Do Minimalist – Barefoot Shoes Cause Achilles Problems
Do Minimalist – Barefoot Shoes Cause Achilles Problems
– The MOVEMENT Movement with Steven Sashen Episode 153
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement where Steven rants about how Achilles problems are not caused by barefoot shoes.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How transitioning to barefoot shoes doesn’t need to be done over time.
– Why injuries happen because of traditional running shoes, not barefoot shoes.
– How wearing a shoe with a heel makes it so your Achilles is not fully functioning.
– Why your brain gets used to using muscles within a certain range of motion.
– How many limitations in movement are caused by your brain getting used to an injury.
Connect with Steven:
Website
Xeroshoes.com
Jointhemovementmovement.com
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Right now if you visit https://xeroshoes.com/born-to-run/ you can get a signed copy of Born to Run 2 at a discount…Plus an immediate 10% a single pair of Xero Shoes if you order them at the same as Born to Run 2.
Steven Sashen:
There’s some people who will tell you that if you switch to minimalist shoes, you’re just begging to get an injury. Typically, the one they refer to the most as like achilles tendonitis. And we’re going to take a look at that and see if that’s for real or not.
And if so, what to do about it. On today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first, because those things are your foundation where we’re going to break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the straight out lies you’ve been told, that’s going to be part of this episode, about what it takes to run or walk or hike or play or do yoga or CrossFit, whatever you like to do.
And to do that enjoyably, efficiently, effectively. Did I say enjoyably? Yeah, I know I did. It’s a trick question, because look, if you’re not having fun, do something different till you are. Because you won’t keep it up if you’re not having a good time anyway. I’m Steven Sashen from xeroshoes.com and I’m the host of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast.
And we call it that because we’re creating a movement that involves you. It’s free, it’s easy. I’ll tell you more about that in a second. About natural movement, letting your body do what it’s made to do without getting in the way and causing problems by doing things that people think should be an improvement, but turn out not to be.
So that’s the gist of it. The way you can participate is easy, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. There’s nothing to actually join. That’s just the domain name that I got. There’s no secret handshake, no special song, no money that you have to pay. It’s just a place where you can find all the previous episodes, how you can interact with us on social media and give us a thumbs up and a like review and share, et cetera.
In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, just please subscribe. Okay. So let’s jump into this. This is an idea that has been propagated where the people say, “Well, you have to adjust properly to natural movement to minimalists shoes because otherwise you’re going to do something like get achilles tendonitis.”
They’re basically blaming us for a problem that they get. And I understand it, why it could look that way. You switch to a minimalist shoe, if you don’t transition properly, it may be that you do get some calf pain or some achilles pain, but I’m going to suggest that the reason is upside down. It’s not because of us, it’s because of them.
And I’m now holding up a kind of classic looking shoe that is elevated heel, elevated toe, kind of stiff, bunch of padding, et cetera. And I’m going to suggest that’s the problem. Now the problem is not actually because of what people think about that, many people think that if you wear a higher heeled shoe, what happens is your achilles shortens.
And therefore when you get into a shoe like ours with no elevated heel, that’s where the problem comes from, is because now you’re suddenly straining your achilles and that’s creating the issue. Well, I think there’s two problems with that. First thing’s first, when you are wearing a higher heeled shoe, I haven’t seen any evidence that your achilles actually shortens.
What I have seen is that you get used to your achilles not functioning fully, not getting the, all the stretch that it’s built to get, which, well, there’s a problem there and I’ll mention that in a second. And therefore it just basically your brain gets used to only using your muscles within a certain range of motion.
I saw a great example of this with someone who claimed she had a frozen shoulder, could not lift her arm above shoulder height. And the medical practitioner who was working with her, he was actually a Feldenkrais practitioner. Feldenkrais is a body work style that fundamentally is based on the idea that your brain controls your body and you just need to somehow remind your brain what your body can actually do.
Now that’s not true in all situations. You can have certain injuries where that’s a different story. But in many cases, many limitations are caused from just maybe what started out as an injury and then your brain getting used to something. But it can get used to doing something different, can get used to doing what was available before the injury as well.
It just needs to discover that you can do that safely. So back to the frozen shoulder. The practitioner asked her to raise her arm to as far as she could get without it becoming painful. She got to about where she claimed, which is about shoulder height. And then he had her bend forward. And she naturally, without even thinking about it, ended up with her arm.
Well, if she was bending forward, so her torso was parallel to the ground, her arm was also parallel to the ground. Then he had her stand up and her arm was right over her head, straight up just like it could have been. And she had no idea that was even possible. Her quote, “Frozen shoulder” was just kind of in her brain.
Her brain had built this protective mechanism saying, “Don’t lift your arm past here.” And the pain was coming from her brain telling her not to do something, not an actual restriction in her shoulder. So I’ve seen people running in my neighborhood and my neighborhood’s full of a lot of world class athletes where they have what you would think of as great running form.
They’re landing with their foot underneath their center of mass, on their midfoot or the ball of their foot. But interestingly, because they’re wearing a higher heeled running shoe, they can’t even let their foot come all the way down to the ground. In fact, I’ve watched a lot of these runners let their heel come down to the ground. I’ve watched a lot of these runners, and even with a big thick padded shoe, the heel of their shoe never touches the ground.
They’re keeping their heel off the ground, and so but there’s no reason to do that. They’ve just gotten used to doing that. And so if they switched to something like our shoes where arguably if they ran the exact same way, their heel wouldn’t come down any further. But they’ve basically trained themselves to not kind of know where the heel is on their big thick heel elevated shoe and just at best maybe it barely touches the ground.
That’s what they’ve gotten used to. Now what’s interesting to me about this is your achilles is essentially an amazing spring, better than almost any man-made spring that I can think of, just for how durable it is. By not letting their heel come all the way to the ground, they’re not getting the best use, the maximum use out of that spring.
So while they may be running well, proper form, they’re not running most efficiently because they’re not getting the energy return. This is the one place where energy return is a real thing. When it’s in shoes and they say there’s energy return coming from the foam in the shoe, not true. All foam sucks energy out of the system, never returns energy, but the achilles can actually return energy.
And so by not using it fully, they’re not getting the best use of their achilles. You switch to a minimalist shoe and you may start getting some strain. Again, not because we are putting extra strain on you, it’s because you’ve gotten used to something and now you’re just not getting that same experience, that same feedback, and you might be straining things a little bit by using your achilles properly.
Now that strain is not the same thing really as achilles tendonitis. Because again, much of it is probably possibly, by the way, there’s no research backing up what I’m saying. There’s a theory, but it’s probably going to make sense to you. So what you’re getting is the strain from essentially your brain telling you, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t do that, don’t do that,” because it got so used to being in a particular range of motion.
And you may have your own experience like this. I can think of things that I’ve had as a gymnast where I had movement that I couldn’t do. Actually, here’s a really fun one I just realized. So a couple weeks ago I had to fight a dog that was trying to attack my dog. And it ended up messing up my shoulders. I was pulling my 35 pound dog out of the way by its leash. And I can’t move my arm in certain directions if I do it voluntarily. If somebody moves my arm passively, absolutely no problem.
Yes, I’m getting physical therapy for this. Yes, it’s getting better. But suffice it to say the problem isn’t actually in my ability to move, it’s that my brain is getting information going, “Whoa, stop right there.” Because I’m getting a little strain, there’s definitely still a little bit of an injury and it’s just trying to keep me from doing more of that.
And I’ve actually already can tell that there’s certain movements that I try not to make in advance of getting any information about whether that’s a problem. My brain has already learned, “Oh, don’t go farther than there because that’s problematic.” And so here’s my recommendation for people who are wanting to explore, experiment with minimalist footwear in a way that can be fine.
Where you’re not going to have a problem, where you can use your brain properly to tell your body what it can and can’t do properly so you can have a fine experience. Okay, here we go. First things first, there’s no bonus points for running in our shoes. Huh, there you go.
While we have many, many, many people who run everything from a 5K to ultra-marathons in pretty much every product we make, I mean, literally our sandals, our shoes, our casual boots, our snow boots, we’ve had people run races in all of those. It’s doable, but I’m not going to suggest you do that. I’m going to suggest you do something simple like just go for a walk, take a, just make it really, really easy.
Walking, no one ever, it’s funny, no one ever gets out of a shoe with a big elevated heel and goes barefoot on the beach and complains they got to achilles tendonitis. Why? Because what they’re doing when they’re walking is different than what they’re doing when they’re running. What their brain is telling them is safe when they’re walking, different than what their brain is telling is safe when they’re running.
If you can walk barefoot in your house, then you’re not going to have a problem in a pair of shoes like Xero shoes. It’s not going to give you achilles tendonitis because there’s some magical, horrible thing that we are doing. Again, it’s coming from the thing that you’ve gotten used to that’s telling your brain and body or where your brain and body have learned, “Oh, don’t go there.
And if you go there too quickly, that’s going to be a problem.” So step number one, just walk. Another advantage, a reason for just walking in our shoes and running in whatever the hell you want to, there’s research that shows that just walking in shoes like Xero shoes builds foot muscle strength as much as doing a foot exercise program.
The lead of that study, Sarah Ridge, says that Xero shoes give you the same benefits I just described, even though she used a different shoe in this study. Now there’s always, well, let me ask this question, is weaker ever better than stronger? Good answer, no. And so strength is always better.
In fact, research from Dr. Isabel Sacco shows that runners who did an eight week foot strengthening program and then ran in regular shoes had 250% fewer injuries than runners who didn’t do the strengthening program. And that strengthening program, same thing that Dr. Sarah Ridge was using to compare people to the exercise program to just walk in minimalist shoes.
Now there isn’t a study yet showing that you can just walk in minimalist shoes, like Xero shoes, build strength, and that will help reduce your risk of running injuries when you’re running in whatever the hell you else you want to run in. But kind of do the math. If you walk in minimalist shoes, that builds foot strength as much as doing a foot exercise program.
That foot exercise program reduce the risk of running injuries by 250% and the people who did that over the course of the year-long study that Dr. Sacco performed. So if that makes sense to you, knock yourself out, not making any promises. So thing number one, walk, build up that strength. Thing number two, is do some things that allow your achilles to stretch maybe differently than in running. Try jumping rope a little or just if you don’t have a rope, just pretend you’re jumping rope.
See what that does. Try and do a little bit of stretching. And the whole idea with stretching is not to get to the point of it being where you’re really trying to literally stretch the muscles or ligaments and tendons. Just use that little bit of stretch to see if you actually can move in a way that your brain is telling you maybe you shouldn’t. In other words, use the stretch as just a barometer for what seems possible.
And then sort of last but not least, don’t do too much too soon. Now when I say that, I know that I’m being glib because you can’t know you did too much too soon until you do too much too soon. But what I really mean to say is that if you want to try a minimalist shoe, make the transition really nice and slow.
Go for a, other than walking, if you’re going to run, go for a really short run, 20 seconds, 30 seconds tops. See how you feel the next day. If you feel like you maybe used things that you hadn’t used before, if you’re feeling a little tension in your calf or your achilles, that’s okay.
Just rest and relax until you feel a little better. Then try it again that same 20 or 30 seconds. And in the meantime, do some walking and see what’s going on. See if you can feel that stretch. See, in fact, if you can actually stretch beyond where, beyond what barefoot is, if you can get your toes closer to your knees than they are when you’re in bare feet and that’s not a problem, and I only means a tiny little bit, then your calves and achilles have enough stretch and strength to do some running.
So you just want to make the transition slowly and get used to it. It’s not about building up strength, which will happen, as much as it’s about getting used to a new movement pattern and your brain discovering that you can handle that enjoyably, effectively and efficiently. So 22nd run, see you feel the next day. If you feel a little sore, again, rest till you feel better.
Do that 20 seconds till you can do that fine. Then add 10 seconds and then add 10 seconds after that once you can do that 30 seconds fine. And just try to build up that way. It’s like going to the gym. If you haven’t gone to the gym in ages, you don’t walk back in and just do whatever your workout was before. You don’t do eight hours of bicep curls.
You go to the gym, you do a little bit, then you wait till you feel better, then you add a little bit more, add a set, add a rep, add a little bit of weight, whichever makes sense. You want to do the same thing here. You’re titrating. You’re just doing adding little bits until you get the right response. So add 10 seconds, add 10 seconds, add 10 seconds so you’re having a good time.
If it feels like you actually hurt something, then on that first 22nd run, I’m going to suggest that it’s not again. Well, first of all, it’s not caused by something that’s just letting your feet do what’s natural. It could be caused by the fact that you haven’t been letting your feet do what’s natural and now you’re just, that’s creating some strain.
In other words, these modern athletics shoes, the things for the last 50 years, they’re the thing that set you up for a problem. It’s an important way to reframe that. By the way, if you look at the first Nike Waffle Trainer, it looked a lot like Xero shoes. Just had a little bit of cushioning in the middle, about a 10 millimeters to about 10 millimeters worth of foam. Otherwise, it looked a lot like this.
Didn’t have the wide toe box that let your toes spread and relax, but it was really a minimalist shoe if you look at it Anyway, there was a point that I was making there, go slow. Oh, if it feels like you actually got injured, injured, obviously you want to rest. And I’m going to suggest that it’s form related.
In fact, I was at a panel discussion 13 years ago where someone said to me, “You barefoot guys say that if anyone gets injured running barefoot, it’s because they had the wrong form.” And I went, “Yeah.” Now you can’t prevent all injuries, things happen.
Bodies work strangely. There’s neurological stuff that can not fire properly. I have a compromised spine for anyone who cares. I have a grade 2 L5 S1 Spondylolisthesis with a pars defect. In other words, I’ve got some neurological things going on in the base of my spine. And I did something a couple weeks ago where I stepped in some weird way.
It clearly twisted my spine a little bit, put pressure on my sciatic nerve, my sciatic nerve seized up, which made my muscle seize up. And it took me a couple weeks just to be able to move again, because everything contracted so much, spasm so quickly that it put some strain on the muscles. Took a little while to fix that. But that’s neither here nor there. It was a form related issue actually is what caused that or form related, because I have a screwy bit of bone and ligament and tendon and nerve.
So point being, if it feels like you injured something, I am going to suggest it was probably form related. What that means is when you go out and try again, you want to make sure that you’re landing with your feet underneath you, you are probably picking up your cadence, your steps per minute without running faster. So more steps, same amount of speed. And you want to think about lifting your foot off the ground rather than pushing off the ground.
You want to think about, here’s some cues to use. Imagine Fred Flintstone starting his car. His feet are behind him, just kind of rotating on a wheel behind him, and then they eventually catch, they don’t even catch up. So that’s another good thing to think about. If you want other suggestions about what you can do to improve your running form and be a happy, healthier runner.
I’m holding up the book, Born To Run 2. If you know the book, Born To Run from Chris McDougall, which really catalyzed this whole natural MOVEMENT Movement, it’s the story of the Tarahumara Indians and the first, the Leadville 100, the highest ultra-marathon in the world, but then also the first race they did with the Tarahumara in the Copper Canyon. And there’s also a bunch of science thrown in there as well to understand the difference between wearing shoes and natural movement.
It’s great. Well, Born To Run 2: The Ultimate Training Guide picks up where Born To Run left off. Now Chris has co-authored this with his running coach, Eric Orton. They have written a beautiful, beautiful book about not only about running, just being a happier, healthier human being. And there, almost every chapter has an exercise for you to do. There’s an app that goes along with the book that shows you the exercises you can do.
There are a number of wonderful things in here that could help you develop that form, that will help you be a happier, healthier runner as well. So I hope that gives you at least something to think about, if not something to try when it comes to making the transition from a big, thick, elevated heel shoe and what that may have done to your brain and body and moving to a natural shoe. There’s no reason why most people can’t do what’s natural.
If you can walk barefoot, you can eventually learn to run barefoot too. And even if you’re not going to become a runner, you just want to have that flexibility, that quiver, that arrow in your quiver, that arrow in your movement quiver, there we go, about natural movement. So again, I hope that’s useful. I’m dying to hear your comments, leave them in the various places you can, and I will respond to them as well.
So that’s my little rant for today. Thanks for being part of The MOVEMENT Movement. Again, I do these rants sometimes, but mostly we have conversations with very interesting people about health and wellness. So you can find out more at www.jointhemovementmovement.com. Remember, leave a review, give us a thumbs up, hit five stars wherever you can do that.
Hit the bell icon to hear more about this. Subscribe on our website so you can get alerted when there’s new episodes. And if you have any recommendations, anyone you think I should chat with or anything you want me to talk about or questions you want me to answer, drop me an email, Move, M-O-V-E @jointhemovementmovement.com and I will get back to you with those or I’ll post those answers. And but most importantly, just please go out, have fun and live life feet first.
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