What is the most important part of your body that you need to develop to be able to run walk hike do yoga cross Whatever it is you do and do that enjoyably and healthy is it your abs is your hamstrings is it your glutes? Is it something completely different you're gonna find out on today's episode of the movement movement podcast the podcast for people who want to know The truth about what it takes to have a healthy strong body typically starting feet first and by the way it's not even your feet Because those things are your foundation by the way and we break down the propaganda the mythology sometimes Yeah, right lies You've been told about what it does take to run walk hike yoga crossfit etc etc And to do that enjoyably and effectively and efficiently and then I mentioned enjoyably I know I did because that's the most important thing if you're not having fun Please do something different till you are I'm Stephen session your host for the movement movement podcast and the CEO of zero shoes calm And we call this the movement movement if you're new to us because we're creating a movement about natural movement We want to make natural movement the obvious better healthy choice the way people think the natural food is right now And we need your help to do that so you are part of the movement about natural movement So to be part of the movement go to www dot join the movement movement calm If I'm previous episodes and all the different places you can interact with this podcast and it content on YouTube and Facebook and etc etc And that will well Then you can like and share and give a thumbs up and hit the bell on YouTube All those things that you know how to do to spread the word and to hear about what we're doing next and short If you want to be part of the tribe, please do subscribe So this is a recording I'm gonna put on a second that I was done with my friend Nick from the foot collective the foot collective calm where frankly We've just been chatting and decided to rant a little bit and you're gonna learn about maybe the most important thing that you need to know The most important part of your body you need to develop in order to well Like I said have a healthy happy strong body, so let's dive in shall we welcome to the episode of I don't know what this is But it's gonna be fun. I'm chatting with Steve Sashin today Who is the founder and director at zero shoes? One of the favorite brands that we have at TF2 shop and we want to do this because Steven is always a treat to talk You because you just I love that you just tell it like it is So let's just dive into things that we feel need to be talking about and this phrase tell it like it is has a whole different connotation here in America because people that you know some people like to say tell it like it is and all they mean is that person has No filter right hopefully tell it like it is means that you're telling the truth and I would hope that's what I'm doing because I think That I am and I'm willing to be proven wrong and then change what I'm doing Which is actually one of the things that we're gonna rant about is right people who get it So let's set the context you know how we're chatting we both ranting about something I don't know what perhaps customer behavior, you know something like when people want to get your attention They will tag they will talk about you on Facebook But not tag you and then complain that you didn't respond to their post even though there was no literal way you could find it Oh, that's probably happening right now, but I don't even know about it So you know what?
Joy missing out Yeah, so I like that one. My other favorite one is related to that is someone emails us and they use the wrong email I dress and complain that we don't respond. I love that one too. Oh, yeah, yeah I love getting PayPal disputes where people are like yeah I bought something and it didn't get sent to me and we look and it's like you didn't even enter your correct email So we'll fix for you and pretend like it was our mistake.
No, no, here's my favorite Why did you send the package to my childhood home address? Well funny you should ask it's because for every one of the thousand plus orders we get every day We check every one of them and do a search to find someone's childhood address and randomly select a customer to ship that Practically wrong place. It's like what anyway, so those are customer rants and we have product rants and industry rants as well Yeah, well, I wanted to talk about like okay So I think jump science or jump that people are calling science is something that is coloring many domains of life right now And I would love to to break that down because I think you know even we can even take the sub domain of like natural footwear The question that I get which I find hilarious is where is the science and the research to show that wearing shoes that let your feet move Like feet is better than shoes that don't let your feet move naturally Please show me that research and it's like I don't even know how to respond to this anymore. It's so crazy then.
I'll tell you how I respond I say two things I sit maybe three things thing number one We're not the intervention for the thousands of years of humans have been wearing footwear up until early 70s In fact if you look there was an archaeological dig in Oregon and they found a sandal that looks remarkably like this This is our Genesis sandal. I mean it's a very similar now the soul is not made of Rubber there's another one I can find compression mold rubber It's made out of sage bark, but same like same basic idea So up until the early 70s, you know, this is what we're doing So the intervention is the new quote modern athletic shoe right question there is we're gonna wear the evidence for that and the evidence for that is injuries have not been reduced at all and performance has not been improved because of the shoes during that entire time and there's actually Hundreds of studies demonstrating that letting your feet move naturally is better than not so Sarah Ridge at BYU Show that just walking in a pair of minimalist shoes gives you the same strength benefits or increases in strength that you would get if you didn't actual foot exercise program and On the flip side. There's research. I don't remember who did it and I'm not even sure if it's been published yet I heard about this from Irene Davis at Harvard showing that they took orthotics and put them in the shoes of healthy runners and within 10 weeks They've lost up to 10% of the muscle mass in their feet.
That's not good. And then the third thing I point out So I mean that's not a surprise right if you use a crush and you don't use your leg for a month It's like you're probably gonna have a week like I think most people would be like that makes sense right same idea Oh, you know in a version of that is why is it that people think that feet are somehow horribly designed and they can't support you You go to third world countries and you just don't find podiatrists treating people or things where they don't put them in our support Of any sort well, you know, it's like if you went to the doctor and said my wrist is bothering me and the doctors Oh, we're gonna have to immobilize your neck for the rest of your life to go What do you say? Yeah, I know but we apply different logic to a different body part for some reason and it's like the whole system Abides by the same principles and I remember well when I did a podcast with Golden from Altra He talked about I look up one of his talks on my 2013 to give stats on foot rates of foot problems in shot versus unshot populations And it was so interesting because even the superficial stat with that much description is like stunning It's like 70% of people in shot cultures will develop foot pain at some point three percent of people in unshot cultures Will develop a foot issue at some point and then if you put a little asterisk side that 3% It's like by the way those people like step on a tree root or stuff their toe it hurts for a week And then they're like yeah, my feet are fine the other people are like my feet hurt all the time and It makes the price you're wearing I mean, I've been predominantly barefoot for the last 12 13 years. I can't even do the math anymore and not as math That's called memory, which I don't have anymore.
I've had two two in hard drives out of space, right? Yeah, I got no CPU cycles of despair I've had two injuries in that time same injury twice I stubbed my toe as well as paying attention I'm walking my sister driveway and the garage pad was like three inches high and know that and I slammed into it And then I come to walk with a friend and we're walking on the sidewalk And there was a rock that somehow got moved from being around a tree to the middle of the sidewalk I wasn't paying attention so it's like a little reminder to be like be a bit more mindful. It's like that's literally that's what I get When I stop my toe, I'm like, okay, I gotta pay attention a little bit more or it just happens sometimes Yeah, I go for that one. I don't really care.
It's just it's kind of like party. Let's say that's called the apple that I ate before we got on the call You know, it's sort of like I was hanging out with a bunch of psychiatrists and physical therapists and healers of varying kinds They were all talking about different diets. They were on and there's a pause in the conversation I said I don't I'm on the I don't know when I'm gonna get hit by a bus diet I like that one give us some more details about that I can stuff Yeah, it's pretty much what I'm in the mood to eat and that's about it because I'm not gonna sacrifice something that I enjoy Because I have this imagined scenario You know if I eat a certain way my body will change shape in a particular way and then I'll finally be happy I don't have that one so not saying that I love this thing as I I'll tell you a I tell you a weird personal thing as I roll out of bed every morning I pinch a little bit of you know right around my abdomen air to see what my body fat feels like as if somehow overnight I magically drop five No, I have had times where you know I've gone to the bathroom had to take my belt in a notch But that's a whole different story so but you know, but the whole point is like I mean I'm not someone who over indulges. I don't binge on things it but a good piece of chocolate cake back in the days When I was a die hard vegan a friend of mine said one of my favorite things about you is you're a die hard vegan But if you see a piece of chocolate cake and it's not vegan you will eat that cake Yeah, there's an exception now a little window that's personal to everyone actually out of curiosity What made you want to be a vegan and what made you get out of being a vegan?
So I have a genetic disorder I found out about about 10 years ago I was at the first paleo conference paleo effects and there was all these people talking about paleo This paleo that and of course it was very entertaining because a none of the paleo experts could agree on what paleo was or wasn't and B Out of the ten sort of most famous people in that group five of them were more of a little beast and four of them They just gotten C-reactive protein scorers that were through the roof because they were eating so much meat Great models great. Let's listen to these people for sure Exactly, so there is that dilemma besides you know the more back to your point about the truth the more research that comes out about our paleolithic Ancestors the more we find that what people say what paleo people say those people eight is not true They say they never ate grains and there's actually evidence they tons of grains They said they never ate you know basically sugar they tons of sugar. So anyway, hold on the story But that's doing convenience to talk about Stephen. We've already created the brand paleo people already drinking the juice So let's not talk about that, please.
I said to one of the writers This idea that you have that you each have that there's an ideal diet for all human beings even you can't agree on what that Is it's kind of silly because I said you know I'm a genetic freak and I said well, I'm a sprinter and I'm a Jewish sprinter So not a whole lot of us. Oh, maybe talking to the fastest you in the world. That's a whole story That's the two over world over 55 anyway, but I said this guy you know you guys all talk about eating a lot of meat I've never liked meat since the day I was born I remember vividly like my mom would make pork chops I would chew it up and stuff it in my cheek and then make an excuse to go to the bathroom and spit in the toilet I just you know my dad. I couldn't have been more than seven or eight And my turn was it the texture or the taster just you to win a fan?
Well, I'll get there. So here we go So I gotta tell you this one that one day my dad said you're gonna sit under the table until you finish that whatever piece of It was and I stayed there for three hours until he says go to bed So I said this doctor, you know never like me and he says well do you like coffee? I said no, he's do you like tea? I said if I never drank another cup I wouldn't miss it He's would you like red wine?
I said no and he like goes down this list of foods that I either aggressively don't like or would never miss if I Never had another taste of the game and he's talking you don't taste chocolate was a taller game He says you have a genetic disorder. You don't taste savory flavors So I look it up and I had my genome sequenced and in fact I have a known genetic disorder It's kind of rare where I just don't taste savory flavors the umami flavor and so meat just tastes like Slightly irony slightly metallic mush. Wow, it's very interesting. It's like being colorblind I was at a dinner party someone brought in some you know raised by virgins massaged by nuns blessed by the Dalai Lama And so I like to try things I'm always curious so I try to bite and I said so I said this whole room full of people And I was genuinely clear genuinely curious.
I said so this has a flavor That you actually can taste and enjoy and everyone looked at me like I was crazy And if I was says you made everyone so self-conscious you ruined the meal for them Well now doesn't taste anymore. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't my intention I mean I was genuinely curious as I couldn't taste it So what made me be a vegan was just you know Let's just drop dairy for the fun and see what happens and I didn't notice it didn't miss it and what got me out of being a vegan It's gonna sound crazy. I'm walking by I'm walking along a sidewalk by Whole Foods This is 15 years ago And literally the thought popped in my head I hadn't had in ages and the thought was sushi and I went okay Right, so I went in and got you know a little thing sushi and that was the end of my veganness and so I eat some dairy I have some kind of fishy something Trusy times a week I like it.
Yeah, I love Joel Furman's approach of just being a nutraterian It's like just eat things high nutrients and it turns out if you do that and you eliminate a lot of the like my natural stuff Doesn't really matter what you eat how much you eat of it like you're gonna be okay Takes care of most of it. I was taking a walk with a friend of mine and she said, you know I wish I would just you know Just I'm trying to listen my body to know what I need to eat and I literally fell on the ground laughing So first of all I'm laughing because I used to have thoughts like that And what's so funny is I can answer your question and address the question underneath your question So your question is I know what your body wants to eat ice cream french fries chocolate cake I mean basically as many calories as fast as you can get so that's what we know But you have this idea that you could quote listen to your body I don't know what that means and that if you did it would ask you to eat things that you think would change your body in such a way That you would eventually like it and be happy But that's just silly if you walk around and ask a million people do you like the way this thing looks or functions? You will not find anybody who says yes, everyone's gonna have a thing They don't like a thing that doesn't work the way they want This is just not a concept that we have and you know You're making us all day that you are not you're not the way you should be or that you could be better like literally Surrounding all day long. How could people not feel that?
Well, this is one of my rants is that what especially in the West we have this idea that there's a certain collection of thoughts that we have That are personal and that need to be resolved and most of them are just proof that we're human beings So like that I don't like my body and I should like it Why do you think that you should none of us do mostly because we never developed the skill to look in one of these and determine Whether there was bacteria in it what we developed is the skill of taking a sip and then checking to see how it feels And then knowing if we need to throw up as quickly as possible So, you know, we've developed this hypersensitivity to internal sensations that we now just have no reason to use them And so we just turn it internally forever So there's all these things that are just proof of this is the way human beings work and we take it as a sign of a Personal problem, which is fundamentally wrong, but anyway, this was a tangent from this was a tangent about science and Telling it like it is. Let me get a science one. Here's one of my science rants Okay, I want to do this one Nike has a new shoe new issue called the react infinity run and the way they advertise it You go to a store if anyone remembers what stores are you go to a store and there's a little sign underneath the shelf with issue This is designed to reduce injury, right? Which I know that is so disturbing like how does be room get in trouble to say you wear shoes with less support?
You're gonna get stronger and then I he says these will prevent injury and there it's like doesn't say it doesn't say it doesn't say Well prevent injury it says design to reduce injury who designs shoes to increase injury? All our other shoes are designed to increase them, but these ones aren't right was like Cheerios It says supports heart health that's a meaningless phrase. I mean heart health is meaningless and supports is meaningless in that sentence But here's the kicker the study that he's got any health points. That's a good you're really good I share with people so it's probably not something that's tremendous for you You know, I don't know There's a new super food that I heard about that comes out of the Amazon that the three guys who ate it are 3000 years old and Are you with those facts?
I was those guys if it's true then but they're not advertising on their boxes So they're just you know, that's a difference No, and if you do advertise with them you're exploding tribal populations and that's not good either But so he does this thing they say it's an independent study that they designed and that they paid for and they had a third party perform And in fact the Nike the react infinity run did reduce injuries by 50% compared to the other shoe that they used which was their best-selling Motion at all running show everyone's called unfortunately in a 12 week study and the way they defined injuries was that whatever happens puts you out For at least three running sessions. So really it's like a 10 week study in that first 10 weeks. They're looking at injury rates They're best selling motion control shoe over 30% of people got injured in the new designer or use injury only 14 and a half percent got injured Now on the one hand you would go hit it straight and actually did reduce injury by 50% on the other hand what the way I like to frame it is I'm gonna buy you dinner tonight Which restaurant do you want to go to the one where you're gonna get food poisoning one out of seven meals or one out of three meals? That's basically what they're saying you're going to get injured I mean one out of seven people who wear the shoe is still gonna get injured within the first 10 weeks I know it's crazy.
So that's a manipulation of you're basically just manipulating people with what you're telling them about what you did with No reference to like the actual details nor is the average person interested. They're just like tell me something's good and I want to buy it It's worse. It's worse than not only is the average person not interested the people who reprint this press release in the media They're not interested. They were reprinting this before the actual study was released So Nike put out a press release saying reduces every 50% it gets reprinted basically verbatim No one looked into it I tracked out the guy to the study and said can you show me the study and amazingly he sent it to me before it was even published That's how I found out the numbers which weren't being mentioned at all It's like when Adidas came out with the and for the snobs in the room or Europeans Adidas when how he came out with their They and yes if you want to be a real snob you call it oddie and for people who wonder why it's oddie dasler oddie das Anyway, they took this two pound roughly two pounds deal ball bouncing off the boost foam showed how bouncy it was compared to the other Companies phone which wasn't very bouncy right?
Of course no other company uses this phone ever but more importantly, you know Not important other company some other company, but here's the kicker. You're not a two pounds deal ball What you mean those results aren't gonna accurately carry over to my body? No, that can't be right Stephen I would never say anything like that. I'm just saying you're not a two pounds deal ball And it's one of these things that you know the fact that we don't have good science education and people aren't good at critical thinking Makes people susceptible to admittedly brilliant marketing I mean look here's the best one ever you go to a running shoe store and they'll have a treadmill and they'll put you on that treadmill and Evaluate you in some way and then recommend a shoe two things you got a different shoe stores They're gonna recommend different shoes.
So that's calls it into question to begin with second thing is this whole idea I don't know if Brooks invented it But it's part of their run signature program where they put little dots on your knees to watch you squat a few times Then have you run oh in socks on the treadmill. They won't tell you run barefoot They don't want to give you that you can do that Enough let any notion like being barefoot is good for people no no no no no definitely can't do that so They have you run and then they make some diagnosis about which brook shoe is right for you Well, this is based on an idea that there are different kinds of feet and different kinds of movement that correlate to certain shoes Or supposed to wear well the army who gets a lot of people injured when they're training because they're running these big thick Sticks boots, but they don't think that's why they decided to attest and they took I think was maybe 900 people slim into two groups and one group was divided into three groups actually was divided into three groups split And everyone I think about that and one half the half got the shoes that were recommended for one of those three groups They were in neutral shoe a motion control shoe They're foot type for their foot type and the other group was just given a random shoe the difference in injury rates zero I don't know so this whole idea of what are you doing? I've told the CEO of looks that he knows I'm guessing a lot was done about that because yeah, it's it is marketing And the problem is marketing is being sold at science that that is the core problem Correct. There's another version I mean like I was on this panel discussion the American College of Sports Medicine and both Brooks and Adidas Sorry, I guess they were both there and when they were asked what's the future of footwear they both said the same thing which is In basically individual differences accommodating.
What's unique to you? So Brooks their idea was they were gonna change the outsole and you know Maybe put something a little thicker here a little thicker here depending on how you ran and for audio is changing the midsole to do something similar Well, I use project for doing that has been suspended because I asked the obvious question Where's the proof that this improves in performance or uses injury to which they had no answer? I mean it's currently not going on this project because it was based on a custom made 3d printed midsole and they essentially found that they It's just not tenable I don't know what Brooks is doing But the Brooks practically admitted that they want to give you a different shoe for like everything you could possibly do like one shoe for walking Into the bathroom or aren't you for walking out of the bathroom because you weigh less? I mean, you know just crazy stuff.
I wonder why it looks like they make more money the more shoes They sell you we have people tell us you know We have a 5,000 miles soul warranty on our shoes and we've had business advisors say you need to make shoes to last as long Love your so the three hours under the table that stubborn is clearly has permeated through your whole life Which is probably why you make shoes because it's the it seems like the craziest thing to embark on but when no one else is doing it It's like yeah, I'm just gonna sit on the table for three hours I'm just gonna chew glass and go through the process of making shoes You know, I don't think of myself as stubborn I think of myself as committed to the truth and the truth is I did one Who swallow that shoot up stuff in my cheek and the truth is that you know the benefits that my wife and I discovered when we got out of shoes We're so demonstrable and then people kept asking me to make barefoot style sandals for them And they had the same kind of benefits and then we while we were just in the process of doing that We met some guys who they've been in footwear for like 35 years They all started at rebock actually and then move around it's a very incestuous business And they recently went out on their own and they said you know We believe natural movement's most important thing there is we believe in you guys and what you're doing and we would start this business with you But we've been in footwear so long that we're not stupid enough to try and start a shoe company and And Elena and I said yeah, we know we're hyper optimistic and naive But that's how things get done. So where'd we go exactly the dreamers are the ones who make the change and sometimes you gotta learn as you go But yeah, well, you know, it's the people who don't who have a very bizarre Misunderstanding of risk tolerance Yeah, exactly like for me, you know the worst thing that happens is I go broke All right, you know if I have to go to bahah, California live on the beach I can do that I had a spearfish Yeah, doesn't sound too bad No, I met somebody is homeless one actually Sorry, it was a friend of mine who met this woman on like Venice Beach And she was just sitting there with her shopping cart full of stuff on this one bench and my friend's talking about conversation with her And she said yeah, I just you know say here in front of this house every day and my friend says oh is it to inspire you to get off the street? She goes no that used to be my house. It's to remind me how miserable I was when I lived in it.
Wow, Mike dropped That's that is powerful. It was it's a stunner. I really like that a lot. All right, so science masquerading What's happened in the look look here's science 101 the Vibram lawsuit We have to rescue science by the way because like people are starting to get a really shitty perspective of science But it's not fair because science is this beautiful mindset of constantly trying to prove yourself wrong to figure out the truth And we can't let the word get bastardized by all these people that are messing it up So like how do we rescue science and reclaim its true essence like it's really frustrating.
Oh, I'm sure you and I can do that on our own That's a piece of cake. I think it's a really good question actually and I would I'm gonna talk completely out of my butt and make things up For the next 30 seconds because I don't know but the thing that occurs to me is that we're no longer or we're not I don't know if we ever were educating children on how to think clearly on how to assess information accurately how to look for Counterfactuals how to look this is the thing that I do all the time wait I'm gonna find something to draw on whenever someone tells me something it just has the ring of not true I do this thing now. This is like statistics 101. I didn't know that I just again if you learn to think you start figuring these things out so people say a look at them running upside down They go a leads to be okay.
You're right. I'll draw it. I know they go That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that you know a leads to be now What I then say is how many times does a lead to see?
And which is the opposite of B and how many times is does D maybe lead to B and if D and C are bigger than A A is probably not right It's really simple thing and it's kind of an outcomes razor thing look here I'm gonna step on a bunch of toes right now pun intended. Let's talk about grounding and earthing. Shall we? Oh, I would love to and just as a side note for that my What I always come back to if you want to breast you science is improve public science literacy at a very basic level Like what you just did and only the people who are willing to actually listen are gonna be the ones you give a shit But anyway because there's only ones that matter the people who don't care to want to learn It's you know you almost have to wait until you get more people on your ship before you can then start to invite other people that aren't ready I think you know look kids are naturally curious and what but what they're up against is Evolutionary biology these things inside of our skulls are not wired to think critically They're wired to come to very quick decisions and stick to them because it's not energy efficient to every time you're in the savannah And the grass is doing this to figure out if hiding behind the grass is something that you're gonna eat or something that wants to you You need to make a snap decision and react fast now you can make the wrong decision You can decide that say you know Sabre to lion and it's a saber tooth bunny and you run away and you're passing your jeans on to a bunch of other scared idiots So that's the thing but kids are naturally curious and if you give them the ability to Investigate things many of them are really really into it.
I mean there's a reason why it is not a I'm not trying to get your specific thing But you know boys more than girls are super interested in watching construction projects Yes, I like seeing how things work. Yeah, friend of mine made a bajillion dollars once he has a son and he noticed this He just took a camera out to construction sites and shot like 30 minutes a video and sold those videos made millions genius So yeah, so again We're not wired to do this because the energy efficiency of it And in fact when you create a new belief and someone challenges it the research is very clear You actually use those that contrary information to hold on to your belief even more firmly and when you really challenge somebody on it They react like you're trying to kill them And I think that's a neurological phenomenon where the way we store certain kind of beliefs is very similar to the way we store our Very sense of identity and so they're very tightly tightly wound So you got a decouple those and I learned like I think that's one of the biggest things you see is people take Attacks on their concept. They're not even a tax but like you know trying to get some of a different perspective and challenging the one They hold is like a challenging their entire existence even just asking them questions I mean a friend of mine used to bring people that he knew to a brunch that we had every Sunday just to get them to argue with me about things Like like did we land on the moon? It's like speech.
Yes, you're just there. No. Yes, no No, what I would do I would ask them questions about the arguments they were presenting and they wouldn't be able to answer the questions And I never made one comment about my position. I just went straight up to the crack on Yeah, like when someone talked about the moon landing being fake I said do you know what kind of computers were being used at the time to display information because the I mean in the 60s human beings didn't have computers I remember the first computer that I ever saw was not something that was in fact ironically was playing lunar lander the first little game I've 300 bought modem in junior high school or high school and even that wasn't a good simulation So you know what kind of computer does it take to do a simulation?
That's good enough to fool the hundred thousand people that were involved in that project and did that computer exist at that time? And they you know their brains are struck fry and the answer is no those things didn't exist at this time I mean they were doing this on slide rules figuring out how to get people to moon So anyway, that was the way there was a tangent about teaching people and there's something else there was a solution to thinking back science And then we got into yeah, this is a graphic method of just asking people who get upset when you ask them questions It's very telling and sometimes that is my deep participation in the conversation We're like I just ask you a question you got upset. I don't know if I want to pursue more energy in this Well, here's another variation that and this will be kind of a random line So I've been living and breathing this stuff for you know more than a decade People will challenge me with their opinions about things for which they have little to no information And when I present the data that I've collected over the years not my personal opinions, but actual information They don't handle it very well. So I'm moving my moving this or not somewhere senator.
Yeah, it makes me feel better No, well, so like here two favorites One is someone who didn't like that we weren't a 100 percent of vegan companies and well why don't you use these other non vegan Or these other vegan letters because there aren't any that perform well enough for what we're trying to do And he said what about this pineapple leather and I said without having to look it up I already knew about it. Oh the one that explicitly says it's not for use in footwear And he said what about the mushroom leather at the time? I said oh and again, I knew about it already I said at the time they'd only made one yard of it I said so it doesn't exist and it's super expensive now by the way They're using it for things and it also says not for use for footwear And he says you know what about he mentioned some one or two other things and I knew about them already and responded already because I've Looked into it already until finally his only response me was what makes you such an expert It's your job. Yeah, it's exactly what I said.
It's because I am one of the experts on the planet about this What I do all day every day. So that's my favorite. My other favorite is humans didn't evolve to run on hard surfaces So this is a naturalistic fallacy that there was some Edenic Time where we were all just you know swimming in chocolate rivers and having grapes fed to us by angels trampolines everywhere we go Trampolines and I say well dude have you ever been to the places that you think we evolved in? I mean it's worse than running on any road hard-packed mud just like cement But with quickly sneakly things that are and hot things in a way that you know you've never experienced You go down to the cover Canyon and run with the titerma I mean what they're running on is like what we all ran on for thousands of years And boy you will pick a paved road any day of the week and but the other entity part is even if we didn't quote evolve to run Of those services that doesn't mean we're not able to right we grew up on a different surface That doesn't mean we're not adaptable to other things And I think some people actually make the slippery kind of they lose the distinguish between concrete like maybe we weren't supposed to run We didn't evolve to run on asphalt okay But that doesn't say that we're unable like you're saying but they immediately take that and then they kind of like sneak in hard surfaces as a replacement For that thinking they're synonymous and if you agree that okay asphalt didn't exist without us and years ago I agree with that and we didn't run on that but that doesn't mean we can't run on hard surfaces or that we didn't run on hard surfaces So it's like these little tricks that people don't really I'd even think you notice but they just say and they're like see that's true Well and again it goes back to this whole it goes back to this thing it goes back to counterfactuals It's like okay if you believe we didn't evolve to run on a hard surface Can you look for an opposite case can you look for a case where we did run on surfaces that are hard or difficult or dangerous in some way Right and see if there's examples like here's a fun example back to Paleo There was a there's a woman named Denise and finger and my NGR who my totally door She's brilliant and smart and absolutely wonderful and very funny and she became the bell of the paleo ball She'd been a die-hard raw food vegan and then started having a bunch of health problems And then switched to being like I'm just gonna go kill my own cow and eat it raw practically Yeah, and so she got totally totally into paleo things and the paleo people loved her because she was a former vegan Well, she's also a smart researcher So she decided to research some of the things that the paleo people were saying look for counterfactuals So refined carbohydrates are bad for you Well, let's check and she found some some tribes some parts of the world where people eat like 80% of their calories come from refined carbohydrates and they do not have the health problems that the paleo community was saying that you would get a few Eight refined carbohydrates, right?
There are other people who don't need refined carbohydrates But you know just get the majority of their dietary calorie intake through other forms of carbohydrate including like you know Sugar just plain straight sugar or honey again They don't have the health problems that the paleo community suggested what they do is they don't eat too many calories and they're relatively active So this the whole thing of looking for and I mean like a little reflects what our biology is built for even external to that Like there's so many little things that we do that are so counter to what our biology is built for like we discount all the other things sometimes Well and back to your into your point about what our biology is built for again the idea that there's a one-size-fits-all is something that we all love the idea of And sometimes it's true and I'll say that by the second sometimes it's not so there's this idea that you know There's a diet that's the best diet well Denise You know she also looked at the rice diet the rice diet was something that was done at Duke University Which is where I went and there's a guy who took mortally obese people and put them on a diet of basically Just fruit juice and raw white sugar Not only did they lose and they were eating as much as they could eat all day every day now The challenge with this diet is he literally whipped people into eating because it's so unpalatable to eat like that And he was trying to force them to get calories in their body and they need a way to win a literal physical whip literally That's great. That seems how do you get that one by ethical review board? But once they found out the whole thing disappeared and when I was at Duke I knew people who delivered for dominoes who got paid a thousand dollars a pizza to sneak pieces into some of the people who were on the rice diet Wow, those guys hit the jackpot Yeah, it was a good one. So I was like, I gotta start delivering pizza But anyway, not only did it bring their weight down to normal it eliminated permanently their diabetes And so again a massive counterfactual so the idea that there's a single time for everyone So certain things about our biology are probably unique to us for various reasons our gut microbiome our ancestry You know a number of things but certain things are not unique to us.
What makes efficient running? What's the best way look? What's the best way to get the most foot? Let's just use something simple push-ups What's the best way to orient your body and do push-ups?
You might have some arguments about you know whether you position your elbows and how wide your hands are But there's one thing you're never gonna disagree about do you do this with your fingers or do this with your fingers? There's no one who's ever gonna do a push-up like this because this is more stable similar idea over your feet So there's certain things those biomechanical principles that apply regardless of how special you think you are Yeah, exactly. Moment arms or moment arms doesn't make a difference who you are You know, you might be better or worse at certain things based on your muscle belly and the length of your femur various things But fundamentally it's still gonna be the same that if you land with your foot in front of your body You're applying braking forces which you then which put a dish most stress on the body And then you have to re-accelerate and do that in a place where your prime movers your glutes and hamstrings are not being used often Really an under stress when you're pulling instead of pushing that's problematic Well, what about runner X who runs ultramarathons all the time wears a cushion shoes heel strikes like wire like they do it So it must be okay Yeah, there's a couple things for that one is how long are they able to continue doing that enjoy being healthy and some people maybe they can Because look here's it well, this is another thing about science and even I will argue the minimalist community Misrepresent science very frequent or misrepresent what they think is science very frequently And so they'll show pictures of people landing with their heel first and say see their heels breaking that's bad I go whoa you don't have to ask that person moving across the ground for all, you know They're coming in contact with the ground Well, they're clearly running in this case, but they could be walking but even still the fact that your heel comes in contact with the ground first The more important thing is the force application. So if you're moving fast enough, right?
The rate of loading exactly you're healing touch the ground first by the time You know the split second that it takes to end up sort of flat-footed for example could be so fast that for all practical purposes You're a midfoot lander, right? This doesn't really matter and there are some people who are better able to tolerate certain things than others There's some people who I mean for whatever reason But you can't use the exception to try and prove the rule in this case But you can't use one snapshot to say like do you know anything about that person's injury history? Do you know anything about like have you test what about runners that don't run that way and that run with less injuries? You know like there's so many variables missing and it's really easy to simplify to the point where it proves what you're trying to prove But it doesn't mean that it's actually true right human beings again Another things we want to do is try and simplify things as much as possible And we usually go way too far and oversimplify things right?
So look the whole barefoot thing when people say this is partly what got Vibram in trouble is that they the way the five fingers Was positioned and the way barefoot running was positioned in 2009 was just take your shoes or put on a pair of five fingers And everything's gonna be great. It wasn't true and I'm the first one to say it's not about the footwear It's about the form it just that certain footwear makes it easier or less easy to get enough back to notice your shitty form and to adapt to a better form Right and it's all about the feedback This is why Irene Davis breaks things down to what she calls minimalist and partial minimalist shoes I accuse her of being politically correct and that if she works you would say true minimalist and fake minimalist Right and the fake is put out by pretty much every major shoe company which have which a or typically But they don't have no crap Yeah, exactly. There's a little there's usually they're too narrow in the midfoot They're often not wide enough in the forefoot and they have too much padding and it's the padding because then you can't feel enough to get the information that You need that's the real the biggest problem. It's like even you cannot just swallow this much mercury or we'll give you a little bit less What would you rather it's like I don't want any mercury actually?
I'm good Well the mercury is the dessert they give you that restaurant where it's either one out of seven meals that gives you food boys Right one out three meals. So they have this amazing mercury flambé just man It's the die for Okay, two things and then we'll wrap up and I think we should just I was like, okay, I will do half an hour It is what it is we've already gone 45 minutes So maybe we should just do these once a month and just have a release valve for talking about shit that we don't talk about otherwise maybe Two things number one I had this kind of thought in my head when some of the other days like I found a research study that I think is pretty good That shows orthotics help reduce foot pain and I was like, okay, let's play if someone comes up to you and says Stephen what colors This guy let's just go real time. Let's just pretend this is real Stephen. What color is this guy?
I'm gonna say blue, but only because I'm giving a colloquial correct answer. Okay, perfect Well, what if I tell you I have research to show the sky's black? What would you say about that? I have a thousand pictures I have a lot of data thousand pictures that show that the sky's black so I don't know if the sky's blue and I'd like you prove me Otherwise because I have research do you have research to show the sky's blue?
I don't actually you know in fact Yeah, in fact, there's some work. Well, anyway, no, I don't what I would say is do you have eyeballs? Yes, go outside and see what's the cool colors guys and then we can both let's just go look together And it's like people people forget that you can figure shit out yourself So I just don't have to tell you everything hold on hold on I'm just gonna sound this is gonna sound paradoxical and absurd then it's next time to say I have a friend who's one of the smartest people I know that's not the absurd part here it is Who thinks the earth might be flat now? I have said him exactly what you just said there are from the flat earth model There's there are comments about where the Sun and the Moon should be seen at certain places at certain times of the year The best thing do is go down to like the bottom of South America And then take a look and see what you see I said I will pay you to get on an airplane and go check and see if the Sun is in fact where the flatter's model says it should be when you know It's like the solstice for example, right?
He won't do it. He's won't even he won't do it He was fine. Yeah, he refuses to use his own experience now. Here's the but there's a problem with it you said It's what if you're color blind that could be a problem Well, what if you're color blind and you don't have the ability to perceive the information correctly and we're really not good at Looking at information correctly or accurately So there's certain kinds of things that to measure them or to understand them requires an understanding of Chemistry biology physics usually physics that if you don't have it just doesn't seem to make sense Right.
I mean look let's do a simple thing is there a divine creator being I'm not gonna take a position on this But I will say when you just think about what a human body does how a human body works It is so literally unbelievably complex and amazing That I can understand why people would come to a conclusion that there is a divine creator being yeah Again, I'm not saying there is or there isn't right but it makes sense when you get out at the yeah When you look out at the sky at night, especially if you're somewhere where there's not a lot of ambient light and you see all the stars And you contemplate how far away they are how vast what you can see is knowing that you can't see that all you need is a small telescope to see Ten times more it's so literally awesome and overwhelming that it's that there's this interesting phenomenon I experience of an almost innate urge to find a parental figure that makes it all seem okay Right because it is literally awesome and overwhelming Right and it's comfortable to have an explanation that gives you a rationalization to make sense of things regardless of how actually rational that Exclamation is correct and you know there's certain things where you can get the data really easily But you need to know more stuff to understand what the data is to what the data is really telling you so like with the flat earth guys You know there's some really really easy data that you can show them to prove that the earth is curved But you need to know a couple of other things about like oh gosh You know how light bends when it goes through different surfaces and if you don't want to get into that again There's it goes back to what you're saying before there's a people are distrusting of anyone who knows more than them Mm-hmm didn't used to be that way used to be that you respected people who had spent time to learn more But now there's a distrust of people who seem to know more but they trust Nike Which is weird well and that's the thing over time they do trust whatever someone look say a lie off enough people Believe it's the truth and then believe it's the truth often enough and everyone starts to agree because the person who originally said it Doesn't need to say it anymore it becomes part of the problem Yeah, parents now teach their kids they need our support and motion control Nike doesn't have to say that anymore. They don't you know they now they just say you want to be like this genetic freak who you will never be like Right and no another shoes that person's actually wearing so I spoke about a designer for Jordan brand And he's like the shoe that LeBron's wearing you might get the same when you buy off the shelf That is basically a steel cast put perfectly in an orientation to think that it's helping us play correct very weird Right. Yeah, I have it's really funny LeBron wait No, no Kobe obviously got a video about what he thought a perfect best motion would be first of all was a low top Secondly it looked a lot like our stuff and then what you know what that video is that it would be interrupt It is I'll send you a link and you composed it. Yeah, part part interview because the second part You'll see is really fun.
It's the shoe they made which is not what he asked for So Yeah, it's like there was some researcher went to the iLab and they analyzed his gate and said well, you know You're an over striding heel stretch or so we have to make a shoe for you that has extra cushioning in the heel So if all you have is a hammer everything looks like an ale of course That's they believe that's a fine thing to do that you need to accommodate for despite all the research showing you can't accommodate for it There's no amount of cushioning that accommodates for that and like you said if you're not the light bending part is knowing the intent Complexity of the human body and how adaptable and resilient it is if you don't know that then you need to take some sort of Technology and use that to do that job and that's like they're not willing to see how good the body is itself organizing and adapting to be efficient And that's the problem. Well here. Let's talk about what bodies naturally do. I'm a former all-American gymnast bodies We did not evolve to do double-tracing double backflips Right, but we can't anyone I did it.
Yeah, well, you just proved evolution wrong Here on the proof something else wrong really quickly my best friends became a best friend He's a world champion cross-country master's world champion and one day at practice he finishes a run He goes I just had a personal best on one of these runs and I didn't want to come out this morning Because I just felt like crap I said that you ever have races where you feel like crap and you win he goes Yeah, and by the way, I've asked this talk about the lindians make it the exact same answers you ever races Where we felt like crap and you win? Yes, if you ever had races where you felt great and it just you couldn't make it work He's yeah, I said well, you just prove sports psychology Or you just created different realms for psychology, which is the total opposite sports policy. Well, no, it's well Possibly I've had the same experiences where you know both as an athlete as a performer times that I felt the worst I did the best advice versa, but it's not that there's not a hundred percent correlated that way or call that way But suffice it to say the idea that there's a particular way you need to think because it's thinking that determines who wins It takes its effortless to demonstrate that's not true by just people's actual experience by the actual data I mean people still hold on but the whole 10,000 hour idea that you know You can become an expert to extend thousand hours to come in an expert of things the moment I heard that I knew it was wrong because as a gymnast and as a sprinter there's no gymnast or sprinter in history because ever put in 10,000 hours You just can't Right and the question that immediately occurred to me is or that immediately is the kind of person who's willing and wants to spend 10,000 hours on something is Different than the person who doesn't and you can't force them when to spend 10,000 hours and turn them into fill in the blank You know less Paul Michelangelo Michael Jordan pick your favorite Michael doesn't really matter So anyway, this is all this back to our fundamental thing of if people learn to think more clearly Their lives could be so much better in certain ways, but admittedly not in others I mean finding these comforting thoughts like there is someone looking out for me It's a really comforting thought if you can maintain it in the end it's better Once you learn to see discomfort as not necessarily a bad thing and something that is like kind of an internal signal To be like okay, I have work to do it's what the work never ends and you have to find joy in the work instead of trying to think that everything's rainbows because it ends up Not being the case somebody said to the physicist Richard Feynman You know I'd hate to be you because you just see everything as just like you know atoms and molecules It's all there's no amazement. He says are you kidding?
I can't look at one of these and still take a drink out of it because it's so Unbelievably incredible here. Let's start with a simple thing. These are solid things that you can see through Incredible and it's you don't have to you can drive yourself crazy trying to make sense of it Or you can just embrace that it's like a form of magic and just embrace the fact that you're in a magical world and it's great It is the very fact look I'm just trying the very fact that we can have a conversation with another human being whether it's over a computer or not I mean this is an amazing amazing world even if it didn't have chocolate in it It would be amazing place. I can bring you some good chocolate next time.
I see you because clearly you're a I'm gonna make sure I got Right kind so I'm gonna have to do some research as long as it doesn't have the word milking it you're gonna get you gotta get started Okay, that's good. I can handle that so Steven. Thank you for doing this I look forward to the next one people listening whether you enjoyed it or not Thanks for listening if you got to hear you'll see us again at some point and yeah, have a good week Steven Cheers live life you first. So, yeah, we'll do I hope you enjoyed my little rant with Nick and we'll probably be doing more of those go visit Nick at www dot the foot collective calm and of course come visit us at www dot join the movement movement calm You'll find previous episodes and ways to interact with us as always Please like and share and review and give us a thumbs up as appropriate and follow us in all the various places You can because you know we are creating this movement about natural movement and you are the one who makes it move So until and if you have any questions or suggestions people you think should be on the show whatever you think of try me Email move at join the movement movement calm so until our next episode go out and have fun and live life feet first You