affordable brand. That's part of our DNA.
We want people to be able to experience the fun and benefits of natural movement. And if we have a $200 running shoe, that's not going to let more people do that. So that's just not what we're making. Then we're also a truly minimalist product.
So we don't have a midsole to where we can replace 20% of the EVA foam with Bloom. We don't have products where we can, oh, well, we don't have materials where we can just replace a fraction of them to make it useful. Frankly, we're just using fewer materials than most shoes. There were some shoes and I saw at this event that had nine layer mid soles.
They had the rubber on the bottom. They had EVA. They had a stability layer. Actually, one of them was brilliant.
They had the stability and no, the protection and flexibility layer. It's like, wait, wait, you have one layer that both creates protection and flexibility. Okay, that violates the laws of physics. But regardless, there were six more layers that they had.
One was for covering pronation. One was for supination. One was for toast. It was amazing.
And they're claiming a sustainable story, even though they had this nine layered sole. It was like a Mexican casserole for a sole. So with zero shoes, we're using fewer materials. We don't have mid soles.
We don't have a bunch of foam that breaks down right away as soon as you start wearing it. We are foam midsole. The rubber that we make, our field true rubber, when we developed it, we said to our rubber manufacturer, here's the characteristics that we want. We went at the last a really long time.
We went to be flexible enough. But sturdy enough. But strong enough. The durable enough.
He says, yeah, that's not how they make rubber for running shoes. Yeah, no shit. That's why we're trying to do it this way. We want to make something that lasts a long time.
That rubber is our shoe. Our original sandals was just rubber with some, and we still sell these with something to hold down on your foot. That is the shoe. That's all you need.
That's what human beings were wearing for thousands and thousands of years. Not necessarily rubber, but something to protect your foot, something to hold it on. That's all you need. So we want to make something that's going to last a long time.
And with fewer materials and fewer parts, if you will, we don't have a line layered sole. The argument could be made that we're using less energy to make our shoes as well. And because again, they last longer, that's a whole other sustainable story. So this is what we're doing now.
We are, I will mention, starting to be able to use some additional materials for certain kinds of products. That are frankly, again, a little more expensive than I would like. So we're able to start using some hemp. We're able to start using some other things that you'll be seeing soon that are important.
But again, you're not going to hear me standing on the top of a mountain screaming, so sustainable because while we're doing what we can, look, we have to be honest, it's making a tiny, tiny dent. I'm not going to try to convince you that we're saving the planet by doing this. Frankly, the way we're trying to save the planet is by making natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice that we natural food is. If we can help people reduce injuries, improve performance, have better health from the feet up, that's going to make a bigger impact than any sustainable story.
And that was what was so exciting about being at this trade show, is that there was us and frankly one other rant that was doing anything close to being able to support the body and doing what it naturally should and could and does do when you let it. And that's what we were most proud of. So anyway, that is my sustainability rant. What I hope that this does is, opens up a conversation.
I hope that what I said actually in Germany was, I hope we can have a more, again, nuanced conversation about what sustainable really means, what the real impact is, and how much is being used for marketing purposes. Because frankly, the only true sustainable story is when no one can use it for marketing because everyone is using it. That's the goal. That's what we all want.
And it's sad that the way it's happening is by catering to wealthy people who make themselves feel better by buying something and make them feel like they're changing the planet when they're really not doing very, very much at all. And I would hope that things trickle down, if you will, as fast as humanly possible so that we can build a whole new foundation where everything is demonstrably and valuably and enjoyably and wonderfully and honestly sustainable. So what do you think? Comment in the various places you can comment.
Drop me an email and move at jointhemovementmovement.com. And let's continue this conversation. Let's start this conversation. Let's end the mythology and the propaganda that people are using to try to sell you things that aren't what they seem to be.
Because that's what the movement movement podcast is all about. So once again, thank you for being here. If you enjoyed this, as I like to say, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, where you can find all the ways that you can do all of those various things. And if you have any questions or any comments or somebody that you think should be in on a conversation that I have on the podcast, drop an email, move at jointhemovementmovement.com.
And until next time, live life, feet first. You've been listening to the movement movement podcast with host Stephen Sashan. Remember to join the tribe and subscribe at jointhemovementmovementmovement.com.