Ben Greenfield Podcast 110

8/8/2019 Ben Greenfield Podcast 110

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Podcast #110 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2010/09/episode-

110-how-do-newton-running-shoes-work/

Introduction: Newton running shoes, quad cramping, running injuries,

sleep quality, exercising on road trips, vitamin B12, caffeine‟s

effect on your adrenals, greens supplements, and sampleaqua jogging workouts.

Ben: Hey folks, Ben Greenfield here with this week‟s podcast

episode number 110. If you did not get a chance to listen to

the brand new Ben Greenfield Fitness Inner Circle podcast

last week, go check that out. I‟ll put a link to it in the

Shownotes. In today‟s podcast we‟ve got an interview with

Danny Abshire from Newton running shoes and he‟ll be

talking about how those running shoes were designed and

also about some things I hadn‟t heard before in terms of what happens when your foot strikes the ground and what

some of the things that you need to think about actually are.

We‟re going to have a few special announcements. We have a

Q and A and then we‟re going to move on to that featured

topic on Newton running shoes with Danny Abshire.

Alright folks, if you have a question, remember you can call

toll free to 8772099439. Email

[email protected] or Skype to pacificfit. And

our first question this week is from Listener Cynthia.

Cynthia asks: After I finish a bike ride, when I sit to take off my shoes, thetops of my quads begin to cramp up. Even if I stretch my quads a little first, this still happens. What could be causingthis, and what can I do to alleviate it?

Ben answers: Well, anytime that your muscles begin to cramp up, that‟s basically… it‟s a type of muscle spasm and it‟s someinvoluntary contractions when your brain sends a signal to your muscle to contract and you‟re not voluntarily

contracting that muscle. It‟s doing it all on its own. A lot of times if you put a muscle in a shortened condition for a longperiod of time, it ends up wanting to essentially stay in thatposition or involuntarily cramp in that position. Now granted,cramps could also be due to lack of hydration or not havingenough electrolytes on board but in your case where it‟shappening consistently, when you get done with a bike rideand you‟re sitting down to take off your shoes, it‟s likely that

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when you‟re talking about the tops of your quads, you‟rereferring more to what are called your hip flexors which endup being in a shortened position when you ride a bike. Now when you are riding, say, a triathlon bike and you‟re bentover in the arrow position and your hip flexors are in

basically a scrunched up kind of low angle, this is somethingthat could easily happen especially if you‟re never standingand stretching during your actual ride. It doesn‟t matter if you stretch before your ride. If you‟re not stretching during your ride, throwing in a few stands up out of the saddle, it‟slikely that this could be causing your cramps. In addition, if your seat is too low, it can put you into a position where yourhip flexors are constantly cramped as you are bent over andit can actually also happen when your seat is too high as well.So a bike fit might be something to look into to make surethat your quads are not actually – or your hip flexors aren‟tactually in a constantly shortened position. What I would doand this is something that I‟ll do for example during atriathlon, is about 5 minutes before I‟m getting to the point where I got to get off my bike, I‟ll start standing frequently and holding a stand and trying to stretch my hip flexorsspecifically while I‟m on the bike. So it‟s likely that you areexperiencing a cramp related to that muscle being in achronically shortened position during your ride and that‟s what I would go after addressing, although I would look intothe hydration and the electrolyte intake but it‟s more likely that shortened hip flexor condition.

Ashley asks: I‟m 29 years old and have been running for 10 years. I haverun one half marathon, and had hopes of running a fullmarathon, but this past spring I was diagnosed with IT bandand runner‟s knee. This derailed my running plan to say theleast. I worked diligently with a PT and strengthened my quads, and glutes. I also started incorporating a lot of stretching and using the foam roller. My ITB and knee aregreat now, my latest issue is Plantar Fasciitis. I have neverhad foot pain before and I am frustrated that my body keepsputting up roadblocks preventing me from running. I am a vegetarian and eat very little dairy, I am diligent about taking

my daily multi-vitamin, Flax Seed oil, vitamin C, vitamin D,Magnesium, Calcium and Zinc. Since the plantar fasciitis hascome up I have been rolling my foot and icing it as well asstretching my foot. Can you suggest anything else I could do?

Ben answers: It‟s always good when people include all of the elements thatI probably would have suggested in the first place such asproper nutritional recovery and strengthening of the butt



muscles, the glute muscles, the quad muscles with the PTand the actual treatment in terms of stretching and icing of that plantar fasciitis. Now, the fact that you have struggled with other injuries in the past related to that kinetic chainthat‟s involved when you‟re running, Ashley, and the fact

that you already have strengthened some of the muscles that would be responsible for stabilizing you suggest to me thatthis may be an issue that we‟ve talked about before on theshow. One of two issues. One possibly being a muscularimbalance. The other possibly being a hip that‟s rotatedessentially in one direction or the other. Basically a sacroiliac joint malrotation. So we had an interview – podcast number97 – I interviewed a guy named Tom Vachet and he wentinto great detail about how your pelvis being out of alignment can affect your knees, your ankles and your hipsand result in these chronic injuries that keep on creeping up.I know myself, I used to have a lot more of those injuries before I went through a series of chiropractic adjustments toget my sacroiliac joint back into place. And typically after arace or a hard training week, I‟ll still see a chiropractic tomake sure that my SI joint is staying in place. So that‟ssomething I would look into. I would also look into muscleimbalances. Specifically whether or not you may havehamstring quad imbalances, whether or not you may have alateral rotation imbalance type adductors, there‟s an entire40 page free report that I put out a couple of weeks ago at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com about muscle imbalances andthat‟s something that I‟d recommend that you read. It‟s

called the Muscle Imbalances Revealed report. I‟ll put a link to that in the Shownotes as well. But specifically when you‟vegot an injury and it seems like you‟re doing everything rightand you keep getting injured, things keep creeping up – it‟slike when you‟re trying to squeeze Play-doh and it comes up between your knuckles and you close your knuckles and itcomes up underneath your thumb… could be the issue witheither muscle imbalances or the sacroiliac joint. So I‟d look at both those factors.

Matt asks: Do you think longer consistent sleep is more important than

the total hours slept?

Ben answers: And Matt goes into great detail about his current sleeppatterns. I‟m not actually going to read that part of hisquestion, but essentially his question is whether or not you just need to do all your sleep during the night or can you getaway with sleeping less and taking basically just naps? Wellfirst let‟s look into sleep and kind of understand deeper rapid

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eye movement and less deeper rapid eye movement sleep.Basically when you‟re looking at a sleep cycle, there are twodifferent stages – REM sleep and non-REM sleep. The non-REM sleep is essentially four different stages where youtransition to sleeping and then you go into light sleeping and

then you go into deep sleeping and then you go into moreintense deep sleeping and as you move through those stages, your brain waves begin to slow. You get more and moregroggy. It becomes more difficult to wake you up. Andusually you‟re looking at a couple of hours to actually getthrough those stages. And then you‟re going to get into yourdeep rapid eye movement sleep and that can occur as little as70 minutes after you fall asleep. Usually it‟s a couple of hours.But the deep rapid eye movement sleep is where you dream, your eyes begin to move rapidly, your breathing becomesshallow. A lot of times your heart rate and your bloodpressure can increase, your arm and your leg muscles tend tonot be able to move. And your body goes through thesedifferent stages of sleep through several patterns, and they‟reactually predictable patterns that you go through as you‟reasleep. So you move back and forth between this deep sleep which is where a lot of restoration and muscle recovery occurs and then these more alert type of sleeping stages. Thisdeep rapid eye movement sleep. And so those form acomplete sleep cycle and technically if you go through aboutfive of those which is 8 hours of sleep, that‟s considered anidea night of sleep. And of course a lot of people don‟t getthat much sleep. They‟ll get 6 hours or 7 hours. I personally

do very well on 7 and a half to 8. Some folks need 9. It really depends but the most damaging effects of sleep deprivationare when you don‟t get enough of time in that deep sleepcycle because like I said, that‟s when you get the repairing of the muscles and the tissues. That‟s where you get stimulationof growth and development. That‟s where your immunesystem becomes boosted, that‟s where your health can bemaintained and to really be energized and refreshed when you wake up, you have to get into that quality deep sleep andamass enough time of that at night. And then the idea behindthe rapid eye movement sleep is that it‟s not just so you can

dream and have fun, but that‟s actually where your brainprocesses a lot of the information that you assimilatedduring the day. It‟s where a lot of your neural connectionsare formed. It strengthens your memory. That‟s where a lotof your neurotransmitters are replenished. Your body produces a lot of serotonin and dopamine that are going to boost your mood when you wake up and so the deeper rapideye movement sleep is just as important as those deep



restorative sleep cycles. Now I know that some people – andthis recently happened, there was a study done at theUniversity of California in San Francisco that showed thatsome people are able to sleep on 6 hours of sleep at night orless because of a gene that they have. But understand that

that gene is very rare. It only appears in about 3% of thepopulation. So for 97% of us, we need more than 6 hours of sleep at night and for most adults, we‟re going to need about7 and a half to 9 hours of sleep a night. Now there is a field of study that looks into something called polyphasic sleeping with the idea being that maybe you don‟t need to get all thissleep in a row during a 7 and a half to 9 hour sleep cycle inorder to experience a lot of the beneficial restorative effectsof sleep. And the idea behind polyphasic sleeping is that youset up sleep cycles and nap cycles to where you‟re getting justenough sleep to enter into your deep sleep phases for enoughtime for your muscles to recover and then getting some rapideye movement sleep at different stages throughout the day.There‟s been some studies done that have suggested that thispolyphasic sleep actually allows just as much enhancementof recovery and performance as getting the deep rapid eyemovement and 8 hour phase or 7 and a half to 9 hour phasesleep cycles. There‟s a few different phases that have beenstudied and a lot of these studies have been done of course inthe armed forces, the US military, by NASA, a little bit in theItalian air force and by the Canadian marine pilots butessentially it‟s scheduling your napping in a specific formatto allow your body to get the optimum levels of sleep in both

deep sleep and rapid eye movement sleep and there‟s a few different types of polyphasic sleep cycles that you can go to.So here‟s what they are. One would be to get right around 6hours of sleep. So for example, sleep from midnight to 6 andthen do one 20 minute nap. For example after lunch. Another sleep pattern that‟s been experimented with is to get just 4 and a half hours of that core sleep… so for examplesleeping midnight to 4:30 and then doing two 20 minutenaps during the day. Another cycle would be three hours of sleep with three 20 minute naps and then one and a half hours of sleep with four or five 20 minute naps. Now

obviously you‟re getting in the realm there where you wouldhave to be planning your naps very regularly to get by on that. And then there‟s one final phase of polyphasic sleep c yclingcalled the “Uberman” where you‟re actually only sleeping atotal of two hours during a 24 hour sleep cycle but you‟redoing that via six 20 minute naps. And even with that, underextreme circumstances you can still maintain alertness andperformance for several days. Now let‟s just say you want to



know if you‟re getting enough sleep and you kind of want tosee if you‟re sleep deprived or not. There are definitely somethings that you‟re going to notice if you‟re sleep deprived. Sofor example if you‟re sleep deprived you‟re going to need analarm clock whenever you wake up in the morning. So you‟re

going to need t be pulled out of sleep rather than naturally waking up out of sleep. You‟re usually going to get drowsy after you have a big meal, when you‟re driving in your car, you‟ll feel the need to nap throughout the day. You‟ll fallasleep especially while you‟re watching TV or relaxing afterdinner in the evening. You might really feel like you have tosleep in on the weekends quite a bit. Sometimes you‟ll fallasleep more quickly after you get into bed if you‟re sleepdeprived like you‟re just out within 5 minutes. You‟ll getsleepy in the afternoon or kind of sluggish. You‟ll get sleepy when you‟re in meetings or lectures or especially in rooms where the temperature is up a little bit and you have a hardtime getting out of bed in the morning. All those things that you would expect to be intuitively signs that you may besleep deprived. But it goes on, sleep deprivation research hasshown it increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease, of other health problems. You have impaired motor skills. Youget weight gain, concentration and memory problems, youget frequent colds and infections because your immunesystem becomes less strong. Fatigue, lethargy, lack of motivation, lack of self control, more of a propensity toovereat or eat substances that you normally wouldn‟t. Sothere are a lot of signs. There‟s actually a fun little test. I‟ll

put a link to this test in the Shownotes, but the BBC websitein their Science and Nature section has a test and it‟s calledthe Sleep Sheep test where you can test your reaction time tosee if possibly you may be sleep deprived. It‟s called theSheep Dash. I‟ll put a link to that in the Shownotes. You canplay around with that and kind of test your own sleepdeprivation. But in terms of the root of your question, what itcomes down to is ideally you should be getting 7 and a half to9 hours of sleep. If you can‟t get that, there‟s still researchthat shows that you can do ok with a shorter core sleep cycleas long as you‟re doing some systematic napping throughout

the rest of the day after that sleep cycle. So good question.

Matt asks: I spend at least 4.5hours everyday in the car. Is thereanything I can do in that time that will help me achieve my fitness goals? I‟ve heard you suggest jumping jacks every hour but that would just prolong my journey time. You didmention the „power breather‟ recently, is there anything elseof a similar nature that could be used while driving?



Ben answers: Well the power breather that I talked about I believe inpodcast number 109 is a device that is a lung resistancedevice and you breathe in and out of it, and it resists yourinspiration and expiration so it can strengthen your lungs when you‟re stuck in a sedentary situation like sitting in your

car or sitting in traffic and you still are kind of sort of exercising. Now if you‟re on a road trip, I actually do really recommend that every hour or two you stop and stretch if you‟re able to and a lot of times if you‟re by yourself that works out better because if you‟re traveling with acompanion, sometimes it can annoy them if you‟re always wanting to stop and do jumping jacks. But research hasshown that doing bouts of physical activity throughout theday can keep your metabolism elevated and cause you tooxidize more fat. So if you‟re able to, for ever y hour that yousit, stop and do 100 jumping jacks. That actually is a great way to kind of keep your fitness and your metabolismelevated as you‟re traveling. Now if you‟re not able to do that,there are the stereotypical type of exercises that you can do.Squeeze your butt, squeeze your chest muscles, do someisometric contractions of your bicep muscles or your calf muscles, meaning that you contract and you hold. Thattypically gets pretty old. I think what you need to realize isthat all it takes is a brief burst of energy, a brief sprint or a brief series of jumping jacks for a minute to actually bumpup your metabolism so you can get in and keep going. So afive hour road trip, that mean five total minutes of actually not moving to get your metabolism boosted every hour.

That‟s almost worth it. So I‟d kind of realize that it doesn‟tmean you have to stop and do a structured exercise session.Something very short and intense can still help to boost yourmetabolism. But there‟s very few structured workouts youcan do in your car without risking the lives of other people in your car, the people on the road. So I‟m not going to suggestthat you get a little bicycle exerciser and put that underneath your feet and put your car in cruise control or anything likethat. The only thing I can think of is that if you really wantedto get funky, you could put an elastic band in your car and dosome internal and external shoulder rotation type of work,

but even that gets a little bit dangerous in my opinion. So youhad a follow-up question. I‟m sorry you didn‟t have a follow up question. That was your follow up question to your sleepquestion.

Kim asks: My friend and I have been discussing the right time to take Vitamin B-12. We are both vegan and take a B-12supplement as well as Chlorella, which has a high amount of



Vitamin B-12. My first question is: Should we be taking thismuch Vitamin B-12?

Ben answers: Kim, the answer to that part of your question is that vitaminB-12 doesn‟t even really have a toxicity limit that‟s named

because it‟s a water soluble vitamin. It will pass through in your urine. There are some side effects that aren‟t necessarily toxicity side effects, but just uncomfortable side effects interms of how much you can actually tolerate and some of thethings that you‟ll get when you‟re really overdosing on vitamin B-12 would be you can get diarrhea, you can swell upa little bit. You can get these allergic reactions like hives or arash or itching. Especially your lips, or your mouth or yourthroat can swell a bit. And you can also get wheezing andalmost like an anaphylactic reaction or difficulty breathing. You‟d have to take a vitamin B-12 to get some of those effects, but it could theoretically happen. Now when you go on to thefollow up part of your question, you say…

Kim asks: Recently, my friend underwent some blood work whichshowed her B-12 to be low. We have read that Vitamin C blocks Vitamin B-12 when taken at the same time, so weavoid taking both vitamins together. However, we were wondering that since most of the food we consume consistsof Vitamin C, is it possible that that is blocking the VitaminB-12 we supplement in our diet?

Ben answers: Well, first of all kudos that you are dieting or you are

including vitamin B-12 supplementation because if you‟re a vegetarian, you do have a risk of a vitamin B-12 deficiency since meat and dairy foods are two of the primary sources of vitamin B-12. Vitamin B-12 is necessary for a multitude of metabolic reactions. When you are taking that vitamin Csupplement, it is true that 500 mgs of vitamin C can tend todecrease your vitamin B-12 absorption. Now, when you look at the vitamin C content of the food that you take in duringthe day though, you need to put that in context. So 500 mgsof vitamin C is going to block B-12 or limit B-12 absorption,an apple has about 8 mgs of vitamin C in it. An avocado has

about 16 mgs of vitamin C. When you‟re looking at some of the cherries or berries, those are usually less than 1 mg of vitamin C in the average sized serving of those. Evensomething that seems very citrusy like lemon juice – is only about 3 mgs of vitamin C in something like that. If you wereto eat a watermelon, that tends to get a little bit higher. It‟sgot about 27 mgs of vitamin C. Strawberries, about 7 mgs. So, you‟re still looking at having to eat a lot of fruit. Almost like



an unhealthy amount of fruit in order to get 500 mgs of vitamin C, enough to actually block your vitamin B-12absorption. If you‟re taking a vitamin C supplement, that issomething that I‟d be careful with. You don‟t necessarily need to take in 500 mgs of vitamin C on a daily basis. And

you really only need about 200 to 300 mgs per day as kind of your average daily intake. Optimum intake, you‟ll get somepeople to claim that it‟s around 500 mgs. I‟m not convincedthat that‟s true unless you‟re doing a lot of muscle tissuedamage and you‟re a heavy exerciser. But as far as the vitamin C I wouldn‟t worry too much about the vitamin Ccontent of your food but I would make sure that you‟re nottaking your vitamin B-12 supplement and your vitamin Csupplement simultaneously if you‟re taking a vitamin Csupplement.

Robert asks: I have been told that caffeine has a huge impact on adrenalglands since those are provoked all the time and are nolonger are able to fulfill their mission, and ongoing highadrenal level in the body, which has negative impacts on the body either way. What‟s your take on that matter, and how far may I go in terms of milligrams of caffeine on daily basis?

Ben answers: When you drink caffeine, it is true that your adrenal glands which sit on top of your kidneys are basically going to bestimulated to produce epinephrine and norepinephrine. Andthose are stress hormones and they can cause you to tense up your muscles, they elevate the blood sugar a little bit, they

increase your pulse, they increase your respiration. Andthose are a lot of the reasons that coffee and tea andcaffeinated soda all actually work. They improve your musclecoordination, your mental clarity, your energy levels. They reduce drowsiness. They stimulate your central nervoussystem, but they do also result in the release of these adrenal based hormones. These adrenalines. This norepinephrineand epinephrine, and yes if you‟re constantly stimulating your adrenal glands, you can get adrenal gland exhaustion which is basically when you begin to become chronically fatigued, your energy levels drop unless you are stimulating

those adrenal glands. They require more and morestimulation in order for you to not feel sleepy anddemotivated throughout the day and that‟s a big issue. Ithink especially with kids nowadays and their consumptionof energy drinks or foods or drinks that contain caffeine, isthe fact that you eventually build up a tolerance to thecaffeine and your adrenal glands become less and less able toactually produce the proper amounts of norepinephrine and



epinephrine on their own. So as far as the actual amount of milligrams of caffeine in an average cup of coffee, you‟relooking at about 100 mgs of caffeine or so. Now there‟s nostudies that have directly investigated adrenal fatigue oradrenal exhaustion from a chronic disease standpoint and

the daily milligrams of caffeine that can be consumed. But in working with my clients, because I have many athletesespecially that I coach who have to de-load from caffeine andthen re-load on the caffeine in order to use caffeine forsomething like a race, like a marathon or a triathlon – wefound that about a cup of coffee is doable to be able to quitcold turkey, not have a lot of the withdrawal effects and beable to come back to without experiencing a high amount of jitteriness or adrenal stimulation or stress. And so, that would mean that if you‟re drinking one cup of coffee, one cupof caffeinated coffee a day like an 8 to 10 ounce cup of coffee, you probably don‟t have much to worry about unless you‟resomebody who has already exhausted their adrenals througha ton of coffee consumption and if you‟re in that boat, youmay need to quit for a while and allow your body to relax fora couple of months. Not get all that adrenal exhaustion goingon and then come back and start back into the coffee once you‟re able to kind of control your adrenals. So a cup of coffee a day, you‟ll be fine. If you‟re doing a lot more than100 mgs of caffeine a day, you could be risking adrenalexhaustion, withdrawal symptoms and a lot of the negativestress producing effects that caffeine can give you.

Lee asks: If you get the chance, would you mind having a look at thissupplement, Vital Greens? I am unable to get some of thesupplements you mention here in Australia and wondered what you get from the ingredients list on the site.

Ben answers: So, I took a look at this Vital Greens that Lee is asking aboutand it‟s basically like any greens supplement – a blend of a bunch of different super foods and they also include someOmega 3 and some Omega 6 fatty acids in there, somedigestive enzymes and some probiotics. Because thatsupplement doesn‟t really have any artificial sweeteners that

I can see, artificial ingredients, artificial colors, it actually looks like a pretty solid choice. A bit on the spendy side. Itlooks like it‟s about 90 bucks for a month‟s supply. But if youcan afford it then it‟s something that would probably be ok totake. There‟s no red flags in it. Now the stuff of course that Irecommend typically is called EnerPrime and that can beshipped to Australia. But it‟s the only one that I‟ll actually vouch for in terms of me having tried multiple types of green



supplements and the only one that I‟ve never gotten sick while I‟m taking in terms of – I‟ve gone for two and three year stints on EnerPrime and never gotten a cold, flu.Nothing. That‟s why I recommend that and that‟s why I‟ll vouch for it and the quality of the ingredients that they use in

this EnerPrime. I‟ll put a link to EnerPrime in the Shownotes,Lee, but this Vital Greens looks ok and again, when you‟reinspecting it like a greens supplement just look for thepresence of artificial sweeteners. Look for the presence of artificial colors and added preservatives and then if you‟reable to try and find out if it‟s a Certified Good ManufacturingPractices facility or if it‟s WADA certified. I wasn‟t able toascertain that information for Vital Greens. I can tell you theingredient list looks ok. It‟s a bit spendy compared to the $40a month for the EnerPrime but it definitely doesn‟t raise any red flags for me. So the last thing I‟d leave you with is if you‟re taking any medications or prescriptions make surethat you‟ve cleared the consumption of this with your doc.

Jeff asks: I‟m taking up aqua jogging to overcome plantar fasciitis. I‟ma runner and begin marathon training in late November. I want to knock out this demon for good and stay off the roadsuntil I do. I‟ll be in the pool with a free range of motion (thatis, not touching the pool bottom). Can you recommend someaqua jogging workouts?

Ben answers: Yeah absolutely. A couple of my favorite aqua jogging workouts – one is you get in and you put on this aqua jogging

belt and hopefully an underwater mp3 player so you don‟tget too bored and you jog back and forth in the pool and once you‟re warmed up for about 5 to 10 minutes, you do a seriesof sprints from one end of the pool to the next and thesesprints only need to last about 15 to 20 seconds for you toreach complete exhaustion and then you do a full recovery between each sprint. In an aqua jogging session, I‟ll usually shoot for anywhere from 10 to 20 of these sprints. Another of m y favorite workouts that I‟ll do for aqua jogging is I‟ll dodrills so I‟ll run down with a normal high cadence joggingpattern and then I‟ll go back doing heel to butt kicks and

then I‟ll run down again and I‟ll come back doing high knees,and then I‟ll run down again and come back doing a straightleg kind of Frankenstein walk. And then I‟ll run down againand come back doing more of a bicycling full range of motion,kind of exaggerated motion cadence. So, you can do longerintervals… 5 to 10 minute tempo intervals at a 2:1 work torest ratio. You can do shorter sprints like I mentioned earlieror you can do just one long aerobic aqua jogging session



where you‟re just jogging from anywhere from 60 to 90minutes if you really need to replicate a long run. The otherthing that I‟ll do occasionally with aqua jogging is I‟ll combine it with swimming so for example, I‟ll swim 500meters and then do five 25 meter aqua jog sprints and then

go back to swimming. That‟s actually great cross training fortriathlon if you don‟t want to get out of the pool and get on your bike and you just want to do your swim bike repeatsright there in the pool, that actually works pretty well. I talk in detail about aqua jogging and how you can use it to reduceinjury risk along with a ton of other cross training modes tohelp you train through a marathon and still not have to worry about not being able to train when you have injuries inthe program at www.marathondominator.com. One of thelong audio interviews included in there is reducing the risk of injuries and also training through injuries and maintainingfitness through injuries. So that‟s at www.marathondominator.com.

Now, next we have an interview with Newton running shoesinventor Danny Abshire. So we‟re going to have a messageand then move on to that interview.

Folks, you may be familiar with the running shoe called theNewton running shoe and the Newton shoes were conceivedand designed by a guy named Danny Abshire who is a runnerand a designer of custom orthotics and Danny actually started working with elite athletes and wanted to create a

shoe that would help runners of all levels get back to theirnatural running technique. He‟s been a running coach anddirector of Biomechanics Injury Prevention for Multi-Sportssince 1993 and he is a consultant in orthotics and somethingcalled pedorthic training. Danny is a runner himself and his wife manages the Newton running lab. And today we‟regoing to learn a little bit more about what goes into shoedesign and where the idea for the Newtons actually began. SoDanny, thanks for coming on the call.

Danny Abshire: Thank you Ben.

Ben: Where did the idea for Newtons actually start?

Danny Abshire: Well, kind of way back. It‟s not been any kind of overnightsensation that‟s for sure. We‟ve been working on it for about15 years. We filed for our first patent back in 1996. It wasactually conceived by a fellow runner of mine and friend of mine who had an idea of being able to capture and store

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energy that‟s normally lost in the shoe in a membrane that works like muscle and tendon. He had the idea and we worked on that and as time evolved, he kind of stepped outand did some other projects, I ended up having to try to see if we could manufacture the shoe because all of our hand built

prototypes were working really great with a lot of greatrunners that were coming into our store here in Boulder,Colorado and everybody loved the way it felt and theresponse and being more neutral to the ground. But thatprocess took quite a while. Evolution of testing over so many years and then finally once we decided to do it on our own, we tried to see if other major brands might like to license thetechnology because we didn‟t really know how to build shoes. We had a concept that was working well and we had patentson it but the issue was trying to manufacture it so I spentabout four years figuring out how we could manufacture theshoes.

Ben: Interesting. So in terms of the biomechanics of the Newtons, what was the general concept behind the design that you putinto the shoe?

Danny Abshire: Well, first of all instead of studying animals or the way humans move with high heeled shoes on or currenttechnology shoes on, we studied more how humans run without footwear and without the influence of footwear. Of course you know the Dr. Lieberman study out of Harvardand many studies since then have shown that we run quite

differently if we have no influence on our feet. Because basically we have to deal with gravity and it‟s all aboutstanding – even the standing position being level withgravity and how our feet are level and how we can have highsensory input and it‟s all about the balance. Being a two-legged human. And once we put something, let‟s just say even if I put something under your forefoot, let‟s say I put a ballet slipper on you, you‟re going to walk around on yourtoes. So the influence underneath your foot, the body has torebalance to anything underneath the foot. So one of the very first things is getting back to a level piece of footwear which

is very healthy for the whole body. The ankle, knee, hips,spine. Even up to the neck. So that‟s the way we wereintended to move around. And so by understanding thatfirst… and the secondary thing that really is super importantis we have over 200,000 nerve endings in our feet. If we havea medium such as foam that really masks that down, it gives you good shock absorbency and it‟s soft to run on concrete but what it does is it masks down all these senses in the feet



that you‟ll find a lot of people now hitting the ground very loudly and pushing off very hard after that initial impact. Soif you can‟t sense the ground then you‟ll hit the groundharder trying to sense the ground. But if you can sense theground you‟ll touch the ground lighter and self -regulate your

impact so those were the two biggest things that we werestudying, is a more level piece of footwear and a technology that could allow you to run on concrete and asphalt but without the harsh impact that could also allow you to sensethe ground and self-regulate your impact. So then the shoesalso segmented into the sections of the feet and it flexes andleverages in the right places as your foot does. So those otherconcepts of simply even not restricting your natural footmovement, that was also a big part of it as well.

Ben: Interesting. Your response kind of brought up two questionsfor me. The first is you mentioned the phrase “the way we were designed to run or the way we were meant to run.” What kind of studies or research sort of clued you in to thefact that maybe a traditionally running shoe doesn‟t allow someone to run the way that they human body is designed torun or how was the human body designed to run, that younoticed that something was holding it back?

Danny Abshire: Well, my wife and I… I‟d been living up in Aspen as a skiinstructor and as a professional boot fitter making ski bootinserts. What we found is ski boots are very level and firm,right? And you have to have your foot on a level plane inside

those boots to have performance so it all started there withthinking about, okay when we‟re skiing we need to becentered with gravity here because we‟re on a slippery slope.So we started working with foot beds to level off people‟s biomechanics because everybody has a different mechanic intheir feet and sometimes one foot is way different than theother foot. So number one, starting to be balanced is superkey and we stand on our feet so we have to have balance inour feet if there‟s an imbalance. Then being in an athleticposition, you look at every other type of sport – a lot of people saw the World Cup not too long ago and soccer cleats

are not altered. They‟re flat. They‟re level and they havecleats for traction so you can run backwards, you can runsideways, you can turn on a dime, you can sprint, you can jog. When you‟re centered with gravity you can do anything, butif your body is out of balance and it influences you to dosomething different, you‟re going to do that and get actually pretty good at it. So one phrase that I‟ve coined as well ispeople have become efficient at running inefficiently so it is



all about being efficient. Now the early research was justcoming off of basic common sense. Jennifer and I saw thousands of people, thousands of runners and triathletesand just everyday folks and it all came back to even if you‟re just standing around all day in high heel shoes, your hips are

tipped, you‟re putting more – instead of a 50-50 split between the ball of the foot and the hell, you‟re putting more,80% or 70% of the weight on your heal then your hips haveto tilt forward to accommodate that and then your upper body has to re-position over your highest point which is yourheel. So the whole body gets contorted. We didn‟t… there wasno research back then about it except for what we were viewing as postural changes from an influence of a wedgeunderneath your heel. Now we‟re not blaming the shoecompanies for anything. My thought is they thought, wow those poor runners. They‟re out there running on concreteand asphalt. We‟d better try and figure a way to cushionthem. So if we build up the heel more and put sometechnology in there then they could land on the heel and thenroll through their step, but what they didn‟t realize is theconsequence of altering the body position and imposing a braking force when we‟re trying to move in a forwarddirection. If I put my foot out in front of my body, I‟m breaking my momentum. So then it comes back to physicsand gravity again and then the ankles are a loose adaptor soif I put it in front of my body it‟s going to pronate andsupinate and I‟m breaking as well, shocking my knee, hipsand back. Now I waste time getting over my center of mass,

thus when I‟ve wasted time and I‟m trying to mo ve forward, Inow have to push off with a great amount of power. So theinjuries that we receive 20 something years ago were fromthat braking moment when the foot is a loose adaptor andit‟s shocking the system because we‟re trying to moveforward and the other set of injuries were pushing off toohard. The hamstring, calf, Achilles and implanter fascia. Soit‟s a constant stop and start which you impose in a heelstrike. Now even if you have a really, really trained runnerand they‟re trying to run parallel to the ground orunderneath their body mass, because the heel protrudes

from the shoe, even if my foot is parallel and the heel isprotruding from the shoe it will double my impact, both onmy heel and forefoot. So, I really studied… it just basically showed that there was some need to get the heel out of the way and that‟s definitely not the only thing. There‟s aboutseven or eight other things that the Newton does that works with the body. But number one is getting more on a levelplatform and I think a lot of other shoe companies are trying



to rush to do that. But if you do that with just foam or just aharder medium, then again, we‟re talking about concrete andasphalt – manmade surfaces that are very hard.

Ben: In your explanation of the shoe, you also mentioned the

ability to sense the ground. Are you saying that we sense theground a little bit better because the front of our foot isstriking the ground earlier?

Danny Abshire: Yeah. You know, again when you have a walking gait – because I have an upcoming book in November. It‟s calledNatural Running, Unnatural World. When you walk… let me just quickly explain the walking gait. Walking gait is heelstrike, mid-stance and toe off, and at that walking speed, it‟s very, very safe. Because we‟re levering from the hip. Andthen we‟re rolling and centering the mass and we‟re adaptingto the surface. And that‟s what we‟re set up to do. Then if wego all the way on the far end, sprinting is way up on theforefoot and toes. Very forward. And we can only hold thatposition f or 100 meters or so and then we‟re completely exhausted. It‟s a flight mechanism. Then people go, thenDanny what‟s long distance running? Well it‟s sure not walking. And it‟s not sprinting. It‟s right in the middle. It‟smid-stance. So you‟ve heard coaches like myself and Danny Dreyer and Evolution Running, Kim Merkel and Joe Frialand coaches all over the world, even Nicholas Romanoff andMalcolm Bok, Master the Art of Running Book – all coachesfrom around the world saw the same thing I was seeing many,

many years ago. That people were running with a really abnormal gait. And the basic thing that we started to try totell them is to shorten your stride and get under your landingmass. And stop the braking moment and stop pushing somuch. So it was very much a thought of how we were seeingthat shoes were causing people to alter the way they truly run.Now the cool thing is if you just take your shoes off and yourun down the concrete barefoot you‟re going to sense with your forefoot – you‟re going to sense with your forefoot – again, the highest concentration of sensors are in yourforefoot, not your heel. Think about when you walk up and

down steps, you don‟t put your heel down first. You put yourforefoot down because that‟s the balance of the body andthat‟s a high sensory input so you can tell if the step is madeout of slippery concrete. Even through your shoes, you canfeel that. So the high sensory input is in your forefoot. That was our biggest study. It‟s called Afferent Feedback. Afferentfeedback is the feedback that your sensors in your forefootget from the ground that tells you (audio cut). Those sensors



now, if they‟re masked too much, then you don‟t have any input. That‟s why people hit the ground really hard now because they‟re landing on the heel which is a low sensory area and it‟s very cushioned with the shoes and then we rollthrough and push off. So we‟re bypassing two things. Being

neutral with gravity for starters and then this enormously high sensory input from the forefoot. You know, even at thatif you‟re standing barefoot and you lean backwards and try torun backwards, well you‟ll run on your forefoot becausethat‟s where you‟re going to balance. And then if you leanforward, just sort of like you‟re on a Segway without theSegway, if you lean back you‟ll sense and balance with yourforefoot. You don‟t run on your heel and then as you leanforward, same thing. You get up on your forefoot very lightly and this is not on your toes. Your foot will come downparallel to the ground after you initially touch your forefoot. You lean forward, then you‟re leaning forward and then you‟ll be on your midfoot, forefoot and you‟ll sense theground and touch lightly again. So, our whole body is set up just to regulate and deal with gravity and this sensory inputhas to be there to then say, ok, what‟s underneath me? Is itrough? Is it unstable, is it smooth? Is it wet? Dry? This is justpart of the way the body works.

Ben: Now, is this type of shoe designed for any distance or forspecific distances for runners?

Danny Abshire: Well, the way we launched the company, I had built custom

orthotics for over 13 Ironman world champions dating back to 1988 with Scott Molina and then the current Ironmanchampion Craig Alexander. So they come to us. ActiveImprints is our company name that Jennifer and I developedin 1988. They come to us for advice about micro balancingtheir feet, whether it‟s in their cycling shoe and their runningshoe because they put in so many miles and at the super elitelevel. Any kind of rotational force that is coming out of yourforefoot, it‟s lost energy on the bike and it could cause tosend you into a little knee strain or IT band strain if you havea rotational force coming out of your forefoot repeatedly.

And there are so many things that could be unstable in yourforefoot. So, with all of these folks coming to us, we figured well as a company we did shop it around. We said to many major brands, do you want to look at this technology andthey go well it‟s based in the forefoot. The technology seemssound, it‟s certainly a great absorber of impact and you dolook like you can retrieve more or lose less energy or retrievemore energy from the initial impact, but they basically said



to us, people don‟t run on their forefoot. We were like, of course they do. You just had 30 to 40 years of people saying we‟re going to build heel striking shoes and you geteverybody believing that that‟s the right thing to do. So, once we got shut down by several brands we said well I guess we‟ll

have to make the shoes and we have to have a target marking.So our first shoe that came out were what we call racingshoes which, we‟ve had a US record set in 50 kms, that‟s 31miles. Josh Cox set that a year ago or so in our shoes and of course we had two time Ironman champion Craig Alexanderrunning the full Ironman distance, the marathon after theswim and bike. So they are long distance shoes but we alsohave people that will run 800 meters in the shoes. And we dostudies at MIT where athletes will just have a steady stateheart rate. They‟ll hold the same heart rate with their favoriteshoes and the Newtons and they‟ll run the same distance in acontrolled atmosphere in the indoor track and they‟ll runanywhere from a half mile to a mile repeats and this report will be coming out sometime this fall that everybody will runfaster in our shoes, and the reason being… over mostdistances or any distance, because you‟ll be more neutral orefficient. That‟s the thing. There‟s less breaking forces andour shoes less energy the way the technology is set up. So ourshoes are for all distances. We don‟t have a track shoe yet. Ora cross country shoe type, but yeah you could run anywherefrom 800 meters to 100 miles in our shoes. We‟ve hadseveral people… Ian Adamson just finished the Badw ater 135mile race using our shoes. So yes, they are long distance

shoes and I think being only three years in the market,there‟s a lot of misconception about what the shoes are andare they durable and can you run far or can you run fast? Yes.To all of those questions. It‟s a shoe that once you learn how to get centered and run more efficiently like you were set upto do, you can run any distance in them.

Ben: One of the most common questions and comments that I seeabout Newtons is that people are worried about injuringtheir foot because of a completely different shoe that they‟verun on for the past five years or 10 years or they think that

the bones toward the front of the foot might be too weak forthis type of shoe. Now is there an explanation of injury risk or precautions that people should take when it comes tousing something like the Newtons?

Danny Abshire: Like everything, even if you wanted to go run in Vibram or if you wanted to start running barefoot on the concrete, youhave the same risk. The problem is no other company has



been bold enough to say this is actually how we do it. This isactually how the body is set up. We‟re the first company tokind of teach you how to re-learn how to run. Now you canexperience yourself, all you have to do is go to a track or anice smooth running surface, a nice smooth grass surface

and just go out. Take your shoes off and see that you senseevery blade of grass underneath your foot. You will, if youclose your eyes, you‟ll sense every blade of grass under yourfoot. That‟s the high sensory input. Number two, you‟restanding neutral with gravity. Okay? The problem is mostpeople, they‟ve blocked all that out of their mind. The way they‟re running right now, they‟ve got efficient at runninginefficiently. They got efficient at using the heel strike to hitthe ground and using the sprinting gait to leave the groundso there‟s immense impact and immense muscle powerusage so what happens when they think they‟re going to try something different, is they try to run with the same form.They try to run with the same form. And if not, they‟ll go tothe forefoot and land with a tremendous impact and push off as if they‟re sprinting again. So there‟s an adaptation periodto anything you want to do. If you want to adapt to anything,it‟s the same thing as going to the gym. If you want to go tothe gym and say alright, today I haven‟t lifted weights in a year and I‟m going to start lifting weights today. Well you‟renot adapted for that and you‟re sore as soon as you get out. You could probably strain something really bad. Because youthink in your mind, “Wow, way back in high school I could bench press 130 lbs.” Get 130 lbs on there and start bench

pressing. “Yeah, I‟m struggling, I‟m struggling. But I‟m doingit.” Yeah, the next day, next week you‟re really hurting so the body has to adapt. It has to take time. And you have to relaxand not use so much power. Right now, everybody‟s using allthis super power to run and they don‟t even realize it. Theircalf muscles are extremely overworked and tired. So is thehamstring and all of the propulsion muscles. They areoverused. Overused. And they don‟t even realize it. So what you have to do is you have to make sure that yourmusculature is loose enough that you can re-position yourfoot because if you always heel strike and you always push off

then you don‟t know where midfoot is. You don‟t even know where midfoot is. You don‟t know how to get there. So what we try to do is get people to feel like they‟re jumping rope inplace and landing very lightly because I do clinics almostevery day somewhere in the country and we do a runningclinic here in Boulder every Saturday morning and one of the biggest things is to get people to relax. Like running should be running all about relaxation and having your whole body.



We‟re using our whole body but almost everybody‟s running with just using their leg muscles. So now if you stand in anathletic position where your ankles and knees are flexed, your spine is tall, now you‟re centered with gravity – all youreally have to do at that moment is lift your foot off the

ground and drop it directly underneath you, you leanforward slightly with your upper body, now you‟re movingforward without using all this muscle power. But it‟s very difficult to be a new player in the industry and to teachpeople how to run because they think they already know how to run but they‟re running with a super altered gait. So by doing – a lot of people will look at our videos online, they‟llread the literature or they won‟t and they‟ll just go out andrun. Almost everybody will call in, they‟ll say, “Wow, my calves are really tight or my Achilles heel is strained orsomething like that.” We‟ll go, “Did you read the info or did you take an easy 15 minute run or something like that?”They‟ll go, “Now I did my regular 5 mile run” and we will say “Were you running fast?” “Oh yeah I was running like 30seconds, 40 seconds faster per mile.” It‟s like wow, that‟skind of race pace. So it‟s just getting people to open theirminds and reall y realize how you‟re supposed to move andthen gradually making changes to get yourself underneath your center of mass with your landing foot as opposed to this brake and push. So again, it is an adaptation period that we would do with any other sport. But runners and triathletes ingeneral, people wanting to go from A to Z too quickly. Wetalked a lot about that in the book. First of all, get the

information because you have to feel it because people comefrom all over the word, “Danny I want to be a better runner.Help me.” It‟s like, well if you want to be a good runner, you want to be a good athlete, the first thing you have to do islisten to yourself and understand your body and understandthe needs and understand how we move. But if you‟re notthere w ith that, then it‟s a longer process. Because peoplehave blocked out all this saying things like no pain, no gainand I‟m going to do or die. I‟m going to do this marathon if itkills me and all that stuff is crazy because as soon as you justsay, alright relax. Look forward, lean forward. Touch my foot

to the ground instead of pound it and lift my foot off theground instead of pushing it off, once I‟m doing these thingsthat are very natural and very relaxed and I can relaxmentally and physically then I can go farther and I can gofaster. But if I tense up and grit my teeth and say I‟m going tomuscle through it, that‟s where all the injury, pressure, pain,impact, rotation – it‟s just magnified.



Ben: Gotcha. Now one final question for you Danny. In terms of barefoot running, I know that obviously if everybody were barefoot running all the shoe companies would be put out of business and there is a reason to wear shoes but do you see aplace for barefoot running in a runner or endurance athlete‟s

training program?

Danny Abshire: Yeah, almost all elite people do that. I do it myself. I teach itat the training camps because that‟s how you re-learn how torun. Now here‟s a thought. Humans evolved to run barefooton natural surfaces. So that‟s where we should be practicing barefoot running. If you want to run in a Vibram or just total barefoot, that‟s where you should do it. You should do it on areally awesome track surface or an infield that is perfectly groomed and you just start out doing… just stand there, feelthe blades of grass under you and just notice how you move.I don‟t even tell you how you‟re going to move. Everybody ‟sgoing to do it perfectly whether you‟re 14 years old or you‟re80 years old. If you‟re 100 lbs or you‟re 300 lbs, you‟re goingto run the same way. You‟re going to take short steps, you‟regoing to land under your muscle mass, you‟re going to leanslightly and your arms are going to swing freely. You‟re goingto run that way automatically because you don‟t have theinfluence of something on your foot. The idea is that… whenI talked to Dr. Lieberman from Harvard, the idea is that we want to re-learn how to run with the barefoot running styleand that‟s what Newton is then proposing. A lot of times we‟re misunderstood because people will go, well I can‟t run

a marathon on my toes. No one from Newton ever said we wanted you to do that. We want you to find your midfoot,forefoot landing, whichever is more comfortable. Chirunning is total midfoot where you just land level to theground right under your body and your ankles and knees areflexed. Your lower body is like a spring. You absorb thatshock. Forefoot, you actually tap into your own naturalenergy return. So if you do it again, that pretend jump rope,if you land lightly on your forefoot when your heel settles, you‟ll get a burst of energy back from your own springligaments, your elastic recoil, either your calf, your plantar

fascia and your Achilles tendon. So if you land in the rightposition like humans will barefoot then you‟ll start to realize where you should run with footwear. So barefoot runningnow …even cavemen started making moccasins and coveringsfor the feet thousands and thousands of years ago. It is for areason. Because we have a brain. Our brain says if I run outthere – you think there would be a race like Badwater if wedidn‟t have some coverings for our feet? The road



temperature is over 200 degrees. You think we would be outrunning the Antarctic marathon? Barefoot? No, it‟s 70 below.So, right. We have a brain. We want to protect ourselves but we also want to be able to move as if we‟re barefoot runningso we have to understand what the body form is and barefoot

running is one of the best ways to do it. We need to do it– same thing – adapt very slowly. Maybe you just run two orthree strides of 20 yards just feeling like what it feels like because people‟s feet – like you said earlier, it‟s like… do the bones in my foot… can the bones accept that kind of impact? Well it depends on what you‟re talking about. If you‟retalking about concrete and asphalt, you have to regulate… this is a manmade surface. It‟s hard. So by understandinghow you move when you‟re barefoot and heightening thatsensory input and practicing the way you lift instead of push, yeah that‟s a very great thing to do. But I don‟t – unlike Chrisfrom McDougal and some of the other people, MichaelSamer and some other people around the country. They wantto run on every surface barefoot. Now you can toughen up but you‟re also going to be set up for a different set of injuriesthan the injuries that are occurring from heel strike and pushoff. So we‟re trying to get people to be sort of not way outthere in running with the heel strike and not way over hererunning barefoot on concrete and asphalt but learn how torun underneath yourself, right? Learn how to run naturally and run that way and mimic that barefoot running style. Sothat‟s the basic on barefoot.

Ben: Gotcha. Well folks, if you were interested in new runningshoes, if you are interested in the Newtons, if you‟reinterested in barefoot running or just the biomechanics of running now hopefully you have a little bit more knowledgeto make your decision about how you run and what you runin. So Danny, thanks for coming on the call today.

Danny Abshire: No problem Ben. Thanks for having me.

Ben: Alright, this is Ben Greenfield and Danny Abshire signingout from www.bengreenfieldfitness.com .

For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s

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Ben Greenfield Podcast 110