Some people say the whole quote barefoot you thing is busting some people say it's booming some people say it's causing injuries some people say it's curing injuries Whatever, let's we're gonna dive in with someone who has a perspective other than a guy who's in the business who's frankly helped make some of these things happen And that's what's gonna be going 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 first You know those things are in your legs are your foundation of course And you may know we on this podcast breakdown the propaganda the mythology Sometimes the outright lies that people have been telling you about what it takes to walk a runner player do yoga or cross-fitter dance revolution Or whatever does you like to do and to do that enjoy really efficiently and effectively and that I say enjoy really trick question I know I did even though my brain is much today because we've been doing new office because look if you're not having a good time You're not gonna keep it up. So make sure you're doing something you enjoy whatever you're doing on your feet I'm seeing sashan the host of this thing and the cosy unco founder of zero shoes I'm wearing the t-shirt crew it and we call it the movement movement because we're creating a movement that we part involves you And I'll tell you how to second we're getting a movement about natural movement Let your body do what it's made to do and the we part is really simple Just spread the word one way to do that is go over to our website Join the movement movement calm there's nothing you need to do to join there's no secret hand shake There's no song we sing every morning at 6 a.m. There is but not many people know it and it's just that's a place We can find the previous episodes all the ways you can engage with us on social media If you picked up this podcast from somewhere that you can you'd rather find it somewhere else you find all the place You can get the podcast and leave us a review give us a thumbs up at the bell icon on YouTube Give us a five-star rating if you can give us a rating someplace you get the gist if you want to be part of the tribe just subscribe So here we go Adam do me a favor tell people who you are what you do and what you're doing here Thank you very much for having me else even so I'm the creator behind me Which is an ever-growing evolving hopefully useful resource dedicated So you really to helping people discover their shoes minimalist footwear with the mission to remove barriers as possible To people taking that leap from a small conventional footwear Into that more barefoot minimalist ethos because I don't know it's going to speak for a large group of people here Which is often dangerous anyway, you know I guess I'm troubled But I think that most people probably speaking they tend to discover from my experience at least barefoot shoes and Minulus not wearing really three different ways I think the first is that they were the brave souls that embrace the five-finger look with with vibrams back in the day Equally equally repulsed and intrigued by them But they braved it but very sold a second I think is through injury and through the amazing work of people like Katie Bowman and Patricia yourself and others in the industry who Spreading the word education about how natural movement can prevent injuries or third and more my roots which was reading the book Or to run I think I've heard of it I'm gonna look that up hold on you might have come across a couple of times How's that book by Bruce Springsteen that I get that right? Yeah, yeah So between those three things I think that probably accounts for The people who end up in this universe to the best foot and for me It was a combination really was actually a pesky persistent almost pathetic toe injury that was playing me for a long while combined But the reading the ponto runbook after those two things I convinced me to go to deep dive into a personal quest of understanding middle is But where because as a person I quite like some self-imposed Analysis paralysis I like to torture myself just a little bit sometimes and so when I started to jump into the world of barefoot shoes I wanted to see all of the options I wanted to see what was out there and I don't think anyone out there is going to say the barefoot shoes are very low-cost option I think the open is you perceive a criticism of being of being expensive even though I think comparatively speaking I want to jump in on that for the fun of it.
It's complete bullshit. Just for the fun of playing it that idea It's just what I mean not editing mode I'm amazed when people say that because we don't have one shoe That's more expensive than the other things they're wearing and of course I think we've got our 5,000 miles So warranty so the net cost is less our shoes out last whatever other thing you're making or whatever thing you're buying by Whatever percentage is necessary. It's a less expensive option now. They're granted.
There are a number of companies who stuff is more expensive But it's anyway I'm I get irritated as you can tell by things that are just factually inaccurate But your point you're right people to say that but it's literally factually inaccurate And I'm just perplexed and annoyed when that happens and I've do you have any sense of where this is a bit of a tangent to jump off on But do you have any sense of why and what people are looking at that made them come to that conclusion? Yeah, I think it's totally right because that was to their comparatively expensive to the shoes that they purchase If you're buying a very hiking boots to spend over for a good pair of just going to go over a hundred bucks for it That's well within reason so I don't think that there are overpriced in any sense compared to what I get But I think that maybe the mindset is more that I think minimalist shoes are put where I'm marketed as being less of a shoe So the idea I think to someone who is not familiar necessarily with all the concepts and haven't got deep is it getting less? And so by getting less they expect to pay less and I think that maybe that is an aspect to it that some people might approach it from Yeah, that's intriguing a lot to do something like okay So which is gonna cost more the couple extra dollars for a shoe that has fewer materials or the cost of dealing with the injuries that you're getting from wearing I think we're just framing it in a way that is weird But it's actually an interesting point that you brought that up right off that because we'll have to look at that and see how we want to address that In a way that makes people just get out of the mindset of just doing cost comparison because it couldn't be A less valuable pun intended way to consider what we and other people are doing anyway That was a bit of a rant tangent But let me back up a half a bit So when did you read born and run and when and I've been robbed when did you read born and when did you start a minimalist? I started minimalist back in 2020.
So it was right at the beginning of covid. It was perfectly timed with boredom So now I think I read I'd read born to run I think a few months earlier and I was just convinced I was There are some things that you read that just makes so much sense to you as you're processing it The things just go oh okay updates the software your brain just updates to that new modal way of thinking Um, and that was one of those things for me. It was just like oh, that totally makes sense to me Um, let's start the process of figuring it out Um, and like I was saying earlier is that I wanted to go out there and view all the different options available to try and make an informed decision of Which you should I get which one is right for me based on what I want to get from a pair of shoes And there are a lot of really great reasons out there. There are tons of blogs with reviews But there was no at least a lot of that time There was no one place to pull together everything into one place especially as a directory with filters that you could play with to really just get a list of companies or what is specifically waterproof and a boot and Why talk about you know all the features that you might look for So I was taught from a young age to scratch your own itch and that's a good way to approach life And like I said, it was a beginning of covid.
I had some spare time on my hand like we all did I was curious about web development. I thought you know what I'm gonna scratch this itch I'm going to build it. I'm going to make it for myself and maybe other people might find it useful to it And that's how it all started really it was pretty well received more than I thought it was going to be and then it just blossomed from there You came late to the game since this movement started a good 11 years before uh, your introduction to it So I want to parse that a little bit. So what even got you to read born to run?
What got you? How'd you find that even it was a friend I was living with I don't know how he came to the book He was always listening to podcast with Tim Ferriss and He was a guy who wrote the sub-elipid. I can't remember the guys in there I think he just didn't say him a lot. At least I don't think.
Yeah, at least I don't. And I think that he maybe got that book referenced from one of their conversations He read it. He bought a pair of pre-os. I remember when he got them and he was showing me them and I was like, oh, that's cool I didn't think about it anymore.
And then like I mentioned I had a something called turf toe I think they called it in America in English. I think it was more just It was never fully defined for me. What it actually was probably was a problem with like big toe and I could push off it It was strained and I'll be out for a few weeks. So I used to play a lot of soccer Football and yeah, it's pulled me out and nothing could fix it out.
I was probably out for about three years Every time I'd go back it would happen again. And then on his recommendation, I read the book And then I thought, you know what? I'm gonna try it out like I said I'd take the most of where and Since then I've such would never come back to having that that injury prompt and I fully have a lot of sports So that was my journey into it really just a recommendation for a friend And yeah, and that's that is the number one way people seem to find out about what we're all up to as far as I can tell I liked it that at some point The market switched from people who had read born to run to people who had no idea what we were talking about When I bring that out and I keep referring to the book because it's such a great book regardless of the whole minimalist Forward movement, but it is interesting that you decided to scratch that on your own itch and build that whole resource And so I'm curious about that process and mostly what you learned as you were putting that together and The first thought that my mind is who submitted something to you and you went yeah, I can't include that You mean a very random pair of four I'll say this way From day one back in 2000 not late 2009 through the end of 2010 The big shoe companies were saying the whole barefoot thing is bullshit And if you run barefoot, you're gonna step on hypodermic and you're gonna catch Ebola your kids won't get into college You'll forget how to use the number three. You'll grow an extra finger.
It was like ridiculous. The list is the number three What do you forget? That's a weird word and and then by 2010 the end of 2010 there were a handful of companies making shoes They were calling minimalist that were nothing of the sort and in it's similar vein as and we'll talk about the growth or lack thereof from your perspective As things have been evolving. Let's just tease people with that I'm seeing more and more companies making products that they are calling just like the early days that they're calling barefoot or calling Minimalists that are nothing of the sort and there have been a number of times where you know Trying to put together saying organization for promoting minimalist footwear and there are companies and products where they're saying hey We'd love to be part of that and the people in charge are going how do we deal with this?
We want to have everybody involved but that product is not anything close So as you're putting this list together, what do you discover about the nature of quote barefoot shoes? Yeah, I think fundamentally is that when you start the process you have the false idea that a barefoot shoe is Is a fixed thing and it's been very clearly defined in in in the world and then you realize that the word the wording matters that barefoot Shoe is probably considered a type of minimalist footwear And then there's a whole new layer that you start to to learn and then you realize that it's not a category necessary spectrum And then on one side you have something that is barefoot Another side you got something that is maximal is like a hocker one or whatever the thing is and you end up with this spectrum of greenness in between of things and As you go from the barefoot side that spectrum all the way across you start to encounter things that are wide toe box They are flat to zero drop They are basically better than every way but they have that extra thickness on the soul the extra cushioning for whatever reason that they have before whether it's for running on trails Or pavement or just simply more comfort And everything in between so all of a sudden you've got to for someone in my position who is Trying to collate all of these products together and trying to keep this focused on being as barefoot as possible I'm often confronted with one shoe that ticks all the boxes apart from maybe one and I'm like do I include it? Do I not include it? Is this is it not and so it's a tough decision and I've mostly just relied on my gut instinct to make that decision What do you think it's just the idea of a spectrum resonate with you?
No Simply because of the research the research in my reindavis could not be more clear There's stuff that is as close to barefoot as you're gonna get and so there are a number of just not requirements, but there are a number of Oh, come on non-stars. There's another word I'm looking for. I can't think of any way There are a number of features that are basically required. It's got to have a wider foot shaped toe box How wide that's a whole different story because there's some shoes they're coming out there frankly are almost clownish But there's some people who have really wide feet when we were making just start doing yourself sandals and we were custom making Things for people to send us a tracing of their foot we make a sandal for them We got some foot tracings that were practically square I'm just really amazing things that you didn't were not sure that they knew how to use a paint or yeah Or it was some sort of big foot challenge the but the research is very clear that if there's more than the barest amount of cushioning Then it's reducing the amount of feedback that people are getting and engendering movement patterns that are non-ideal The thing the highlight the way I like to think it is it's about form not footwear It's just that footwear can inform the form and so you have enough padding and someone who naturally overstribes and heal strikes because they've been running in regular shoes Where they do that it's just not gonna change because they're not getting the feedback for that I was actually just at a physical therapy event There was a company there called RunDNA I just did an interview with Doug from RunDNA a little while ago And they were doing gate analysis and there's all these people who thought of themselves as good runners They've been in regular shoes every one of them over striding and heel striking And some of them had even switched to something that was again called minimalist and still over striding and heel striking and they didn't know it And so let's just say there's things that and to be candid or candid to be clear There's some shoes on the wall behind me that many people would not call barefoot and I completely agree What is up there behind me is a fully waterproof snow boot So if you're gonna make a snow boot and make something that's insulated and has a heat reflective soil and waterproof lining There's no way to make that as quote barefoot as our most barefoot shoe the speed force Which is just a four and a half millimeter rubber sole and so I like to think that What we are as a company we're doing natural movement first and foremost and then making things as barefoot as we can to be practical But but there are so many things where there is just a bunch of extra padding that it just doesn't do the trick And to your point about the spectrum between barefoot and something super maximalist and you referred the gray area in between That area in between is not gray at all basically everything I know this can sound a little I mean why can't I find words today?
This is gonna sound a little extreme But once we even get past what Irene Davis also partial minimalist shoes and I've accused her of being politically correct And if she weren't she would say think the shoes and she did not disagree at that point Once you get past there Again for lack of a better phrase they all suck and what I mean when I say that and I'll stop ranting about this in a second This is not about me is simply the research again backs up what I'm saying research on Nike's own website Show that in a study comparing their best-selling running shoe to a new shoe they developed about four years ago in 12 weeks 30% of the people in their best-selling shoe got injured And and the new shoe only injured 14 and a half percent the irony There's a couple is the new shoe that did so much better what they did to make it better as they removed many of the protective features Not all of them they made it a little more like us But let's just use that 14 and a half percent. Those are the number of people that got injured 12 weeks and of course injury rates go up over time If we injured 14 and a half percent of our customers within 12 weeks of them getting a pair of shoes We'd be having this conversation with from my jail cell So That's why I say everything that goes past what we're doing is bullshit and more We've also had big company people big companies say oh this natural moving thing is real But if we were doing that we'd be admitting we've been lying for 50 years So if they know it then it's a problem and Anyway, and some of it is just basic physics where is another reason I say that there is no gray area really because there's nothing To the way you had to break it down. Okay, they got a wide toe box. They got this I got that everything I'm checking all the box about this one or two.
It's the same thing in that middle area If you make something wide and you make something flat that's great But that extra cushioning is again the thing getting the wave giving you the feedback you actually need and still engendering potentially engendering bad form I had this flashback just now to when newton running came out and they had these pods under the your metatarsals that were little trampoline pods And they the way they positioned that shoe they said it's designed to encourage a forefoot landing That's a clever idea, but if you went and watched people running in that shoe 99 percent didn't land on their forefoot Never used those little magic trampoline pods so you can quote design something for a reason But what happens in reality? Anyway, so that's my long answer to your simple question No, I understand your perspective totally and I think that when I refer to spectrum I think that 99 percent of that spectrum is garbage isn't end up on I wouldn't even fall into that realm I think what I'm alluding to is that last five ten percent of footwear Which probably includes maybe your snow boot and your most minimalist that the speed force They would both make it in my book as a quote barefoot shoe because they are They cut your coming out with the right ethos you design with the right principles and people from my experience They need footwear for different occasions and you could make a sandal that is the most barefoot possible But that's not gonna suit somebody who needs to go and hike in the snow for six hours And so somebody who is looking for a snow boot You accept that you're not gonna get the most minimalist shoe possible But I'm trying to guide people towards the most The most that we feel that need in the most barefoot inspired or minimalist inspired right fruit That's more the spectrum that I'm referring to I'm gonna pre-create that So what's the even most interesting or surprising thing you've either learned in the last three in almost four years of doing this? Or the most surprising slash interesting kind of feedback you're getting on a regular basis from human beings who encounter and by the way It's minimal list we'll talk about that you are later, but just to be clear So yeah, we'll give you the surprising interesting bits from either just what you've noticed or what you're hearing from people Yeah, I think when we started this conversation you were also the best prize when I said it was from the outside of the There's a lot of innovation happening in the industry the different like I mentioned the types of shoes that are available for different purposes Yeah, they're not coming but hitting the market to me is fascinating But it gives me the impression that the industry is growing you can comment on that I'm sure but for example, I saw that there is a golf shoe There is now a football cleat that you can get there are 3d printed barefoot shoes that are molded to There's a lot of to me. I'm surprised to see such a small part of Of the overall footwear market.
I have such passion behind it and to be able to be able to be at that forefront of innovation and to and deliver these products that people need I found it fascinating especially in the market that it seems to be dominated so much by smaller companies with limited resources who are just Doing it more out of passion than for purely financial gains Because I think probably yourself be aware of the biggest probably to but 90% of the others are small family-run businesses around the world And I'd love to see that It's I agree when some new thing comes out or some additional thing comes out I by and large love it I'm playing this is I don't know this happened a lot lately, but you just haven't earlier on where someone say I was looking for something and I couldn't find But I wanted to talk him up with this and it's a complete rip off of something that we did And I can find them in my database when they ordered my shoes and in fact Here's one that's gonna sound crazy the brand Hey, dude, which got a lot of attention recently We met employee number one who said oh no, we bought all your stuff and you were our inspirations So now I'm okay with that except the fact that they got two and a half billion dollars from when they got acquired by crocs And crocs says to us. I'm not really interested in you guys. Wait a minute. Well, yeah, the innovation part is great It's also one of those things that the flip side is A lot of people come into this I think we all come in to anything new naive But a lot of people are coming in more naive than a no and or willing to admit and Sadly number these companies that come in they go because running a footwear company is really hard the cost especially if you're growing the cost is incredible Managing a mentor is amazingly difficult and there aren't a lot of people who made it past that working out of your living room stage And I hope more do because the more of the merrier we're trying to build awareness or well the more there are the more awareness There is and that's really critical for something like this.
Some people ask me every now and they go what if Nike ripped you off? I went then we won Yeah, we're not here to be the biggest whatever company in the world we're here to change the world with natural movement footwear And so if some big company jumps on board like really jumps on board then we want and we're all going to be part of changing the world Yeah, rising tide raises all ships as I said Yeah, as they say so how how what's the word I'm looking for how in touch with the people who are hitting your website? Are you in other words are they reaching out to you and telling you things they want things they don't want things that they're What's that relationship like for you? It's been really nice actually because ever since I conceived the idea how I spread the word was pretty organic I just posted on a few ready threats and which is I hey I built this thing if you like it use it and then every change that I've made to the Platform ever since inception really has always come from the community has always been feedback from people say hey cool It is you could do this.
Hey, did you know about this company or do you've you seen this footwear or so? It's a consistent Interaction really with me being guided by them and me trying to deliver more useful things for people because not always what I want is what everybody wants And I think that one of the ideas that came through was the golden toll was which was second one was earlier this year Which is for those who don't know is a whimsical award ceremony that tries to shed some light on the On who the community think is a great job in terms of the footwear I think that you've probably been pretty proud of zero performance in there I think you had a ship in the top three of pretty much every category Yeah, thank you for supporting you give to that every year So so those are the it's that kind of community first community led trying to get feedback from the community trying to work that directly into the Comparisons that we do into the reviews that we put together because there's a ton of people out there giving hands-on reviews just of their own opinion But I know that when I'm looking and delving into the forums I'm trying to find what lots of people think about the product was just less of a really one person So I'm trying to collect that and bring that into the website to try and make it more of our community driven platform that the people can rely on Got it. And again back into the previous question away Is there anything out of this just been like flat out surprising to you because from my end there's a lot But again, we're from on the brand side and I've been around for 14 years I'm not surprising. It's okay if I stump you Then from your perspective What do you it's an interesting thing at least in the states people still perceive this whole category as something that is really tiny and nichy And not many people are into it and and by the way, you're gonna get injured if you do this It's a very different thing in Europe.
We have a European office and it's a very different thing So what's the the zeitgeist from your perspective just about the whole concept and how have you seen that evolving in the last few years? Yeah, I think it's growing a lot in Europe in the past few years. I think places like Germany in particular seems to be a lot of activity there I think where I'm from in the UK it's a lot it's a lot less known and I think that fundamentally comes from the fact that the environment really isn't that suitable for What was a barefoot shoe? If we go back to our previous conversation 10 years ago up until very recently it was a pre-oh is great, but it's not it's all too old It's you're not gonna wear that I tried that way use it for many years that turned my pre-uses I think by the time I threw them away, but they were not good open the rain and So that was a big barrier for most people because those shoes they were very lightweight.
They were very permeable They were often sandals. This was where the industry was for a long time But now you can see all the war behind you that you've got boots that are waterproof You started to tackle those terrains and I think that as those gain more traction and more popularity I think it might be young you start to see that trend grow of people turning to them In the UK and more and more. Yeah, and not surprising. That's why we built those is because we started hearing from people going Hey, this is great, but it's pretty much wet every day wherever I am.
What are we gonna do about that? And the challenge again think about the smaller companies They're able to sometimes they're able to come in with a product that solves a problem faster than we are because of just the other financial issues We have to keep the business running and it pains me that the list of things that I would like to do takes time I find that completely unacceptable, but so be it have you done a well I'm gonna ask this question in a weird way. How has your traffic grown in those four years? Do you have that data?
I had that data. Yeah, but the first year it was not much growth at all. It was more just a passion project And then I thought I could never figure out exactly what it was that happened But I think it got shed somewhere and I'm not sure how or what but all of a sudden from then It started to just pick up a lot more traffic and and then because of that He caught my attention and then I was like, oh, maybe I should put a little bit more time into it Developing this and see if I can improve it because at that time it was only a list of brands That was all it was and then I was like, you know what? For me personally, I was low it's to be all footwear And then I asked a few people who'd been in touch I was like, what do you think?
And they were like, I love it to also be that and I was like, all right fine I'm going to do it And that was a great idea because it really helped I think the usefulness of the tool But I also tell you that it was a torturous three months of clicking on a laptop to get the first version with enough footwear in it to make it a feasible tool to filter by The control V and control C on my laptop. I think I think they're lifespan shortens by at least a few years So yeah, over the first year was relatively small and then ever since I started listening to people a lot And they're trying to improve the tool based on their feedback. It's steadily growing here on you Which is giving me the impression along with innovation If I'm doing a little bit better and I'm growing that probably the industry is feeling a little bit more healthy But you alluded to the fact that maybe this was not true, so maybe life perspective No, I was being glib slash provocative for the fun of it If you actually go to Google Trends and if people haven't done this go to Trends T R E N D S dot Google dot com And you can search for any keyword over basically timeframes from 2004 till now in different locations A US worldwide specific countries, etc And right now we're an all-time high in search traffic for barefoot shoes both in the US and Even higher worldwide. I don't think I don't know if they have a pan-European selection But clearly there's something else driving the additional growth worldwide beyond the US because the US is a little above the high from 2009 Europe is way or worldwide way above that high so we're seeing it grow tremendously But at the same time we're still hearing people thinking that this is just a tiny little market for freaky little people who just want to wear these goofy Ass shoes and they don't seem to get despite all of our and my best efforts that no This is not just some tiny little category that is going to be just a few hundred million dollars in the next 10 years And that's the challenge still that we're trying to overcome is people understanding the value of natural movement In such a way that they get that this can transcend The idea of some niche a little product and yeah, we're still working on the problem on that one Yeah, and I think that in the past five years especially the consumption of fitness media and people becoming more Self-aware of their own habits.
Yeah, that whole industry of movement is getting ever stronger year on year And I think that the symptoms of byproduct of that but you go to start looking different parts of your body and you're going to learn different things And I think I'm going to have to be funnel people into better shoes just based on the science of them So that's probably part of what you're seeing I think the thing that I look at that I think is going to be could engender the biggest change is Like you were saying functional fitness if you will But we're dealing with a lot of professional athletes all of a sudden who are starting to understand the value of foot strength and starting to wake up to the idea that What they've been wearing for the last about no so many years has not contributed to having a better foundation And if that starts to catch on there's that top-down thing which on the one hand I think could really make a big difference on the other hand when people see someone who's unlike themselves This is going to sound weird for athletes on the one hand runners will look at some 105 pound Kenyan guy who can run a marathon and just barely over two hours and they're a 300 pound whatever who can barely run 5k and under two hours And they will somehow think oh what he's doing is what I should be doing when it comes to buying shoes The flip side is that same person if the Kenyan runner saying I'm going to run barefoot that same person would go oh that's ridiculous So there's this weird dichotomy weird logical break in the way people perceive this so the professional athletes They might come out and say yeah, I started wearing barefoot shoes and changed my game changed my life And people could either go cool. I got to try that or they're gonna go yeah But you're a professional athlete and so it's just a bizarre form of mental accounting in a way that people will Totally want to just imitate somebody who's nothing like them or think because they're nothing like me It's completely irrelevant and they'll have the same thought within the same breath sometimes and not recognize the the contradiction of it Yeah, that's an interesting economy of people's thoughts that I never appreciated before Yeah, because people would go by like a Jordan's Yeah, Jordan came out and said I'm using these perfect shoes because they help me jump higher But yeah, you're like Jordan Like the simplest thing is just back to the maximal shoes the moment hoke I came out I said there's actually a number of Olympic runners that I was training with and I said they loved them and I said You're not gonna be able to run a couple years They said what do you talk about these things are great? I'm putting in more miles than ever I went right because the cushioning is making it so your feet don't feel the pressure But the force is still going into your body and it's gonna land in your knee or your back most likely your knees with the way you run And they're like you're crazy and tears later. They all became cyclists So it's if you understand the physics of cushioning which very few people do sadly then you recognize the problem with cushioning and so and in short anything that is Absorbing energy there's an inverted bell curve a little upside-down curve about how well that cushioning works And first all cushioning sucks literally sucks energy out of the system But it will be better or worse depending on how fast you're running and how much you weigh and for some people it's less worse But that's just one tiny part of the curve and for people who are running any faster slower usually slower or any lighter heavier usually heavier Then that stuff is really problematic and I've been saying this now for 10 years research is coming out showing exactly that and it's making no difference It's making absolutely no difference So it's a little perplexing to me just the way people perceive these things and to your point previously they put something on I go Hey, that's comfortable Yeah lying down in a going into space where your weightless is really comfortable But you come back and your bones are all brittle and your muscles have atrophy and you can't walk and grab it Yeah, they want something completely off topic just because I said space and gravity This has been really annoying me lately.
I realize there's a problem with Superman Here's here's the problem. There's a number but this is the one that really keeps me up at night So when Superman was on his own planet of Krypton He was a he was a baby. He was gonna be just like any other person on Krypton and he's been back He's will be able to be fine strong whatever human being So why is it when he's on earth and he has subjected to Kryptonite? He doesn't just become a normal person.
He becomes so weak He can't move or do anything. He would just become a normal person, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so what's up with that?
I need to go to Reddit. There's probably uh That's probably a rabbit hole there you could go down for a few hours if you're looking to spend Yeah, I have not thought the google why the superman becomes so weak he can't move when he's subject On that very disturbing and besides how can he can fly if it's about gravity? He should be a really good jumper He shouldn't be able to fly. Yeah, so what's up with that now?
We got two things and then all right wait an extra vision I don't get it Yeah, yeah, why yeah, all right. Yeah, superman has been ruined for me lately and now that's the last That's my bad man is the best one which one? Oh, that was the best one. He's the most relatable Yeah, the relatable billionaire I'm a spider-man guy Because just the intervention just bitten by radio after spider that just makes total sense That everything from there would ensue accordingly and more I was a gymnast so the idea of spider-man just appeals to me And some go like social media Yeah, you know that and this is the other thing actually i'm gonna bring this back to footwear check this out is just this whole idea about Footwear as performance enhancing just cracks me up because people are not Able to identify what in my mind are very simple rules of physics that would suggest why they may or may not actually be Performance enhancing mostly not but if they are why and what do you learn from that?
Like with the maxial shoes. I think the biggest factor in this helpful is a way so little which goes back to Oh gosh again names feel mafetone dr. Phil mafetone who wrote a book called 159 about how someone will break the two minute the two-hour marathon barrier And his suggestion is they'll do it barefoot because those are the lightest shoes you can wear Wow really? And that line is actually not from Phil that line is from Ron Hill who won the 10k in the mexicolympics barefoot and someone said why you're on barefoot He said these are the lightest shoes I could find but Phil's point of the two or two agreement this or two Oh absolutely absolutely the other thing though that might make those shoes Performance or improving performance is their height because if they do weigh so little and they're giving you extra height If it doesn't change your stride frequency It could change your stride length because of the height and so if you're getting an extra inch every time you hit the ground Between one foot and the other then over time that will improve performance.
Oh, yeah, you know assuming again you're the right weight and the right running Throwing up anything else That's fascinating. You know what I'm speaking about you did ask me earlier about saying this surprise me and I think it comes my mind was Speaking about that it was how much more muscly my feet are Yeah, I had no idea that my when I started the process that my feet would change significantly Yeah, and they really do I was really it's my biggest regret My biggest regret was not getting like pictures of my feet and doing any sort of foot strengthening measurement on day one and seeing how that compares to now Yeah, that's a good point I can do this I can do that. Yeah, so what'd you notice about yours other than strong? Why do I think I'm thicker?
I'm just a lot more flexible I just remember I had a wedding that I went to and I has put all my old pair of shoes And I think that everyone who transitioned to the book is about when they have to go back to the old pair of shoes for some reason I'm like god. I was like I used to wear these. Yeah, it's truly mind blowing that you that they were comfortable in my opinion Yeah, yeah, I actually Had to go to court about something and the only pair of black shoes I had were a pair of Nike free that I had made on their website where it's black to the floor And I just walking to and from the the courthouse by the end of two days of that my knees in my back were killing me And so yeah, I used to think these were good and quote barefoot and nothing of the sort So yeah, that's always my favorite version of this surprise Is someone that we know who at the end of ski season bought new boots and had them custom made because they were discounted at the end of the season And then he started wearing her sandals all summer and when I had the time he went to put his boots back on Couldn't fit him and luckily there's a really ski boot fitter in town And so he was able to modify them and make them work, but he was terrified he just blown all that money on something he'd never wear again They're expensive to do cuz I'm still a skier also I'm not given the fact neither given which is ironic since I live in Colorado But given the fact that I'm still a competitive sprinter I don't want to do anything that would possibly mess that up And I also I know who I am when I watch people going down a mountain and they're shishing back and forth It's like where's the fun of that? I just want to go down as fast as I can Of course.
Yeah, and that I know is stupid and dangerous. So I'm trying I'm 61 years old I'm doing the best I can to do fewer things that could kill me Yeah, you're wise man. You're wise man, but I'm a big skier and also a little bit of soap That's a battle every season. That's about every season So to spend six hours on ski boots is it's a tough ask what you're what you're feeling changed Yeah, they are starting to make those boots a little wider There's things that you can do I played with his head and my plate This is my head quite a bit about how you would rethink the whole idea of strapping boards to your feet in a way that's secure But isn't messing up with your feet and I think there's a way of doing it I played with a couple of them, but we haven't we're not gonna head in that direction For the first year of a future.
That's that is a tough road. Oh, yeah, that's a niche with a niche That is niche. He is what possibly get so what is from your perception. What is the future of minimal list?
Minimal list. Yeah, so for us right now Very focused on just trying to make it as more useful to be possible So that's a big focus on providing more or community led to produce more community Parisans we are focusing on how we can make the the golden toe what's even bigger and better next year But constantly adding to the directory improving the filtering making it faster And just trying to add more useful things like sales alerts improving the newsletter stuff like that just so that people can As the simple mission for me is to try to identify as many barriers that people throw up to buying Barefoot shoes or minimalist footwear and trying to just make that a small or as non-existent as possible So whenever you people come in from that I think is easily successful for them So to find what they're looking for and to take a leap just because it really changed how I moved how I Interacted with earth literally and I think it's the only one that I was afraid that one of the people Yeah, the evangelical nature that we all have about this is is alluded to it's really what's driving it And it's not the thing that's so interesting to me about it is it's for real It's not based on beliefs and faith and just something that we want to believe in addition to our own experience The research back set up and we hear from others. I've literally never heard there's a guy that I know actually he he's a doctor for a Small community and when he talks about how they all switched to minimalist footwear He always says it was like three people who didn't work for them And then afterwards he'll say privately it didn't work for them at first But after they saw the benefits everyone else is getting they tried again and now everyone in my community is wearing minimal shoes But if I say we had a hundred percent adoption rate and no problem since then people think I'm lying Yeah, and that and it is it's an obstacle and it's also a bit of a problem because people often do think Because we've all been trained to it to think things like this that all they need to do is put on a pair of barefoot shoes And everything's gonna be instantly fine and it's not like that And I think that's the next thing that we it's been a problem since day one is what killed vibram didn't kill it But it's what made their life very difficult because that's the way people were talking about it back in 2010 It's just put these on everything's gonna be awesome. Especially those shoes not so much so we have to Overcome that in the right way and I don't think it's hard But it gets in the way of the way americans in particular like to shop Which is here's my problem here's the solution done everything's fine And I would say to people if you break your arm and you're in a cast for eight weeks when you get the cast off Do you never use your arm again?
No, so you use metrosized to get it back in shape. Yeah, how does that take? I don't like six months. Cool.
Why wouldn't you spend less than that time to get your feet back in shape? Because they've been in a cast for well more than eight weeks and they're like, oh, so we just try to you know Give people these little ideas these little hints to get them to snap out of this For lack of a term capitalist mentality that there's always a product that is the solution that you don't need to think Yeah, there is no work involved. Yeah People have never had it so good I think in the sense that there are so many resources out there now from little courses that you guys YouTube videos that you guys have done these courses from Katie and Petra I think everyone Just everyone's trying to push that message is that these are not a fix or that you they are a great thing And you still have to rework how you move and especially if you're not in touch with your own body If you're just coming out of it from zero It's gonna take a long time. Yeah, I've never seen it take anyone a long time But when people say how long does it take to like in transition with these?
I don't know There's an old there's an old Sufi joke where a man is walking down the street on his way to Bombay And he's been walking and he doesn't know how much longer it's gonna take and he sees a farmer It says the farmer how long to a bombay and the farmers looks at him and just stops and looks at him Just goes back to farming the guy stands there's no seven. He's former. How long to bombay and the farmer looks at him Stairs at him for a bit goes back to farming. Okay in a huff just walks starts walking away in the farmer yells two hours Guys stuffs what's what's happened?
I asked you twice how far to bombay you gave me nothing then when I leave then you tell me the answer That's so rude and the farmer says I didn't know how fast you walked And it's that same thing Yeah, I don't know how aware you are of what your body is doing and how good you are at adopting new movement patterns How much your brain has changed so it's not feeling anything from your feet any longer all of these are factors But I've literally never met anyone who can't make that transition in a timely manner Is the best thing I can say not necessarily as fast as they imagine but definitely for the value pretty fast I thought he from me it was about three months before I was feeling very comfortable in them But it changed the whole way I moved like I remember the way I was walking Just it sort of spelled so mean to me because I couldn't heal strike anymore I had to land on the middle and I first thought I was walking on my toes as how I felt and any You think that mill point again and what's good and what's not good It was fascinating to go through the whole process. I really enjoyed it Yeah, it was absolutely uncomfortable at times when you're on your feet all day and you're having other muscles working When you're at the end you're tired you've been physically working all day those muscles But I could just be sure I'm working enough time like anything it goes away You're just you can use to it and you come out a bit stronger So I've been thinking a lot lately when people switch out of something where their heel is elevated They go. I'm like falling over backwards No, you're actually standing up straight But because you had your heel elevated you were having to subtly lean back to stand up straight in those shoes So I want you to heal out until your muscles can wake up You're now actually standing up straight, but it feels like you're leaning back It's a very peculiar set of things that happen when we just habituate to stuff that's out of whack And then you get back in whack and go no this feels wrong. I'll just get a day I remember reflecting on the fact that so few people in the world, I think on the world, but at least in the west They probably go through Do you think about the number of hours in the life?
How many hours have they actually felt the texture of the ground? Like to most people the ground is full And but there's another component to that because of that the word barefoot has been tainted for a while like in the last 14 years Because many people they think I don't want to be barefoot. I don't want to feel the ground. I want to be comfortable Oh, you missed it.
And so interestingly, we're running that kind of this fine line between using that term because people are using it and more more And not wanting to communicate that this is problematic for those people who like literally don't take their shoes off when they wake up to the moment They go to bed and there is a way of doing it. It's just it's tricky I like to think that what's happening and this will be my last thought about the industry I want to hear yours I like to think that what's happening is that more and more people are trying this and Over time because you're gonna see it more and more people will go through a phase where first they're resistant But if you're seeing it more, there'll be a point where all the doubters are gonna go I'll give a shot and that's when things are gonna grow exponentially because the experience is so profound And I the thing that I say on a regular basis is I assuming that's gonna happen. I just would like to live long enough to see it I think you'll be surprised I think that as we've already alluded to is that the trends are going in the right direction And I think that does a tipping point I think that the work that you guys are doing the work that people are doing the force of the message being sent out It's getting bigger and stronger. Yeah, and even now when I'm hiking around trails I see people wearing barefoot shoes and it's funny because you have that moment of connection you're like You got you feel you also feel that I'm waiting for the first no marriage that's happened as a result of that way back when on Craigslist They have a section called misconnections, which is things all give you the one from zero is a guy who wrote or made this woman I don't know said I saw you wearing your zero shoes on this bus in this town And I wasn't wearing mine so I was too embarrassed to say hello and the whole idea is that this connection people would actually meet each other And so I'm waiting for the first I bumped into somebody else wearing zero shoes and now we're married That's my favorite story that I'm hoping to have happen That's probably out there maybe something that's like asking right Or just go marry somebody just approved that I was right Yeah, exactly Adam total pleasure.
I'm glad we finally got to connect you just have this industry insider chat from different perspectives If people want to find you, please tell them how to do that Yeah, you can just go to our website if you type in minimal-list.org It's a Google you'll find it. Yeah, it's just a less directory of everything that you might need to get yourself up with money with the bird shoes or it's a continuation It's simple. So thank you. Thank you for this and also just thank you for what you're doing Because again the more people who just are spreading the word in various ways the better for everybody And that's gonna that'll be really helpful for not just people in the industry obviously humans those people so for everybody else Thank you for joining us for this conversation and just a reminder head over to www.jointhemovement.com to find previous episodes The ways you can interact with us on social media other places to find podcasts if you're looking for another place to find a podcast and if you have Any requests or comments or suggestions or complaints or think I have a case of cranial reorientation syndrome Whatever it is you want to share it directly with me you can just drop me an email I'm at move m-o-v-e at join at the movement calm so most importantly though with whatever you're doing just go out Have fun and live life-y first