Run Mechanics 101: Cadence, Shoes & Running Injury-Free Ep 112

In this practical episode for runners, PT and runner Dr. Rob Berghorn (Endurance Unleashed) joins Coach Chris to break down the need-to-know of efficient, pain-free running. We cover beginner to advanced cues, cadence targets, ground contact time, uphill/downhill technique, shoe selection vs. trends, when (and how) to use insoles, year-round strength training, and smart warm-up/cool-down routines. If your watch is spitting out numbers and you’re not sure which ones matter—or you want fewer niggles and more speed—this one’s for you. 

Key takeaways:

• Start simple: build consistency (2–3x/week), try a run-walk approach, progress gradually. 
• Cadence sweet spot: generally ~160–180 spm; use music or a metronome to train it. 
• Ground contact time: aim roughly ~0.21–0.31 sec; shorter = less braking & stress. 
• Hills: up = shorter, quicker steps; down = avoid hard braking; control with choppy steps if needed. 
• Shoes: fit first (width & length); don’t chase trends; rotate models; use insoles as a tool, not a crutch. 
• Strength all year (free weights, single-leg control) to prevent common hip/knee/foot issues. 
• Always warm up (5+ min, dynamic) and cool down to speed recovery.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Dr. Rob Burkhorn
• 3:00 From Sprinter To Endurance PT
• 6:18 Beginner Mindset And Consistency
• 10:20 Cadence, GCT, And Useful Metrics
• 15:05 Hills: Technique Uphill And Down
• 19:20 Sound, Footstrike, And Efficiency
• 22:10 Why Runners Get Hurt
• 25:00 Hip Drop, Control, And Stability
• 29:10 Assessment To Action: Fixing Form
• 32:00 Shoes, Stack, Plates, And Fit
• 37:00 Insoles, Foot Strength, And Barefoot
• 41:10 Strength Training For Longevity
• 44:40 Warm-Ups, Cooldowns, Recovery

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:00

All right, welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. Today we've got a special guest, Dr. Rob Burkhorn. He is a local physical therapist, and his company is called Endurance Unleashed. And we're talking all about run mechanics. So I am excited to pick your brain a little bit and learn more about you and how you can help the community of listeners that we've got. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Chris. You know, I'm very excited to be here as well. Um, you know, especially talking about running mechanics, and it's something that I do every week in my business working with people. Um, because for us, you know, we are uh a company that specifically works with endurance athletes, active adults to make sure that they stay healthy and fit for the rest of their life and keep doing, you know, what they love to do.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

Love that. Run longevity is what I heard. It's like the new buzzword, you know, which is always kind of funny to me that I'm like, this is literally what's always been in our heads. Like, we're not doing this so that you, you know, stop doing this next year. We're doing this so that you can keep doing this because it's so fun.

SPEAKER_00: 2:04

And yeah, I mean, like I've been doing it now for almost 20 plus years, and and I, you know, I want to keep doing it for as long as I possibly can.

SPEAKER_01: 2:12

That's awesome. Very cool. So, how did you get into this? And then, of course, you gotta you gotta just dip your toe into a little bit of your like personal experience as an athlete too.

SPEAKER_00: 2:22

Yeah, so I mean, like I usually when I explain it to people, I usually dip dip into the personal anyway. So, like like I would say like my running career started in high school. Like I was I played in a lot of sports when I was younger, but didn't necessarily have one I was specifically like good at. So I, you know, like I delved into running in high school because I want to do some kind of a sport. So I did uh track and field uh and I stuck with sprinting because I didn't really know how much of it was gonna be more of or how much I could tolerate with distance running. So I started with sprinting. Um, I was always a very skinny kid too. So I wasn't the best sprinter, but I liked it a lot because I liked going fast. Um I was a 200, 400, 400 hurdle runner, and you know, I I went through high school. I went through my two years of college. Um and in between that, I was doing volunteer work at a physical therapy clinic. So I knew I wanted to be involved in healthcare. I took an anatomy class in in senior year of high school, and I really enjoyed that too. So I definitely knew I wanted to do something medical, but I didn't necessarily want to be a physician, and this is somewhat my bias in the sense of I don't want to be handing out medication all the time to people. So I didn't think that was best kind of side of things to help people in some cases, obviously. Medication is obviously important for some things, but not just that's not just what I wanted to do. So yeah, no, once I got into my undergrad at Sacred Heart University for athletic training, you know, I continued for two more years for my sprint career before I had to start taking care of other athletes in their sports, you know, soccer, football, the cross, everything across the board I was helping out with while I was a student. Um, and then from there I slowly transitioned into endurance running 5K's mostly. From there, I went to PT school, got my doctorate in physical therapy. And while I was there, I was recruited by one of my professors who knew I was a fast runner and asked me if I wanted to be on his triathlon team to work with him and his his uh physical therapy company. And you know, like I it's been you know up and up from there. So like I've done, you know, 10K a good number of 10K's half marathons, a good number of sprint and Olympic triathlons under my belt as well. So it's been it's been a good road. And you know, I've had many of injuries along the way. So I I've experienced a lot of the things that people come to see me with. And at the same time, like I've also been, I would say, healthy for the better half of a decade, other than a couple stupid things that I've done to that we're gonna potentially talk about today with people and and their their training plans and also like their running mechanics.

SPEAKER_01: 4:53

Yeah, so it's such an interesting. I love that somebody else is into speed too, especially in the trash on world. Like that that's my jam. I always kind of joke with people, like I want to race and then be home for lunch.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

Right. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 5:07

So cool. So yeah, I mean, I I know that this population is really interested in doing everything better, uh. So when it comes to run mechanics, I mean, who's really uh taught how to run? You know, and so many of so many people pick up endurance sports later on in life. It's like, okay, well, you know, here I go. So what so I'd like to talk about what uh what does a beginner do? And then what are some more intermediate or advanced metrics that we need to think about? And then really digging into some of the metrics because our watches tell us everything now. So let's start with the beginner runner. If someone wants to get into running and they want to make sure that they don't get hurt, do you have any tips or recommendations on how they should start?

SPEAKER_00: 5:57

Yeah, so I mean, I I think a lot of the things that people kind of get hung up in, and whether this is the person that likes to do their research before they do it. So, you know, someone who delves into YouTube and Instagram and see all the quote unquote experts and influencers on on online that will teach them different things that they want to do before they get started, or if it's someone who just wants to lace up and just start doing something, you know, it's it's all good, but at the same time, we have to keep in mind where we're currently at. And I think that's where a lot of beginners kind of get lost. They want to be the best already, right out the gate, and they get frustrated sometimes with not being good or not being able to do certain things that they feel like they could have done when they were younger. So I think that's where a lot of people kind of get lost in it. At the same time, the things to focus on is just getting consistent initially. Setting a schedule for yourself, whether that's a couple of days a week, I would say two to three times a week, three times would probably be like get started. And it's okay if you're out of shape, if you're a little bit on the overweight side, and if you're trying to get started with running, to do a run-walk method. And that's called the Galloway method. It's very effective, especially if you are trying to, you know, just kind of focus on finishing a certain amount of time or get to a certain distance, just getting there, however, you want to get there, however, you can get there, setting a specific interval, whether that means doing three minutes on of a little bit of a jog and then doing a walk for a minute or two, whatever that is, just try and don't get frustrated, be consistent with it, slowly progress and slowly improve. You'll get there injury free.

SPEAKER_01: 7:33

Okay, great tips. So basically, like have some grace with yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 7:36

Correct. Definitely have some grace.

SPEAKER_01: 7:39

Because I I know so many people were like, they went on two runs, and then they're like, Oh my gosh, I'm so bad at this. I am not a runner. And then they stop. And I'm like, okay, well, let's let's not own that identity of being like, ah, running stinks. Like, you gotta stick with it. It's just like learning how to do anything.

SPEAKER_00: 7:56

Even for me as a sprinter, like when I was in high school, I didn't get good until middle of junior year of high school. And you know, like once I even got to college, things completely changed. I went from being a very skinny guy to like a I gained 30 pounds of muscle in my freshman year just because I wasn't weightlifting. So I didn't get much faster just because I added 30 pounds, but at the same time, you know, it was it was definitely a jump and a change. So like there's different factors that happen with that too. So if there's someone who is out there is overweight and by doing nutritional changes and and getting started with running by losing some weight, could you just get better and faster by doing that? Yes, but you have to be consistent and stick with it. Um, so again, don't get frustrated.

SPEAKER_01: 8:39

Yeah, totally. And and what I'm thinking of, especially from like a metabolic testing perspective, so like a physiological standpoint, what is your the automatics when you start and then progress? Typically, when you're a beginner, you're gonna make big leaps in just starting to tune the heart and lungs from a cardiovascular perspective. And then there's the skill set of actually running, right? Which is obviously your specialty of like actual mechanics, running safely, running properly. And I love the run-walk method. So that those are our beginners. So stick with it, y'all. Now we get into the folks who've probably been running for a while, and now they're really starting to think about speed, and maybe they've got little niggles here and there. So and then we've all got these fancy watches that tell us like our ground contact time and like and our cadence, and what do we pay attention to, what do we not pay attention to, what's valuable, what's not valuable, and what are those next steps for the people who are really wanting to take their running to the next level.

unknown: 9:38

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_01: 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:39

So I mean, like as far as like the people who like I'll even branch it a little bit between the people who are, you know, like a little bit more advanced and the people who are transitioning from beginners. I would say like if you're trying to find now that you're a little bit more consistent, now that you're considering yourself even a runner, you know, I would say things to start looking at is just we'll look at one thing at a time. Don't focus on, no, I'm gonna focus on my my cadence today, along with my ground contact time, along with hitting my hitting the ground appropriately. Focus on one thing at a time, refine it, focus on becoming a little bit of a quote unquote expert at that, hit those appropriate mechanics, and then from there continue to to add in different aspects of it. So I would say like a couple of things for the more advanced people. I would say the biggest thing that we could probably work on initially and the easiest thing to just implement very, very generally is your cadence. Cadence is something that is not only going to help, but it's also going to help you more be more efficient. A lot of the times I see athletes that are generally also still within that good cadence range. Um, and I'll talk about that in a second. Um, but at the same time, they'll still deal with injury, and that we'll talk a bit a bit about that, I'm sure, as we go through. So it's not all about cadence, but at the same time, it's something that that is important to have. So cadence, the appropriate cadence range, I would say, is between 160 and 180, with 180 or 160 to 210, technically, but 180 is kind of like the the uh kind of golden number, what we want to kind of get to. And the simplest easy way for us to do that, especially if you listen to music while you run, is to just play music that's about 170, 180, whatever you're trying to hit for that day. If you're stuck at below 160, just gradually improve that kind of window of beats per minute in the songs that you like to listen to. So if you're at 140, bring play something that's at 150s and just do that for your run and then continue to gradually build that up. You can also just put a metronome on your phone. If you're running on the treadmill and just hit the metronome on your phone and then just have it every time that metronome beeps, you're just taking that next step. So that would be the best for that. If you're able to improve your cadence, that's also gonna help with that ground contact time that we were talking about before. And that would be the next thing I would say we could talk about. Because the more time that we're spending on the ground, the more force that's being exerted on our body. Obviously, if you've seen any of the research, you know, there is a lot of multiples of body weight that we're experiencing with every footfall. And if we're, for example, doing a 5K, we're going for about 5,000 steps per 5K. So it's a lot of weight that we're experiencing. So we need to be able to not only absorb that force, but we also need to overcome it so we can take the next step. So that that that ground contact time is important in the sense that the more we're in the air, be as an athlete overall, and the less injured we're gonna get. So that ground contact time number is gonna be anywhere between 0.21 to 0.31 of uh hundredths of a second. So basically, if we're within that range, it's gonna be very beneficial in avoiding injury. Um because the more time we're on the ground, like I was saying before, the the more stress we're putting on our body, the more risk we're gonna have for injury, the most, the more time we're also gonna need to recover just because that that exertion being put on our body.

SPEAKER_01: 13:01

So I heard you say cadence and ground contact time. And what's coming up for me is two things that I'm curious about is this all the time.

SPEAKER_00: 13:09

As close to perfect as possible, right? Yeah. So I mean, obviously it's not gonna be every step, but you want to try and be as close to it as you possibly can uh throughout. I mean, as you get more efficient, as you become better, a better runner, as you become more in tune with how your body's feeling while you're running, and that's another thing we can talk about as well if you want, just how how you're how you should be going about feeling your body as you're running. So, like it as you become more attuned to what you should be feeling, knowing what 160 beats feels like, or one 180 steps per minute feels like, and also how long you feel like your foot's on the ground for for a given period of time. You should obviously once you get within that range, you know how it should feel. And therefore, if you're noticing it, it's either, oh, something's coming up, or I'm fatigued for today. And maybe I need to cut my run short today so I don't cut start feeling like aches and pains, or if I'm starting to feel aches and pains, why is it happening? Do I feel like I'm within the range that I used to be? Can I should I check my watch? Should I check Strava? Should I check Garmin? Whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 14:09

And then what about like, should do these numbers change if you're descending or climbing a hill?

SPEAKER_00: 14:15

Yeah, so obviously that's gonna definitely change. And also depends on your mechanics while you're going up and downhill. Because those are also different, different aspects too. I would say the better way to go about going uphill is to make more shorter, choppier steps, just to help not only with, especially if you're not as much of somebody who can VO2 max wise sustain your pace as you're going overhill. If you're someone who needs to slow down while you're going over a hill, I would say shortening up your stride, doing more shorter, choppier steps. So increasing that cadence is gonna be more efficient to not only not blow up the the cardiovascular aspects, but also to not overload your legs so that you're able to just get over the hill and and work your way rather than trying to muscle it through, and then at the top of the hill you need to stop because you're all blown up.

SPEAKER_01: 15:03

I hear that a lot, like you know, I'm gonna die at the top of the hill. So, what I hear you saying is there's technique. There's technique for climbing and perhaps technique for descending too.

SPEAKER_00: 15:14

Yes, and there's there's tech definitely technique for going downhill too, because a lot of the people what they tend to do, and this is where most people I would find when they're doing hill training that they tend to get the most injury, just because descending, eccentric control is what we would call it, is the harder muscle contraction. It's gonna be the hardest on your body, especially if you're someone who runs downhill and likes to break themselves rather than, you know, allow gravity to somewhat take you down the hill. So, again, if you're someone who can't necessarily muscularly control yourself down the hill, I would say again, shorter, choppier steps, um, just so you're not like breaking your foot into the ground and slowing yourself down intentionally, but taking those shorter steps. So, again, we're not putting so much stress into our body. And also we're getting down the hill more gradually rather than just allowing our body to freewheel it and we start accelerating, accelerating, accelerating until we hit the bottom of the hill, like I sometimes do, especially when I'm racing. But you know, like I've been a sprinter, so I'm able to tolerate the higher leg turn turnover. So, like that's that comes with skill and experience as well. So that's that's definitely a different, different kind of technique.

SPEAKER_01: 16:21

So is sound something that we should be tuning into at all when we're running, like how heavily we slap the ground or touch the ground, like should we aim to be like a quiet runner or like how does that play into it?

SPEAKER_00: 16:36

Right. So obviously we don't want to be stomping into the ground. And at times I'm going to say once we're at faster speeds, well, we we will tend to be a little bit louder into the ground. And I would say we want to try and be as quiet as possible in the sense that we're transitioning from footfall to footfall because the the less impactful we're putting direct force into the ground, you know, obviously we're taking some of that stress that's going back into our body away. Because really what we should be focusing on is almost slapping the ground and in the sense of like if you're if you ever spin like a tire, so like you know, for example, with you, Chris, like you flip your bike over and you spin the wheel. The only way to make it faster is to just smack the the side of the wheel at a, if we're gonna get scientific here, a tangential angle uh that's gonna be directly parallel to it. As long as you keep doing that, it's going to make that wheel go faster and faster. So the closer we can get to doing that, the better off we're gonna be and the less injury we're gonna have. So if you're just constantly mashing into the ground with your foot coming straight down, we're going to have greater force in our body and more stress, leading to potential injury in that way.

SPEAKER_01: 17:40

So what so let's get into some of the injury stuff because you know, in theoretically, we're all running generally softly and have this beautiful cadence and ground contact time. Like when do some of these things go awry? Like, is it usually from the ground up? Is it the top down? Like, is it just no rhyme or reason? We're all just wonderfully unique and uh and that's where you come in, or it's so talk us through some of those common injuries.

SPEAKER_00: 18:07

Yeah, so the the I will I'll talk about some of the injuries first uh in relation to the mechanics, and then we'll also talk a bit about um injury in the sense of the actual mechanical aspect or the running form itself, too. Um I would say I would most of the injuries that happen or pop-up, and and and this is speaking not only to the beginners, but also to the people who are a little bit more advanced or trying to become more efficient or trying to get faster and then just not going the right way about it, is they become a little bit more of this. Is more especially for the beginners. They just try to run fast all the time. They don't necessarily adjust their pacing. And this is where we start talking about zone training a bit, where we focus on a little bit more of the 80-20 rule, where a lot of our mileage is on the slower side, and we have a small percentage that's on a higher end, whether that's interval runs or or VO2 max runs or or uh you know any of those kind of kind of aspects of our running schedule. Um and then also it's just they're doing too much too fast, too soon. They don't progress as well, uh, or they don't they progress too much as far as their distance that they're trying to run, whether they're someone who's a 5K that wants to start doing a half marathon and they want to do that training in in less than three months. You know, that's a little bit of a tight schedule for somebody who's brand new to half marathon training. So if we're if you have that kind of situation, that's where I do see a lot of it. It's just too much on the body all at one time. Um, that that leads to general issues. As far as like the mechanics aspect and running form, I would say it's specifically the way I like to look at people when I analyze their form is I do like to start from the bottom up, but at the same time, I still focus from the central down too, and also what's going on higher up in the neck, the head, the neck, and the shoulders. Because it all feeds into what's going on overall and the picture that you have for your body, because all that's going to affect the forces you impart into the ground and also the the forces that are being imparted on you. So I would say the biggest thing that most people will have that are issues are too much pronation or not being able to control their foot and also not being able to control their hip, which leads to most what most runners deal with is running is knee injuries. Um it's never the knee itself that's the problem, it's always the foot and or the hip. Um so I always tar I usually target those, and those are the ones I really specifically focus most of my time on. But at the same time, if you're someone who doesn't have a strong pore, so that could be your hips and or your your abdomen. If you don't have good control there either, that can also affect what's going on higher up down below, and can also lead to a bunch of different injuries.

SPEAKER_01: 20:51

Yeah, what's coming up for me is um we see a lot of like, especially women, when we watch them from the back, their hips, like one hip, will drop. So when you see something like that, for example, what could be potential injuries and then what could be potential things to help correct that? Is it mobility, is it strength, is it a little bit of both?

SPEAKER_00: 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:13

Or awareness techniques.

SPEAKER_00: 21:15

Right. Yeah, that's very that's a very good question. I mean, I I don't know how much you guys also look at that from also a front uh side angle, too, because sometimes you can also notice that their pelvis is also tilted forward. Um, or like when they go to push off instead of pushing off from their from their hip, they start pushing off from their spine instead. So that can lead to to higher up injuries too. Um, but yeah, now that's something I do see very common, especially with women. Partially that's because of the way that you know women are developed. Uh wider hips and what we call the cue angle. So basically the angulation from where the hip kind of is in line with the knee, the larger that angle is, the more strong you need to be in order to counteract that force. So basically it's it's mostly going to be strength, stability, and control. Generally, if and and this is where some athletes that I see that get frustrated with traditional physical therapy, unlike what we do here, uh, what they get frustrated with traditional therapy is that they tell them that they're weak. You know, they're very strong women, they do their strength training, they do what they're supposed to do, they do their mobility work, uh, but they're still dealing with either hip, low back, hand or knee pain, and they can't necessarily figure out what the problem is. And in general, it's because they're not educated necessarily on what the real issue is, and it's really the control of that strength rather than the actual strength itself.

SPEAKER_01: 22:37

So this is not like I squat, amazing, wait, and I deadlift. It's so awesome. And I can look at me holding my plank, and yet I'm still having these issues. It's uh almost sounds like a like a almost like a kinesthetic sort of awareness or connection that they're needing to control. So yeah, tell me a little bit more about how your approach is unique in that respect.

SPEAKER_00: 23:02

Yeah, it's one thing that's different from you know the traditional physical therapists versus what we do is you know, we focus number one on you know, runners, endurance athletes, you know, that's that's one thing. We have the knowledge, we have the background, what you're experiencing, unlike what most physical therapists do, and they just focus on a general aspect of things. I would say also in the sense that, you know, when we specifically look at your running form, your running mechanics, what you do specifically outside of that to make you a better runner. So, like we were talking about the strengthening, you know, you squat, you deadlift, you you do planks. It's can you tolerate that in a single leg format? If you don't, if you're someone who doesn't single leg strength train, if you're someone who doesn't work on your balance and stability, your control, then obviously that's something that I'm first going to. If you're someone who does do that, are you doing it correctly or are you making, you know, compensations where you don't necessarily feel that you are, but I can see it based off of what I've been able to study and whatnot. So some people, you know, can compensate very, very well by things that shouldn't be doing that. Um, and that's why why they may be dealing with some of the pain. So for example, someone with dealing with back pain, but has a contrary, so basically we would call a contralateral opposite side hip. So if my if my left back bothers me all the time, but I notice a hip drop or a hip side shift on the right side, it's because their low back on their left side is compensating and keeping trying to keep their hip level on the right side, but it can't. That's not what it's supposed to do. So it's it's a lot of things that go into it, but at the same time, it's very specific to those types of people. So that's what I try to really break down for people first so we can figure out root causes and kind of build you back up to not only make your squat deadlifts plank better, but also give you tools to work on the smaller fine-tuning muscles that help with that control and stability on top of it.

SPEAKER_01: 24:53

That's cool. And um, somebody who's gone through your videoing process, it's always so like in your head, you're like, but I thought, and you're like, but now we have evidence, and then you know, slowing it down, what you think in your head may be happening may not actually be happening. So this, so uh you know, having going through the process like you do of videotaping people and um pointing things out is obviously really important. And then and then what are kind of like next steps that people do with that? It's like, okay, well, my we see my hip is dropping uh now what? Or we see my oh, you know, I'm pronating too deeply or whatever the case may be. Then kind of what's what's next steps for people? Because you know, if you look at a it's kind of like, well, what should it look like? And at least in my head, I'm like, I should look like an Olympian, shouldn't I? You don't know until you actually see it and then have somebody like you evaluate it. And then what do you do with that?

SPEAKER_00: 25:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:55

So I mean the I I guess another unique thing about what we do or what I do specifically in my practice is you know, I take an athlete like you, like you just competed in the X Dura World Championships, right? So like you're you're a high-level performer. So it's like, you know, you're doing great with what you have right now. And this is this goes back to also like you were mentioning, the Olympians, the pros that are out there. There's a lot of pros out there that have quote unquote faulty mechanics. It's just like, is it working for them? And why is it working for them? So we I analyze that a little bit. And then is it causing you pain? And like we focus on on that aspect. So, like, if it's not causing you pain, it's allowing you to be be great at what you do, I'm not gonna change much of it. But at the same time, if there's things that are causing you pain, causing you issues, am I gonna change it? Yes. But I would also focus on the building blocks too. So, like, if you're someone who has that hip drop that we were talking about, um, and they can't control their hip very well, I'm gonna focus, I'm gonna bring you back down to a specific strength training level that's gonna be very minute and specific to certain muscles that are gonna help with that stability and then build you up from there. And at the same time, we'll bring you back in a couple of weeks later, see if that hip drop's still happening. If it is, then we're gonna start working on a little bit more fine-tuning of why is that still happening? Is it more uh balance of control? Is it your body awareness? So we focus a little bit more on that. And then we we also try to, while you're running, focus on different aspects of what are you feeling as we're doing this? Do you feel like it's this? Can you try and exert this way? So, for example, like if we're talking about the hip drop, if we can focus on as we're kind of pushing off, that we're utilizing the two um extend our hip a little bit differently as we're as we're pushing off with that foot rather than just going about and running.

SPEAKER_01: 27:49

You mean I shouldn't start there, right? Just running up a mountain and hoping that everything goes well.

SPEAKER_00: 27:55

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:57

That sounds like an Achilles disaster, is what I'm thinking about, which uh again goes into like the skill and mechanic of being able to appropriately run uphill. But what about shoes? Is that something that you look at? Or is that you know, I don't shoot, I don't even know what what the trend is these days. We went from zero drop to a lot of drop to like you know, a minimalist to maximalist, like to foam, no foam. You know, somebody asked me the other day, like, do you wear carbon plated shoes?

SPEAKER_00: 28:25

I'm like, carbon plates, yep, fiber plates, yeah. So yeah, no, I'm I'm seeing all of it. Don't worry. Um, yeah, so I mean that's that's a very good question. I mean, I I I definitely see the gamut too. I mean, I even had a few clients recently who every week would bring me in a new pair of shoes, like, is this good for me? Is this good for me? So, like, it's it's definitely something that's that that people do focus on, and it's okay to focus on it for a bit, but once you find something that's a good general fit, then that's then it's then it's good. You know, the first things I usually focus is does your foot fit the shoe? Because like if your foot doesn't fit in the shoe, then then obviously it's not going to be good for you. Um, I don't focus on brand. Brand is the last thing, absolute last thing I focus on. First and foremost, it's your foot, and also like how your body reacts to just regular ground without any shoes on. So if you're someone who overpronates already, someone who over pronates while they're on while they're running, um, then we're looking more towards neutral/slash stability shoes. For someone who has high arches and has trouble with stress injuries, like you know, shin splints, stress fractures, stress reactions, those kind of things, I'm thinking more cushion for you. But at the same time, um, yeah, obviously there's things, terms out there called stack height, how much foam is in there, heel drop ratio, how much diff difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe. Those are all things that especially beginner runners get lost in all the time. And that's why if you are gonna go to um a store like Fleet Feet or seek out your specialized running physical therapist like myself, we can help you tease out that a little bit better, especially if you're a beginner runner, like what shoe is gonna be best for you. But basically, you want your entire foot to fit within that sole of the shoe. You don't want to have like if you stand on your shoe and you notice that either your pinky toe or your big toe is spilling out over the side of the shoe, that shoe is not wide enough for you. Additionally, you should be able to take your thumb and put it thumb's width over the front of the shoe. And if you can't touch your toe, then you're good as far as like fit-wise. Um, you want it to necessarily stay on your foot, you don't want it to be sliding off your heel. If you're looking for some for a generalized shoe that's not minimalist, you don't want to be able to push down the back of the heel. You don't want to be able to wring it out like a sponge, you don't want to be able to fold it in half. Um, so all those are all good basic things for you to focus on so that you don't have any kind of injuries pop up in that sense. But I will say that if you do get a shoe that has a lot of foam, I've seen plenty of runners, especially the whole time I was running New York City Marathon when the outflies were super huge at the time. There are people that should not be wearing those shoes that had the inside of their ankles on the ground because there was too much foam in there for them to tolerate. And this was like not even like towards the end of the marathon. This was at the beginning of the marathon. So I don't know how they did, but at the same time, there were nightmares that I was seeing the whole time. Now that that doesn't include the nightmare of the heat and the vomiting and the passing out that I've saw saw during that race, too. Don't discourage people from running. Like your race this past past uh couple weeks, like that was not a great race for me either.

SPEAKER_01: 31:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's there there are unique situations certainly in racing and and definitely in running and definitely in marathon. Oh my goodness. So yeah, it sounds like we can we can easily be caught up in the marketing and the trends and when it may not also always be something that's beneficial specifically to our own personal running.

SPEAKER_00: 31:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 32:00

What about insoles? Is that you know, so like we talked about shoes and we found a good shoe, but like are insoles something that we should all just get? Or is that case by case? Is does it differ like right foot to left foot, or how do you approach that topic?

SPEAKER_00: 32:14

Yeah, so I mean, uh yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because that is something I do get asked about a lot. And this is also the and I'm blanking on the name of the company, but they it's not a carbon plate, but it's like a fiber plate. I think it's called vortex. I could be completely wrong. Um, but they they help with the extra sprain too. So I've I've they they help. Um, and and all insoles and we're if we're talking about orthotics as well, they help. But when I approach somebody with orthotics or someone who's thinking about getting orthotics, or even the aspect of podiatrists who love to recommend orthotics just because it does cost a lot and they do get a lot of money for it, is it's a tool. It's not something that you're so like I have flat feet, I'm more of a supple flat foot, but even when my foot's in the air and basically I'll back up a little bit. Sumple flat foot is basically um, you have an arch when your foot's not on the ground, and your arch disappears when your foot's on the ground. Um, you know, then there's also rigid flat foot. So whether you're someone who has high arches, flat feet, whatever it is, your foot still needs to be able to be strong enough to tolerate stresses, whether that's everyday life stresses or running stresses, endurance, sports stresses, whatever it is. Um, so I use insoles as a tool. So if you need them for now, because your foot can't tolerate the stresses that are going through it, completely fine. But I want you to get out of it because not only by getting out of those is your foot going to be stronger and more supportive for you, but you're gonna be more efficient. You're gonna have better uh stability for when you push off, creating that stable platform because that's where we're making first contact and last contact with the ground. We need that stable platform to set up what's going on in the rest of our body to not only push off efficiently, but push off very forceful and give us a good stride and also make us faster.

SPEAKER_01: 33:56

Are there things that can affect foot strength, foot mobility, whether we choose in a specific insole or insert or whatever that are outside of that? Like, should we walk around the house barefoot all the time? Or should we avoid our high heels? Or I don't know, does it does any of that factor into things?

SPEAKER_00: 34:18

Yeah, no, it does. It definitely does. And that that we could talk about a whole nother podcast too, if we wanted to. Um, but basically the basics for that is anything that we're gonna have a tight toe box in is going to affect our feet. Having a tight toe box, that could be flats for for our ladies' heels, uh, and that's heels of any size, any shape, also. Anything that's gonna be tight in the toe box is gonna lead to not only issues with the toes creating a pointed aspect where we have bunionettes and bunions forming, um, but also it's going to restrict how much our intrinsic or the muscles within our foot contract, because if we can't spread out our toes, if we can't grip the ground appropriately, we're not gonna be utilizing those muscles appropriately to go through our normal gait cycle. And also, if we're having shoes that aren't supportive, so you know, like most women's flats, they're not very supportive whatsoever. And if you're someone who has flat feet or doesn't have good control in their feet and needs that support, you know, obviously that's gonna put more stress inside the ankle, inside of the knee, outside the hip, um, low back area, that can affect it too. Especially for um wearing heels too, that affects the low back. It affects all the mechanics going up towards the spine and above, even up into your shoulders and neck. So all those types of shoes are not necessarily the greatest, but obviously for work or whatever, if you need to use them, try to walk to work or travel to work in different shoes before you go to work and put on those shoes. In addition to that, just regular everyday shoes or even going about your house. Personally, for me, I walk around barefoot all the time in my house, partially because that's the world my wife has, but also in the sense that um I love to utilize my toes, utilize my my muscles in order to, you know, keep that stability that I do have that I've built up over the years. Because like I've said, when we first started, for the better half of a decade, I haven't had any kind of injury. But when I first got started running, I had everything. I had, you know, chin splints, I had posterior tibialis syndrome, I've had uh ankle sprains, I've had uh plantar fasciitis, I've had the gamut. But at the same time, like now that I've built everything up, and you know, despite me having flat feet, I don't deal with any foot issues because you know I've built that strength, that stability up over time, and I've just kept it that way.

SPEAKER_01: 36:32

So there is hope. There is hope. Yeah. And as you're saying this, it's making me think of uh like from a longevity perspective, because so many people as they age, they trip and fall. And then of course, falls become so much more of an issue later on in life. And then I'm also thinking of like the beginner runner of like, oh, I just, you know, should I have this big cushy shoe because I trip all the time? And that to me says, like, no, that's your job, Rom.

SPEAKER_00: 37:00

Yeah. So I mean, like just a bridge part of what we were talking about just before, and then also with you know what we're gonna be leading into. I mean, you mentioned the the we mentioned the the thick, foamy shoe. And we also mentioned how feeling the ground is important by me walking around barefoot in my house and and being strong and stable. Those thick, foamy shoes don't allow you to feel the ground whatsoever. So that that's one bad thing about that trend, also that I don't like. It's it's it feels like a very comfortable ride, but at the same time, you can't feel what's going on underneath you. You feel like you're running on a cloud, but at the same time, like your foot doesn't know what to do. So, like, if that's I would recommend like if it especially those higher end performance shoes. I think one of my uh one of my friends started running the Adidas Speed 4s. I could be wrong with which one of that that one is, but it's it's a brand new shoe that they have out. Um and he says like he feels like it's all it's very high stack height, very, very foamy. Um, but he only uses that for his speed workouts and his his faster races. So definitely change out your shoes if you're gonna have that kind of an aspect too. But for like we were talking about for that person who's dealing with with issues with the tripping and whatnot, and having that thick, foamy shoe, yeah, that's gonna be a problem. And that also leads into the trips and the falls, which leads into the strength training, which is gonna be important lifelong, and not necessarily just when I'm in season or when I'm in off-season. It's throughout the year. You're doing some level of strength training to either build during your off season or maintain during your season, especially if you're racing a lot. So at the age of 35, we start losing muscle mass, both men, especially women, especially as we approach pre-menopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal years. We there's a huge dip in in strength as we go through that just because of the hormone fluctuations and changes. So definitely, especially before we hit that kind of aspect, is to get on some kind of strength training regimen that is relatively heavy to you. Uh, not necessarily that we're lifting hundreds of pounds, but we need to make sure that we're getting some good effort in it. That's not related to a HIT class or whatever, or boot camp class. We need some regular in the gym strength training with free weights, is most likely going to be where I would put you to, so we can work on those stabilizers so that you're not only going to stay strong and healthy, you're not gonna have bone stress injuries as a female, you're gonna have a strong, good-looking physique. And then at the same time, you're also going to be a better runner that doesn't trip all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 39:27

Love that. Okay. Yes, strength training. I know we're doing we're cover we're covering all the things right now, Rob. So thank you for that, which makes me think, okay, so we got to be doing our strength training if we're gonna be running. And then is there something we should be doing before and after every run, or should we just like lace up those fancy shoes and just hit right out the door? Or is there like a standard should we all be doing a dynamic warm-up? Should we all be stretching or foam rolling afterwards? Or is it case by case?

SPEAKER_00: 39:56

Um, I would say like based off of your specific run that you're going out for. So your warm-up, and you should be doing a warmup every time, you don't want to, you want to make that warm-up specific to what you're doing. So your warm-up for your long run or a nice easier run is going to be different from your speed workout if you're going to be doing any kind of speed workouts. If we are going to be doing a warm-up, you want it to be as minimal as about five minutes, especially if you have a sedentary job to get that blood flowing again and to wake up your nervous system a little bit more, help get more nutrients to our tendons and our ligaments, because those don't necessarily have the best blood flow. So we want to flush out chemicals that have been sitting there all day. And we also want to bring new nutrients to those tissues so that we don't have any kind of breakdown. Um, and and from there, we want to get back gradually go into our run. Same thing with cool down. We want to stretch, we want to restore normal normal muscle length, we want to uh flush out chemicals for that we that have built up, whether that's you know, speed workout, lactic acid, any kind of waste products that could be sitting there, if we just go sit on the couch after and stare on our phone for you know 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever it is. We want to make sure that we're flushing all that out so we can recover faster so that when we go out for our next run tomorrow or two days from now or whatever it is, that we can fuel our greatest and keep going from there.

SPEAKER_01: 41:17

All right. So we've gone over a ton, everything from ground cocktail time, how to get started as a new runner, shoes, insoles, warm-ups, cooldowns. So if we could put all this together into like a little nutshell, what would be your top like two to four things that you want to make sure people come away with as it relates to running and mechanics?

SPEAKER_00: 41:39

Yes. Yeah, so as I kind of started off with, it's it's stay consistent, don't get frustrated, work on one thing at a time. And if you're dealing with any pain, especially if it's been going on for longer than 48 hours, talk to me. And how do they get a hold of you? Right. Yeah. So if you want to get a hold of me, um, you can head over to our website, www.uhendurance-unleashed.com. Um, or you can give us a call. 919-516-9050.

SPEAKER_01: 42:09

It's so great that we have um a wonderful running community. And uh you will uh not be short on business, Rob.

SPEAKER_00: 42:16

No, I've I've definitely noticed that since I've been down here. There's definitely a lot more people down here who want to stay active and stay healthy for long, long, long life like for their the rest of their life, which is good.

SPEAKER_01: 42:27

Yeah. Longevity, longevity, I tell you what. Yeah, especially like just being at worlds, you know, there were people in the 70 plus age group. There was one person in in the 80 age group. I have to look up whether they finished or not, but still, like, I mean, game changer. Like, if I, you know, I would only dream of continuing to do this for a long time.

SPEAKER_00: 42:49

I saw a post yesterday that or earlier this week, there was um a 102-year-old woman running a 36-second 100-meter dash. That's insane.

SPEAKER_01: 43:00

Yeah, I love like that. Just like amps me up so much. I and as much as people like get in their own way of like, oh, I could never do that. Oh, running is so hard. I'm like, no, you just need to, like you said, you just need to be consistent. Start small, work on one thing at a time, and uh believe in yourself. Like uh give yourself some dang credit. Like, we can do hard things. So cool. Awesome, Rob. This has been a wealth of information, and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. And I hope that people reach out to you. So don't don't forget to go see Dr. Rob because he's fantastic. I've uh gotten my own fancy um run view, and man, it is eye-opening. Your own view. So it is eye opening, you know, in your head again, like you're like, I am an Olympian, and then you just see the video, you're like, oh, I got some work to do. So fantastic. All right, well, Rob, thank you so much, and uh, we appreciate you being on the Find Your Edge podcast.