Health From the Ground Up Workbook

I just posted my new Foot Fitness workbook!  I'm really excited about it.  I know it will help people with their feet.

The focus of my workbook is on the everyday person that wants have healthier feet and shoes.  While my colleagues in fitness and health can also benefit--the workbook is not written in a complex or clinical language.  My final assessment is what people do with their fitness and food when I am NOT in the room.

If the information is easy to understand and practical—more will engage with healthier options on their own which is my goal.

When it comes to health and fitness, I want everyone to play.  I hope the workbook helps people to simply stand, walk, and move through life...with better “health from the ground up.” --Ron Jones

View "Health From the Ground Up: A Practical Guide to Feet, Ankles, & Shoes" by Ron Jones

Barefoot Running Safety & Start Up

After years of working on my own fitness from my feet up, I did my first actual "barefoot" run last week on pavement and concrete.  It did not last long—only 1/4 of a mile which was PLENTY!  I need to share some comments on barefoot running—and running in the VFFs (Vibram Five Fingers) or any other minimalist shoe such as the New Balance Minimus Trail and others out or that will be coming out soon…to keep everyone informed and safe.

I have said for a few years there are many benefits to increasing your "foot fitness" with barefoot walking around the house, barefoot workouts especially with ballistic power activities like kettlebells or martial arts, and just generally increasing the fitness from the ground up.  I have always stopped short of actually recommending "barefoot running" (or running in VFFs) although often report on the developments of this trend regarding injury prevention, shoe design trends, etc.

Please take note—there is a HUGE difference between walking barefoot and actually running barefoot or running with minimalist shoes!  Make no mistake—running barefoot is serious foot fitness!  I've got a friend really into barefoot running.  His recommendation even for me with years of barefoot walking and kettlebell training was to limit my initial barefoot run to just 1/4 of a mile—no more!  While that sounds insignificant, I can tell you it is not.  After only 1/4 of a mile, my feet were sore that evening.

From a safety perspective, there are some serious injuries that can occur if you just go out without a build up process and start running without shoes.  To be honest—the result will not be good.  Actual barefoot running (No VFFs or shoes of any kind) can cause serious burns, abrasions, and other biomechanical issues sometimes in less than ONE MILE.  Bypassing the safety recommendations can likely put you in the hospital or at least in the podiatrist office treating the wounds on your feet.

I've been reading and hearing about some overuse injuries from hitting the pavement unshod without the proper preparation, so again, while I don't actually recommend that people run in bare feet or minimalist shoes, if you do, please limit the exposure and have plenty of practice just walking for MONTHS before you ever actually run.  If you do start running completely barefoot, don't go over 1/4 of a mile to start and never begin on hot pavement!!!  What I do recommend is that people run with a Nike Free shoe or equivalent because this is a "step" in the right direction as these shoes are more flexible.  Even with the Nike Frees, you have to gradually increase your exposure because your feet will be working much harder than with traditional running shoes.  I also like people to walk in the Nike Free shoes because everyone so far that I've had buy these has reported less or no foot pain.  Flexible shoes in general are better for feet.  While there are going to be a few exceptions, I've seen great results when people were more flexible shoes—sometimes the very first day.

If you want to learn about barefoot running from a really knowledgeable source, Michael Sandler, the author of "Barefoot Running" and foot force behind the RunBare.com website, is doing numerous FREE clinics in the SoCal area in June before heading to NorCal in early July.  I will be attending at least one of them—the one at Adventure 16 in West LA or Runnergy in Sherman Oaks.  The clinic links are below:

http://runbare.com/category/events/upcoming 

I'm also launching a new "Foot Fitness" workshop in June.  While not a specific workshop on barefoot running, I will address the topic, barefoot and shoe trends, and make some recommendations.  My workshop will be focused on the general fitness of the foot and ankle regarding Z-Health mobility drills, how to use some valuable therapy tools for correcting plantar fasciitis, and how to determine "foot-friendly" shoes. 

For more on what I've up to in the world of feet, here's my Foot Fitness section:
http://www.ronjones.org/Feet/index.html

Take care of your feet, and when it comes to feet especially, safety first!  If you do want to run with completely bare feet, that's fine and your choice—just understand the potential risk if you are not prepared or exceed your body's capacity for the extra challenges.

In Health, Coach RJ

Adidas Copa Soccer Shoes

 

In my ongoing quest for Foot Fitness, I was chatting with my neighbor Fernando the other week about soccer shoes.  Fernando grew up with soccer so knows a lot about the game, coaching, and other issues related to potential soccer injuries.  I was telling him about how flexible shoes are better for feet which caused him to mention the Adidas Copa Mundial soccer shoes.  He told me when kids have feet problems, they put them into the Adidas Copa shoes, and nearly always the foot pain goes away! Why? Apparently the Adidas Copa is more flexible than many of the newer soccer shoes available--not only the actual soles but also the upper materials since they are made with kangaroo leather. Additionally, the cleats in the Copa are a bit shorter which is better for us in SoCal or Central California where we have much drier climates with harder grass--apparently, the shorter cleat reduces the force into the bottom of foot from what the players report.  The reviews are interesting. People swear by these shoes in terms of comfort and performance--even some Pros.

I thought the Adidas Copa soccer shoes were a good find for overall foot fitness since I have so many clients with kids that play lots of soccer.  If your child is having problems with feet, ankles, and even knees or more up above, you might consider switching to this old school shoe model that has been around unchanged since 1979. If it's been around that long with the same design, it must be worth wearing!

View Amazon link to Adidas Copa soccer shoes with some nice reviews

In Foot Fitness, Coach RJ

Toning Shoes

Our suspicions on the new “toning” shoe craze has been confirmed! A new scientific study with proper design has been published by the American Council on Exercise (ACE). There is no scientific evidence to support that wearing these shoes will enhance your fitness. The concerns with the shoes for the researchers and myself is that they will alter your walking gait making you walk worse—not better.

It’s a great review with nice graphs. Check it out.

Walk well and walk simply. The answer is not in more technology—but less as in correcting the neurological and biomechanical function in your feet and ankles—fancy shoes can never do what the foot can do alone.

Will Toning Shoes Really Give You A Better Body? (ACE)

*At the end of the article, ACE recommends carrying “hand weights” if you want to rev up your walks or wearing one of the new weight vests. I have not recommended hand weights for years because it can greatly alter your gait in a negative way—creating issues with your “back force transmission” as force travels off the ground and up one leg then across the body into the opposing arm and shoulder. Again—just walk—simply. If you can truly walk well, then yes, think about using a vest if you need more load for an upcoming mountain hike or backpacking trip—or just need more metabolic load for weight loss and fitness, but first, just walk! If you load a poor gait or walking problem with “more weight,” the problem will get worse and not better.

In Foot Fitness, Coach RJ

New Balance Minimus Trail Shoes

My hiking friend Susie showed up with some cool new shoes she said her feet loved called New Balance Minimus Trail runners (Also available in road versions, but I'm addressing the trail model only). I went out the very next day to purchase my own pair. Her husband Jim bought some the next day too. Our feet LOVED them on the first step! The shoes cost around $100. They run slightly narrow. Men's come in the charcoal black and neon yellow above plus an orange version. Women's offer a black and baby blue trim model.

The New Balance Minimus "Trail" fits my criteria for foot-friendly shoes. It's a very flexible shoe with minimal heel lift. Less heel lift is important for the "barefoot" mechanics because it allows your foot to function like it does not have a shoe--more "natural" gait pattern. While I love the Nike Free shoes, some of the purist runners are critical of the Free's high heel lift which puts the foot and ankle slightly out of neutral--I get their point, but the Nike Free still works GREAT to eliminate foot pain with my clients, so I will continue recommending them. Alas, now there is another new option with the New Balance Minimus Trail shoes!

The Minimus Trail feels almost just like the Vibram Five Fingers (VFFs) but you won't have to worry about wearing the funky "toe shoes" with the Minimus because the toe box is closed. With the Minimus, many people can get away with wearing them in a work environment where the VFFs might be a bit much for certain corporate cultures at this point. Another advantage of the NB Minimus is that you can wear socks. While wearing socks is possible with the VFFs, you have to buy the special "toe socks" and these are a real pain to put on and get into the VFFs. If you don't wear socks with VFFs, you can get some pretty stinky feet. Problem solved with the New Balance Minimus because while they might not be 100% as foot friendly as going barefoot or wearing VFFs, they are pretty darn close, and when you consider the other advantages of a more socially acceptable appearance, ability to wear regular socks, and ease of putting on and taking off, the New Balance Minimus Trail Runners one of my new favorites and top recommendations for "foot-friendly" shoes. They are also very light. 

While called "trail running" shoes, I'm just wearing my Minimus shoes for casual use. I might try to run in them eventually, but I think these are GREAT shoes for everyday use. If you are having foot pain from wearing shoes that are not good neurologically for your feet and brain, take the New Balance Minimus Trail Shoes for a test drive. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Listen to your feet--they will tell you right away!

What's interesting about this particular shoe is that even with all my other "foot fitness" exercises, footwear, etc., for some reason these shoes seem to have reset my "foot posture."  I have become much more aware of my foot/ankle position even when wearing other shoes.  I think part of the reason was the nice "Foot Tripod" video post by Mike Robertson right before I got my Minimus shoes, but most of the postural reset is because of the shoe design I think...I have four good friends now that have all loved the Minimus from the very first step.  One of my good trainer friends Nikki has had some running issues with her knee.  She got a pair of the Minimus and hit the trail with NO knee pain.  She put on some different boots when she got home and the knee pain returned.  She was amazed as well, and this is a woman very knowledgeable about fitness training and corrective exercises, so I hope this share will help some of you reading that might be having foot issues of your own.

For more info on the NB Minimus and finding "Foot-Friendly" shoes, see below:

• New Balance Minimus Website 
• How to Find Healthy Shoes
• Nike Free Shoe Review by RJ 
• Vibram Five Fingers
• Foot Tripod Video by Mike Robertson

In Foot Fitness! Coach RJ

Foot Tripod

Sometimes it's best to take a "step" back and simplify.  We've been talking about foot fitness for years, but I wanted to pass this really short video by Mike Robertson on the "Foot Tripod."  While I've known about the foot needing to sit flat on the ground with the arch lifted for years, I never thought about the foot as a simple tripod.  I've heard yoga instructors talk about points of contact, but this video really made it all come full circle..

If you've been following along and benefiting from the foot fitness stuff, I think you'll get something out of the video.  Mike is one of the top corrective exercise guys around.  I've been following his podcasts and materials for over a year now and am flying back east to work with him in April at a special workshop.  Great guy.  He keeps it simple-and effective.

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/blog/mastering-tripod-foot/#more-947 

From the ground up-with Tripod!
Coach RJ

Flexible Shoes Prevent Arthritis Study

Yet more on the importance of our feet and the “less is more” trend in shoes my foot fitness friends! Sound familiar? It should by now.

Want less knee pain, less back pain, less everything pain? Fix your feet and ankles. Hmmm…”Ground Forces Math” again…

ScienceDaily (Mar. 25, 2010) — Flip-flops and sneakers with flexible soles are easier on the knees than clogs or even special walking shoes, a study by Rush University Medical Center has found. And that's important, because loading on the knee joints is a key factor in the development of osteoarthritis.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100324113424.htm

In Foot Fitness! Coach RJ

Z-Health Thought of the Day: How to find Healthy Shoes

We've been talking a lot lately about the importance of "foot fitness" and shoes. I'm learning more and more with Z-Health too about how important our feet are neurologically especially when you consider the Ground Forces Math involved with each foot strike.

On these notes, I found a great shoe review section. It's a "bare foot" website, but the point is to find shoes that you can wear that let your feet function more like they are bare foot i.e. less restriction.

The new trend in shoes is "less is more." You will see more and more shoes being built with less support and more flexibility, so the feet can do what they were designed to do in the first place--stabilize. All of our fancy running shoes to correct pronation, supination, poor stabilization basically got this result--more injuries! Want to fix all these problems the right way? Improve the fitness of your feet!!! Even work boots now are being made to flex properly so the feet can do what they need to do. I'll be developing this idea a lot in 2010, but for now, here is the review site and one very simple rule to find a "foot healthy" shoe!

To find a shoe that is foot healthy, simply pick it up, turn it over, and apply these two tests:
1. Break it in half at the arch
2. Twist it diagonally at the arch

Most shoes will only break at the toe box area, but the shoe needs to actually break in the middle section. If the shoe is too stiff to "twist" then the foot cannot function properly.

I bought one pair of Ecko shoes that my feet LOVE. I never understood why until taking the Z-Health training. When I got home, I tested the Eckos, and sure enough, they broke in the middle and twisted! That's why my feet love them--because my feet can function properly! The new Nike Free running shoes also do this well. Converse One Stars will also pass this test along with others--see review site for more specifics.

Here's the review section. Look for more and more major brands coming out with more healthy shoes, but if in doubt, just apply the rules above to any shoe you might want to purchase. True--not all of my shoes will break and flex in the middle, but more and more my feet know the difference and say NO when I put on the shoes that do not meet the criteria above. Think of Ground Forces Math--the better your feet hit the ground, the better you will walk, and the healthier you will be.

http://www.livingbarefoot.info/living-barefoot-alternative-footwear

In Foot Fitness! Coach RJ

Shoe Trends-More on Foot Fitness!

I've been getting more and more inquiries about feet lately. It seems like everywhere I turn, there is something going on with feet these days. My continuing education deals more and more with the fitness of the foot...more they never taught me in school I had to learn on the job in the real world!

As the interest in foot fitness grows, so do product options. Let me summarize my "stance" with feet and shoes based on what I "currently" know (and I'm learning more and more by the day).

• I tend to believe "less is more." I want to think about how the foot moves without any modern technology. Just the old-school foot doing what it is designed to do in its most natural state. How does a bare foot move without shoes? Without a shoe, the foot reacts very differently. It will grip, stabilize, and attempt to claw the ground to stabilize the rest of the body. The foot will get strong doing all this because it's a lot of work! With shoes, the foot has artificial support, and the muscles and tendons tend to get weaker. With running shoes, the more developed the shoe, the less work the foot has to do which means the body works too hard above the foot in ways it does not want to work. Put huge air bags under the foot? The foot is not happy because it really wants "stability" and not soft squishy instability. It's hard to "claw air" or root yourself into the ground if you have soft shoes. Many of our movement problems today can be traced back to our feet--the first things to hit the ground with forward locomotion--our bases of support from which everything else is stacked.
• A few years ago, Nike and other shoes companies started picking up on the trend to go back to barefoot running. The research is out. With more technology in running shoes, injuries got WORSE--not better...and yes, these shoes cost more too! Enter the Nike Free and some other options. Enter the Vibram Five Fingers (VFFs) I've been talking about lately. Also enter other shoes with very different designs claiming to work more muscles like the MBT, etc.
• MBT and Toning Shoes: These shoes are gaining in popularity. They claim to make a person work harder in the calves, hamstrings, glutes, etc. I'm sure they do because the shoe is curved in many of them--or somehow less stable due to design which requires one to work much harder to stand upright and move forward; however, the MBT shoe is curved in the opposite direction of the "natural curve" found in the arch of the foot. I go back to less is more and what the foot looks like naked. Less shoe--more foot fitness. Less shoe--more natural biomechanics. Some of the new toning shoes have very thick soles that radically alter how you walk if barefoot. More emphasis is put upon the "heel-to-toe" stride which is the opposite of how you would walk while barefoot. The trend I've been following with "Chi Running," barefoot walking/running, and shoes like the Nike Free or Vibram Five Fingers is more of the mid-foot strike--not the heal-to-toe strike. The support system (arch) is in the middle of the foot--this is where we should be striking--not exclusively on the heel itself. As shoes got better, we put more load on the heel because we had more padding, but this changed our gait and biomechanics away from a "natural" stride and foot strike; hence, more "running" injuries and more foot/ankle problems.
• I guess we have to go to root cause of movement/gait problems which seems to be pointed more and more at the actual feet. We have lots of problems today with fundamental biomechanics starting with foot/ankle then up to knee, hip, and back. Many of these problems can be traced back to the feet being too weak which then can make the ankles get too stiff as a compensation for lack of foot stability--and the compensations can travel all the way up into the neck and shoulders. Some of the new toning shoes talk a lot about fitness gains "above" the foot, but I have not heard as much about the actual fitness in the foot itself. Go back to root cause. Think FOOT fitness first--then worry about the calves, hamstrings, and glutes later. The feet--they hit the ground first and stabilize everything up the chain of movement. When your feet work well, the rest of your movements up the chain will also be better. If your feet have problems, so will the upper body.
  

For now, this is my direction with foot fitness and shoes. Using "less" shoe or at least shoes with harder soles seem to be making my feet stronger and happier. If the new toning shoes work for you--great! I had a few people tell me personally that the MBTs helped both diabetic feet and plantar fasciitis foot conditions--I have no reason to doubt them. I'm glad they got relief. Keep thinking about the naked foot though and what can be done WITHOUT any shoes or any technology to make you move better.

Here are a couple of related links if interested in above:

• VFFs & Foot Fitness
• Born To Run Book (great research on feet, running injuries, & running shoes!)
• You Walk Wrong (fascinating overview by New York Magazine on evolution of human feet, shoes, & injuries)

Keep it simple. Keep it cost effective...and keep your feet happy and fit.
In Foot Fitness!
Coach RJ