Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Steven Sashen on the Truth About Minimalist and Fancy Sports Footwear

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

What’s the deal with athletic footwear? On the one hand, you have fancy, expensive running and sports shoes coming out every couple of months claiming some new technological “breakthrough” for more comfort, safety, and even performance. And then you have the crowd that dismisses those products as pure marketing puffery and that swears by minimalist shoes for all athletics or even none at all. What are we supposed to make of this? I’m no expert when it comes to running or the best footwear for healthy feet, so I invited someone onto the podcast who is. Specifically, my guest is Steven Sashen, who’s a Masters All-American sprinter—meaning he’s one of the fastest men over the age of 50 in the US—as well as the founder of Xero Shoes, a brand dedicated to designing thin and flexible shoes for walking, running, and all other athletic activities. In this episode, we chat about . . . The truth behind the “Big Shoe” marketing machine Why more padded shoes can be worse for your joints How to pick a good training shoe What people with flat feet should do The benefits of strengthening your feet with "natural movement" How to transition to minimalist shoes And more . . . So, if you want to learn about how to build stronger, healthier feet, listen to this episode! 4:31 - Is it better to run barefoot or with shoes? 11:26 - Are padded shoes worse for you than running barefoot? 13:12 - What is the proper method of running? 17:35 - Why is it hard to run properly with a fancy pair of running shoes? 29:33 - What about people with flat feet? 30:35 - What are some other benefits of strengthening your feet? 39:32 - Are there any tips for transitioning from fancier shoes to a more minimalist approach? Mentioned on The Show: Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/ https://xeroshoes.com/ https://www.instagram.com/xeroshoes/ Steven's Podcast - The MOVEMENT Movement: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-movement-movement/id1456342261 Want free workout and meal plans? Download my science-based diet and training templates for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/text-sign-up/

Howdy, folks. Welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. I'm your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. Now, what is the deal with athletic footwear? Because on the one hand, you have fancy, expensive running shoes and sports shoes coming out every couple of months, often claiming some new technological breakthrough that makes them more comfortable or safer, or that even is going to improve your performance. And then on the other hand, you have the crowd of people that dismiss all of those products as just pure marketing puffery and that swears by minimalist shoes for all athletics or even none at all, barefoot. What are we supposed to make of this? Well, I am no expert when it comes to running because quite frankly, I don't like to run. And so I

haven't looked much into the footwear space and certainly not footwear for healthy feet. And so I wanted to get somebody on the show who knows a lot about this stuff. And that is Steven Sashen, who is a master's all-American sprinter, which means that he is one of the fastest men in the United States over the age of 50. And he is also the founder of Zero Shoes, which is a company dedicated to designing thin and flexible shoes for walking, running, and all other athletic activities, which of course already tells you what his position is. He is all for

minimalist shoes or even no shoes at all. But I think that he does a good job explaining why. And I found this interview enlightening. And so I'm sharing it with you. And in this chat, we talk about the truth behind the big shoe marketing machine and the need to always come out with new. New is one of the best words in marketing. New and free, the two best words in marketing. And Steven explains why more padding in your shoes can actually be worse for your joints. And there's research that shows that. And he talks about how to pick a good training shoe and also talks about people with flat feet in particular, what they should do. That is something I have been asked about at least a handful of times over the last several years. And Stephen talks about the benefits of strengthening your feet with natural movement and more. Also, if you like what I'm

doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one best-selling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever, and you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores. And I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an

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and The Shredded Chef for my favorite fitness-friendly recipes. Steven, here we are, man. So happy to finally do this. We've been trying to make this happen for a while. Yeah, and we already ate up half of our time talking about other stuff, but we still have enough time. We can do it. We can do it. Good, good, good, good. So let's just get right into it. Let's talk about running and whether it should be, and I guess this would be maybe just exercising in general. It doesn't have to be running per se. And you have two major schools of thought here that I want you to talk about, and that is barefoot or as close to barefoot as

you can get versus fancier footwear. And I don't have too much context to provide the listener here because I've never been into running. I just know that running shoes, for example, they have a lot of marketing claims. And whenever I see that and I see the marketing claims evolving and the quote unquote technology evolving over time with something as simple as a shoe, red flags go up for me. I can liken it to golf where I see these ads for the next generation driver with patented mega core flex technology. And I'm like, yeah, sure. Whatever. This is probably essentially like you probably have an actual technological breakthrough once every decade, maybe where something that really actually might add 10 yards to your drive. And that's me being cynical. I might

be wrong, but when I see shoe advertising, the same cynic comes out and says, yeah, sure, whatever, dude. It's probably no different. Essentially, fundamentally, that new fancy pair of shoes is going to work just as well as the shoes that they were making 15 years ago. Well, it's so interesting that you frame it that way. Again, you throw in a lot to unpack all at one time. So first of all, you're totally right. Let's start there. Secondly- Of course, of course, natural. Well, I mean, that's just a given. I mean, it's my podcast after all, so.

Yeah, exactly. And I'll try and kiss your butt even more during the rest of it. Perfect. The thing that's interesting when you say you see these claims and it raises a red flag for you, that makes you unusual. Because when it comes to footwear, it's a lot like the boy who cried wolf, except in that story, the villagers eventually get smart and they stop running. But what's happened in footwear in the last 50 years, not 15, is that every new evolution of footwear has been the exact same story. Some form of cushioning, basically.

Some form of controlling your motion. And it's just a new thing. Every couple of years, some company has something. The rest of the companies then jump on the bandwagon because they're afraid that they're going to miss out and never make any money again. And there's never been any proof at all that stuff provides benefit. Let me just say that again, never any proof. Injury rate for runners and marathoners since the advent of the modern running shoe hasn't changed, hasn't gotten any better. And there's some crazy, crazy things if you start to look at it. And actually, I want to back up a little bit and say, I'm not going to try and talk

anyone out of the shoes they're wearing. I'm not going to try and talk you into running barefoot and looking like a hippie like I do, even though I'm not a hippie. Do you run actually barefoot, just straight up barefoot? So I'm a master's all-American sprinter. So I'm one of the fastest guys over 55 in the country. And when I'm doing my training, I will do all of my warmups and drills barefoot or in one of our sandals, depending on how hot the grass is. And then when it comes to actually being on the track, I'm in one of our shoes because the way a track is designed is designed for running shoes. And if you're running it, you know, I hit about 23 miles an hour at top speed. I mean, I would just rip the skin off my feet at that point.

But the shoes that I'm wearing are a whole different game. So the thing that's most interesting to me is what does it mean to have healthy, happy, strong feet? Those things are your foundation. They're responsible for moving you around. They're responsible for balance and agility and mobility. And like a house, if you have a bad foundation, all hell breaks loose further upstream. If you don't let your feet bend and move and flex and feel, all of that function

tries on successfully to move into your ankle, your knee, your hip, and your back. Now, and I'm also not going to make any medical claims, not because we don't have thousands of people who've said, oh my God, these shoes have changed my life and here's how, but because we don't have science backing up this fundamental idea that using your body is better than not using your body. And that's because the research isn't there, right? It's not- Well, the research isn't there because the companies that would benefit from doing that research are companies like mine who don't have billions of dollars to spend on this research. Oh, you'll love this. And to your point, actually, the first point you made,

the American College of Sports Medicine has a white paper about selecting a good running shoe. And the first thing they say is the purpose of a shoe is to provide some protection for your foot and hold that onto your foot. That's it. And if you look at footwear up until the seventies, that's all it did. It was a lot, actually a lot more like ours than anything that's come out ever since. And so that's the fundamental goal is just providing a little protection. And, oh, there was something else that you said that, um, wait, what'd you just ask me? I totally, I lost it. Oh, just, I just wanted to start the discussion at this, this jumping off point of you have fancy shoes that have the features, you know what I mean?

And supposed benefits versus a more minimalist shoe also is going to be more minimalist in terms of the advertising, right? It's going to be almost the polar opposite in some ways. And you see that. And I'm sure as a consumer, it might be a little bit confusing. If I wanted to get into running, it would be a little bit confusing for me. I would have to, because I don't know anything about it. First, I would go to the scientific literature and I'd be like, okay, is there any research on the effectiveness of one type of shoe or another? I'd be like, okay, it doesn't look like there's anything too useful here. Oh no, there is. See, this is what's so interesting. There is. But what many people will say is there's a controversy about minimalist or barefoot running in regular shoes. And I say, there's actually not. If you look at the research, it's really unequivocal that modern footwear,

modern athletic footwear, it doesn't matter if you're running, walking, or hiking, doesn't provide the benefits they claim. So as an example, research from Christine Pollard at OSU, she was really curious about the new shoes that were coming out with more and more padding. And of course, their claims are that these produce impact forces and therefore injuries. So she looked, she did the research. So they're going to say what, like it's better for your joints, for example. Yeah. And the research is unequivocal that when you have more padding, you actually put more force in the ground, or at least the same amount, if not more force in the ground. And it goes into your joints instead of using your muscles and ligaments and tendons as the natural springs and shock absorbers they're meant to be.

And she was shocked by this. And other people have reproduced this study. I mean, when you explain it, the mechanism makes sense. But yeah, I could see how that'd be surprising because it runs completely contrary to all of the marketing of these shoes. Or it like, oh wait, this is all fake? Well, you said it perfectly. It runs contrary to the marketing, not to the reality. It's like the supplement space, very similar. It's very similar. If you say to people, the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico, they run in just

sandals made out of scraps of tire strapped to their feet. And there's similar shoes from tribes in Africa and indigenous tribes all around the world. And people will say, yeah, but they were born that way. I can't run that way. And then you say, okay, well, what about the shoes that you just bought? Why'd you buy those? Oh, well, this guy who just won a marathon raced in those and he won. So clearly these shoes are better. It's like, yeah, but that guy is 105 pound Kenyan who grew up wearing no shoes. So on the one hand, you're saying you can't wear what the Tarahumara wear because you didn't grow up that way. But then you're saying you can wear what this 105-pound Kenyan who runs a marathon in slightly over two hours wears, even though you're never even going to run.

Well, what about maybe the point of saying, well, just because that's what they do doesn't mean it's optimal. It just means they have no other choice. Yeah, except for the fact that the research actually shows that it's optimal. So let's get into that then. Can you explain that? So you mentioned that with these more padded, these more cushioned shoes, it actually is rougher on your joints. That's one point. I'm sure there are others. And let's say why. There's two reasons why. One, again, you have more nerve endings in the soles of your feet than

anywhere but your fingertips and your lips, and your feet have more bones and joints than any feet and ankles. Well, a quarter of the bones and joints of your whole body are in your feet and ankles. So clearly you're supposed to use those things at the end of your legs. And they're supposed to bend and flex and move and feel. So when you put on a big padded shoe, if you, I'm going to tell you the story of how that happened to which you'll love if you put on a shoe with an elevated heel then it's really hard to run with a natural gait because the heel just gets in the way frankly when you heel strike and land with your foot too far in front of your body you're basically putting the brakes on every time you land you're decelerating every time you land

and they have to re-accelerate but when when you're in that decelerating moment, what's happening is your leg is relatively or totally straight. And so you're sending a spike of force. Daniel Lieberman, a doctor at Harvard, calls it an impact transient force spike. You're sending a spike of force that goes straight up through your joints, through your ankle, your knee, your hip, and your back. When you're running more naturally, which is hard to do in footwear where you can't feel the ground at all. You're going to land with your knee, with your foot closer to your body, your knee bent at a different angle. You're going to be using those springs and shock absorbers built into your body. And you're not putting force in your body at the same speed and through your joints in the same way, kind of bypass.

I have a big chunk of meniscus that's missing from my right knee because it was removed by a doctor, not because it just magically disappeared. And I couldn't run in regular shoes. I was getting too much knee pain. Once I got out of those shoes, I wasn't putting force into my knees. Everything's been fine ever since. Again, master's all American at 58. And what is that proper method of running? Again, it's not about, I want to be clear. It's not about the footwear. It's about the form. Sure. So what the research shows is that the most, the way of applying the least force into your body and being able to run happily, which like the Tarahumara do until they're in their seventies and eighties, they run hundreds of miles at a time. Sometimes days and days of running, they have games where

they run for hundreds of miles. You're going to end up landing with your foot closer to your center of mass, more underneath your body. You're going to be landing on your forefoot or the ball of your foot, but then not trying to stay there. You'll let your foot come down. Basically, your foot has three arches in it. And we know from architecture, an arch is the most stable structure you can make. If you want to break an arch, you quote, support it from the bottom. Same thing with your foot. The bones in your foot align properly when you're landing, when your toes are flexed back towards your knee, dorsiflexed, which puts some tension across the bottom of your foot. It's called the windlass mechanism. It aligns the bones in your medial arch, what most people think of as the arch of

their foot, to be a really strong and flexible and stable structure. And that also protects your ankle because you're not landing on your heel, which means your ankle is unstable, which leads to things like pronation and supination. So you've created a strong foundation. If you get your foot underneath your body, you basically can't land on your heel first. It's almost impossible. Unless you're just trying to stop. Yeah, yeah. Think about jumping rope. If you jump rope, you land on your toes or the ball of your feet and you can let your heel come down to the ground, but you're really getting the maximum value by landing on the

balls of your feet. You're using your Achilles tendon as this incredibly strong spring that's built into your body. And if I then said, all right, so when you're jumping rope, just do it by going like you're running a place one foot at a time instead of landing on two feet, and then just get rid of the rope and then lean forward slightly. And you're going to find that you're running in a way that feels pretty effortless and is using your body naturally. And that's the gist of it. Now, there's some other little subtle things that go in there too. Like you don't need to push off the ground. You want to think about lifting your foot off the ground. Like imagine that you're stepping on a bee and it stings you. You don't push off the ground. That would drive the stinger further into your foot. You lift your foot reflexively off the ground because you flex your hip. So you want that same kind of feeling.

flexibly off the ground because you flex your hip. So you want that same kind of feeling. And the last point, this is just for people getting started, is you want to probably pick up your cadence a little bit. So you're taking slightly more steps per minute without running faster. So you're traveling at the same speed, but more steps per minute. And the reason for that is that that's one cue that makes it easier and more natural to get your feet more underneath your body to almost imagine that you're lifting your foot off the ground before it even touches the ground. So you're not landing on the ground, you're kind of passing over the ground. But the gist is that the primary thing is not reaching out and putting on the brakes every time you land. Makes sense. So it's almost like you think of running in place. And then if you were to do that

and then start leaning yourself forward and start moving forward, but it'd be more akin to running in place with your, your knees just moving straight up and down your feet coming straight up and down. It's a little different than that because as you are traveling across the ground, you know, the amount of time that your feet are on the ground, your leg does swing through, there is a swing phase, but it's more like, that's just the intention to get the flavor of the difference between. So it's like a cue, similar to weightlifting, you have useful cues. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And there's one other part that's relevant for you and let's say your audience.

And that is people say, well, how do I start? And I go, really, really slow, like really small, like a 20 second run. See how you feel the next day. If you're sore, wait till you're not, then repeat. When you can do that comfortably, then add 10 seconds. If you feel like you hurt something, the key is do something different until you're having fun. And I say to people all the time, the reason you want to do a really, really, really short run is this. If I asked you to go to the gym, you wouldn't do bicep curls nonstop for an hour. Why would you make your first run an hour,

which is equivalent to doing bicep curls for an hour? You do a set, you go home, you rest, you recover, you get stronger. The learning and the recovery happens during the resting phase between bouts of exertion. And it's no different for running than it is for lifting weights and getting stronger. Yep. That makes sense. Now you had mentioned this earlier, but I think it's worth briefly just getting into the details as to why. Why exactly is it hard? And I'm actually genuinely asking, this isn't a rhetorical question. I don't know the answer because I never, I never was much into running, never got into running as cardio, never liked it. And as far as sports go, I played a lot of hockey growing up, but that wasn't running. And so why is it

hard to run properly with a fancy pair of running shoes. Well, by the way, there's been research on whether more expensive shoes do in fact reduce injury and improve performance. And the research, again, unequivocal that it does not. There's a guy named Dr. Phil Maffetone, who back in the 80s was saying, just go to Walmart and get the cheapest pair of shoes you can find because they're going to be better for letting your feet do what's natural. And because they're going to have less, that's why they're cheaper. So we'll get to the specifics in a sec. But I said to Phil, when we became friends after I started Zero Shoes, I said, do you feel vindicated or kind

of upset that it took so long for people to catch up? He goes, eh, a little bit of both. So if you think about the modern athletic shoe, and I'm going to tell you where this design came from, it'll blow your mind. First of all, you look at the shape of the toe box in a modern athletic shoe, and then look at the shape of your foot. Modern athletic shoes are pointy. Your feet are not. There's research that shows if you just squeeze your toes together, it cuts off circulation in the bottom of your foot. That can't be good. Secondly, they tend to elevate your heel, which messes with your posture because it offsets your balance. That's not good. Third, there's enough cushioning that you don't feel the ground. And again, if you're not getting sensations into your feet that go to your brain to tell your whole body how to work properly

That's not good. You want to hear something crazy I just got on the phone with a guy who's a professional race car driver And he's been wearing our shoes saying this is so important because we need to feel the feedback from the pedals And without that you're driving blind and these shoes are amazing for that. So same idea. Then the last thing, maybe not the last thing, is that one is you want something super flexible because your feet are flexible. If your foot can't bend correctly and move correctly, that windlass mechanism that I talked about doesn't get activated properly, so that's a problem. Oh, arch support. This is another issue. You don't need arch support.

Your arches are strong enough if you let them be strong enough. Think about supporting any joint. You put your elbow in a cast because you broke your arm. It doesn't come out stronger. It comes out weaker. Same thing with your foot. There's research that shows that if you took healthy athletes and put arch support in their shoes, within 12 weeks, they've lost up to 10% of the muscle mass in their feet. Conversely, there's research showing that if you just walk in a pair of shoes like ours, the research wasn't done with our shoes, but it's like ours, then you're building foot strength. You can build foot strength as if you're doing an actual foot exercise strengthening program. So the modern shoe basically just doesn't let your feet do any of the things that your feet is designed to do. And then there's one other part,

which is the whole idea of cushioning and motion control, like pronation control. First, no evidence that pronating is a problem. None. Made up by footwear companies to sell their technology. Can you just explain quickly what that is for anybody not familiar with the term? Oh, pronation is basically if you put your foot on the ground and the inside of your ankle starts getting closer to the ground, essentially. I mean, that's an easy way of thinking of it. Technically, it's when your foot is, it's not averting. It's hard to describe this without showing you. If I did a hand motion, you'd see it. I mean, you could kind of just think of it as tilting inward maybe as a way to think about it. That's part of the spring mechanism of your

lower leg. Now, if your ankles are weak because you haven't used them, it could be a problem, but it's fundamentally, that's the way we're built. And you look at a lot of world champion marathoners, they pronate more than anybody who has ever been to a running shoe store saying that they have pronation problems. When a human being who weighs like 150 pounds hits the ground running, you hit with between three and five times your body weight. So let's just call it 500 pounds worth of force. There's no amount of little bit of cushioning that can handle 500 pounds of force on a regular basis. The cushioning in shoes, in addition to making it so you can't feel anything, so your numb feet become dumb feet, it also starts to break down really fast. And when it breaks down, it puts you in bad biomechanical positions. I was at the airport and there's a guy in front of me on the

walkway who had been wearing big padded shoes and he'd been wearing them. And it got to the point where his feet were so tilted inward, it looked like the padding on the shoes was like a wedge pointing inwards. Like if you put two shoes together, it was a V from the top. And I took a video of this, and this will tell you about the difference between different social media platforms. I posted this video. It's from the guy, like the knees down. And on Facebook, everyone's going, oh my God, that's horrible. Those shoes are going to kill you. And on Instagram, people were going, oh, you're body shaming. Stop body shaming people. It's like, body shaming from the knees down. No, no, no. I'm shoe shaming. That's the thing. Maybe that outrages the cancel mob as well, but let's at least be accurate in the charge.

Your honor. I was shoe shaming. I stand by that. Now, I got to tell you this one thing. I've hinted at it twice about why modern athletic shoes look the way they do. And hopefully, and this really sums up everything you've said, that it's all been about marketing. And by the way, I was on a panel discussion at the American College of Sports Medicine, and a guy from one of the major shoe companies, for all practical purposes, confessed that every new shoe design they do is all based on marketing. But if they could, he didn't say this, this is my snarky comment back in my own head, was if they could tell you that you needed a shoe for walking into the bathroom and a different shoe for walking out of the bathroom because you weigh less and

your weight's distributed differently, they would do that. One of these companies actually did try to market a shoe that women were supposed to wear when they were on their period because they were somehow moving different. It was just unbelievable. But anyway, so way back when, no, it's crazy. Way back when, Nike was sharing a building with some, I think they were orthopedic podiatrists. They might've been sports podiatrists, so don't hold me to it. And Bill Barrowman from Nike says, we got these new runners who are coming. And by the way, the original Nike shoe, a lot more like ours, still pointy toes and not quite as flexible, but relatively flat and very little padding. And Bowerman says, we're getting a bunch of runners who are getting Achilles tendonitis. What do you think we should do? And these podiatrists said, well, clearly their

Achilles have shortened from wearing higher heel dress shoes. So make a higher heel running shoe by putting some padding, like a wedge of padding in the shoe. So I'm going to cut to the end of the story. 30 something years later, one of these podiatrists is at a track meet with a friend of mine, a guy who had been at a track meet with a friend of mine, a guy who had been at Nike working directly with Bowerman for years. My friend said, so what do you think about the fact that your idea of a padded elevated heel motion control shoe has become the ubiquitous design every modern athletic shoe uses? His answer was, biggest mistake we ever made.

It's like, what? He said, well, we were making a lot of prosthetics and orthotics. So we saw everything through that lens immediately. But this whole theory- The old hammer and nail. If all you have is a hammer, everything's a nail. So this idea that people's Achilles had been shortened, we didn't see any evidence for that. We made that up. This idea that here's what you need to do, made it up. And the reason that it has become ubiquitous is not because of the proof that it's demonstrating value, but because the footwear industry is a bunch of terrified copycats where if someone again starts to make a shoe in some new design and it seems to sell well,

typically because somebody won a race wearing it, not because they've proven that it's good. Or let's just remember that new is one of the most powerful words in marketing, like new and free. Those are probably the two biggest people love new. You and I love new just as much as anybody else. Whatever we like, we like new. One of the most successful shoes in history was the Nike free. Now the joke is that they designed that shoe because they went and saw the Stanford track team working out and saw they were doing a lot of barefoot training to strengthen their feet and ankles. There's a brilliant quote on an episode of Real Sports with Brian Gumbel, this is from like 10 years ago, where some guys from Nike said, this is the closest to barefoot

that we can make. Now, not technically, practically, they could have made something that was closer to barefoot than that shoe, which is nothing like barefoot, but the sole was more flexible. So that was kind of amazing, but that's it. But otherwise it's a big, thick, padded motion control shoe. But I loved it. They said something like that we can make or that our brand can do. And they recognized that they could have done much more, but they didn't. This copycat phenomenon. In fact, there was one of the best running coaches in history, a guy named Arthur Lyddiard, who had more Olympians and world champions than he was coaching from New Zealand, which is a tiny little country. Lyddiard said to Bowerman, and Lyddiard, by the way, made shoes for his athletes,

and they looked a lot like ours. And Lyddiard said to Bowerman, these shoes are going to kill people. And Bowerman's response was, yeah, but we're selling a ton of them. Yeah, that's capitalism right there. I never heard that. I like that. Well, I mean, it's just, of course, just all of us people who live on earth, just remember that many, many companies, and I'll say companies, not necessarily corporations, because this isn't just the Fortune 100, 500, many, many companies are really just in the business of making a profit. And the ethics are barely even considered. I mean, there are many people that are not like that. So I'm not going to say,

of course, that's what drives the entire economy. No, but- Given the choice. Yeah. Many, many people are willing to cut many corners if they can make many shiny shekels. And so you have to beware. Beware as a consumer. Well, and there's two things. One, we had a friend, a potential investor who reached out to the CEO of a multi-billion dollar footwear company and said, so what do you think about what Zero Shoes is doing? And his answer was, what they're doing is legit, but we can't do it because it would be admitting that what we've been doing for 50 years is crap. And he's almost said the same

thing to me privately as well. So there's that component. So a lot of these big companies know they're not providing benefits. Oh my God, wait, check this one out. So I don't want to single out Nike, but I will for the next example. They have a new shoe that their advertising is designed to reduce injuries. And they have a study that they say is an independent study. And it was done not by Nike, it was done by another lab, but they designed the study and they paid for the study. Now, I'm not saying that means it's tainted, but just for the complete picture. The study did in fact show that the new shoe reduced injury compared to the other shoe, the control by 50%. Now, here's the important thing that was really hard to find. I actually had to find the researcher and ask for the information that

wasn't being published. The other shoe was a Nike shoe. In fact, it was their best-selling motion-controlled shoe. Sorry, I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head. was a Nike shoe. In fact, it was their best-selling motion-controlled shoe. Sorry, I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head. And during the 12-week study, they called it an injury if you had to take three training days off. So what that really means is like a 10 or 11-week study, because that last week, if you were injured, you weren't going to do that last week. So in the 10 to 11 weeks, in the best-selling motion-controlled shoe that they have, the best-selling running shoe, over 30% of the people got injured. I'm surprised. Why didn't they just pay for fake research? It's not hard to do,

especially when you're Nike. If you're going to misrepresent the research and lie, you might as well do it right. Right. Well, so then the new shoe, only 14.5% got injured. Now, let's take this out of context to make the point. This is like asking somebody, we can go out for dinner tonight. We have a choice of two restaurants, one where they promise that you're going to get food poisoning, one out of seven meals and the other where you get it one out of three meals, which do you want to go to? Do you still beat your wife? One of those types of scenarios. Exactly. When did you stop making out with your sister? It's the same thing. So it really is

incredible. And to your point, you've made a couple of times, again, this isn't about running. This is about letting your body do what bodies are built to do, what your body is designed to do, whether you're walking or running or hiking or lifting. We've got a bunch of power lifters who are wearing our shoes. They go, these are like the old Chuck Taylors we used to lift in, except that I can spread my toes so I can actually grab the ground and feel more stable. And I'm feeling the ground because they're not so thick and they don't weigh anything. Yeah, perfect. Again, race car drivers. We're a partner for the US Olympic women's artistic swimming team, formerly known as Synchronized Swimming. And people would say, well, they don't wear shoes in the water. And those people are correct, but they do wear stuff getting to and from the pool when they're on the podium. And they like

the idea that by letting their feet do what's natural, it's helping them stay strong and healthy, which we would argue is true. And we've got some other Olympic sports that are coming and joining us as well for the same reason. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one bestselling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. And so what about people with flat feet though, people who currently wear orthotics? Love it. So I am one of those guys who had lifelong family joke level flat feet. You get

out of a swimming pool and your footprint looks like an oval. And so flat feet and high arches, it's really the same point. And that is arch height is predominantly genetic. The secondary contribution is strength. And so flat feeted people tend to have slightly weaker feet. And again, if you're not using your feet naturally, if you're not using your arches, that will make them weaker, just like putting your arm in a cast. And people with higher arches tend to have hypertonic feet. They tend to have overly strong tendons and muscles, and they just need to do a little bit of mobilization or massage sometimes. But the key thing is not whether your arches are high or low, it's are they flexible and strong?

And the only way they're going to stay or get flexible and strong is by using them. And the only way they're going to stay or be or get flexible and strong is by using them. say upstream benefits of strengthening your feet, because I know there are some non-obvious benefits that can come from that, that you wouldn't necessarily expect if you don't know the anatomy and the physiology of what's in play here. Because let's say you have people like me, I mean, wearing shoes that have essentially weakened my feet for a long time. What are some of the other benefits? Like, okay, I have stronger feet now. Cool. What else is that going to do for me? Well, there's more to having healthy feet than just strength. There's flexibility. There's the amount of sensation you have. There's how well you react to things. So when I started basically going barefoot most of the time, this is 12, 13 years ago, things that I couldn't walk on then because they were painful now are not a problem. And it's

not because I've become desensitized, but my foot has become more flexible and I'm walking differently. So I'm not just slamming my foot on the ground and crossing my fingers that I haven't done something stupid. My foot kind of gets placed in a way that I'm getting more feedback, more information more quickly. And I don't have any way to prove this, but it feels like my reflex arc has improved also. So if something is unpleasant, I step off it more quickly. That just hasn't been a problem. I've gotten two injuries in the 13 or so years that I've been mostly barefoot or in shoes like ours. And that is I stubbed my toe twice, once about three years ago and once about a month ago. It's been horrible. I had to wear a

bandaid for a day. Unbelievable. It does hurt. It does. Stubbing your toe hurts. So one of the benefits I want to talk about has to do with balance. And again, there's not a lot of published research on this. This is something people are starting to explore a lot more lately. And it's near and dear to my heart because especially as people get older, balance for the elderly is a really big deal. My dad is one of those guys who one day tripped, fell down, broke his hip and was dead two weeks later. And this is a really important thing. Every couple of years, somebody will do some research where they show that they can improve balance in the elderly or balance in people who have Parkinson's or mobility for the elderly or people with some sort of disease or illness by having some kind

of vibrator that attaches to the foot or ankle. And I wrote a blog post about this like nine years ago. I said, you don't need a magic vibrating insole. Just go for a walk outside, take off your shoes and just go for a walk outside. And we got a letter. But where's the money in that, man? No, actually there kind of is, but I'll talk about that in a bit. We got a letter from a guy who was 82 years old. He said, I was looking for the magic vibrating insoles and couldn't find them, but I found your blog post and I decided to put your theory to the test. And that was two weeks ago. And I just threw away my Walker. Now, again, I'm not, I can't make a medical claim. I'm just reporting one anecdotal incident. But if you think about it, this is like, what we're trying to do is help people rediscover that natural movement is as

healthy, good for you, the obvious, better choice, the way natural food is. And so if you think about your whole body, there's some people who are into reflexology. If you're not stimulating your foot, you're not stimulating all those meridians and all those things. I'm not saying I do or don't believe in that. I'm just saying some people do. And so the benefits of having a strong, healthy, flexible, responsive foundation affect everything you do. I mean, that's the bottom line. And for example, in the gym, I know that, oh, who is it? I think Chris Duffin has spoken about this. I had him on the show some time ago to talk about a book they had coming out, and he had mentioned that the foot is an area of passion of his as well. And he's like a super

strong guy, set squat records, I think, and deadlift records and whatever. And he has talked about how similar, along similar lines of what you're saying about how that can impact performance and safety and how it can impact your joints, for example, your knees. You've talked a little bit about this with running,

which I'm sure when you explained it, many people were like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But it also can affect your weightlifting as well. And it can change how you're squatting and you're deadlifting, for example, affects your knees. Well, if you look at a lot of deadlifters, more than squatters, a lot of deadlifters, when they're pulling, they're in socks or in bare feet, or there'll be in a pair of Chuck Taylors, which are just flat. And the difference between Chuck Taylors and what we do with Xero Shoes is we've got a nice wide toe box.

And in fact, the number one thing, you talk about the benefits, the number one benefit, frankly, is just comfort. Is when your toes aren't getting squished, when your posture is not getting jacked around, when you can feel things and it feels like a foot massage rather than something numb or unpleasant, the comfort factors through the roof. But when it comes to lifting, especially for pulling and squatting, some of that's going to be basically about your physiometry. It's going to be about your femur length and how your hips work, et cetera. So for some squatters, like a squat shoe, they're very interesting because they're basically just a stiff wooden shoe.

So for all practical purposes, it's just the ground, but with a slightly elevated heel. Now, a lot of people who squat think they need that shoe that is providing some benefit. It's actually not the case. Depending on your physiology, it might be helpful because of how it aligns your joints. But there's a lot of guys who squat super, super big numbers who do it in bare feet or in socks because that allows everything to line up more naturally and better. So if you're going to be doing serious, serious lifting, especially competitive lifting, in the same way when you ride a bicycle competitively, you get it fit to your body, you want to adjust what you're doing with your feet to work with your body and the fact that

you've got 800 pounds on your back or you're pulling a thousand pounds. But for most people who are, let's say, let's call them for lack of a better term, recreational lifters. Lifestyle bodybuilders. I like that. I consider myself one of them. Oh, that's a great phrase. I like it.

Then in that situation and people who are not even into bodybuilding, but just lifting for health, the more you can, again, have that connection to the ground where you can engage your feet. You'll appreciate this. And I want you to talk about it. How for a good, especially competitive bench press, it starts with the feet. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you get that leg drive, right? So your feet screwed into the ground and you can transfer a bit of the force from just driving your feet into the ground and having that stable base through your torso and into the bar.

And that's one of those finer points of technique. I'm not going to make it or break it, but it does make a difference. Exactly. But once you have the basic movement down and that's kind of on automatic, then there are a few things you can tweak and that's one of them. Well, and I can tell you, we've heard from a bunch of power lifters who, when they say, that whole thing of screwing your feet into the ground, when I can spread my toes and then do that, it's even stronger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think of a, of a cue for squatting and deadlifting, which is a kind of think of your feet as like talons, like you're, like you're an Eagle kind of digging your feet into the ground. But to your point, if you have the wrong shoes,

you're not going to be able to even feel like you're doing that at all. You know, you, you do, you do need to have some connection to the ground or even I think with, with, uh, with the Olympic lifting shoes that I've used for some time when I squat, mostly because I like the stable base. I just feel very stable in them and that's about it, but they have that narrow toe. Right. And so you're not able to really accomplish that Eagle talon grip when your toes are all squished together. It's just kind of a big mash of toes that are just contracting against each other. Right. And to your point about feeling more stable, or let's say specific use case. It's really in the heel, you know,

because it has that wide heel base. Right. Well, again, if you were barefoot, you'd have the infinite wide heel base. You'd have your heel. For sure. For sure. Now, there's some people who say to me, yeah, but I like my shoes, or I feel good in my shoes for doing X, Y, or Z, and I'm going to go, cool, then keep doing that. But then there's times when you're out of those shoes where you might want to do something different. So here's a Facebook group called Running Shoe Geeks. And someone posted a picture of one of our trail running shoes and raved about how when he's running in these, how great he feels, et cetera, et cetera. And people just jumped on his case. It's like, if I wore shoes like that, I'd break my ankles. I mean, I'd get Ebola. I'd step on hypodermic

needles. My kids wouldn't get into college, whatever else wore shoes like that, I'd break my ankles. I mean, I'd get Ebola. I'd step on hypodermic needles. My kids wouldn't get into college, whatever else they were saying. And I jumped in finally and said, look, I'm not going to try and talk you out of your shoes when you're on a trail run. But when you're done with that run, if your feet are tired, you know the best thing you can do is active recovery. Let your feet recover by moving gently. And you can't do that in big, thick, stiff shoes that squeeze your toes together.

So you can do that in our sandals or in our shoes and just enjoy that. And of course, again, you know, the research showing that letting your feet work naturally can build strength. Tell me why stronger feet and ankles wouldn't be beneficial, even if you're wearing those shoes that I, you know, would obviously disapprove of. Again, I'm not trying to talk people out of something. I'm trying to give them the experience of something that could be helpful, regardless of whether they're making the transition to wearing something totally

minimalist or not. It's more persuasive that way. Well, it's just true. You can't argue someone out of a belief. What you can do is give them an experience that lets them go, oh, and that's what we're trying to do. Totally. All right. Last question. For people who want to try, it could be your shoes or shoes like yours, but want to go from the fancier shoes to something more minimalistic, are there any tips you have for making a transition?

Let's assume these are people who are running, for example, or they're not just gonna be walking around. I mean, I wear your shoes to the gym and I don't notice any difference, of course, from walking around. But if I were running a lot, if I were going from running shoes that have a lot of padding and support and control and whatever to something like yours, is there anything I should know? Yeah. Well, first let's start with the fact that when this whole idea of minimalist and barefoot kicked in, in 2010, 2011, A lot of the big shoe companies came up with what they call transition shoes.

They said, if you've been wearing something with a really high heel, go to something with a slightly lower heel, then slightly lower. Complete marketing nonsense. There was no evidence for it at all. In fact, research from Dr. Irene Davis at Harvard showed that those things are worse for you than anything you could wear because they have enough cushioning so you can't feel the ground properly when you're running or walking. So you can still have a bad gait, bad form, but you can't feel it. And with bad gait,

bad form, you need some kind of technology to help with that a little bit. And so without it, you're kind of screwed. So the answer for whether you're walking or running, it's the same for everybody, which is start super small, just get used to it. And the joke is you don't want to do too much too soon, but the real joke is you don't know you've done too much until you've done too much. So I like to say, if you're running, just do like 20 seconds. Is there anything to expect where it's like, oh, you might experience a bit more soreness of any kind or?

I like to say calf soreness or Achilles soreness is optional. And it's optional because if you start really small and if you pay attention to relaxing and proper form, you won't be putting excessive strain on those parts of your body. And there's tips that we have on our website about this, but the primary one is start super small. Like if somebody asked me how to start running barefoot, the instruction I give is find a nice, super smooth, hard surface. You don't want to use the grass. That's just like having the padding from your shoes in the ground. And besides, you can't see what's in the grass.

And you can step on or in a bunch of things that you don't want to step on or in. So smooth, hard surface. Go for a super short run, like 20 seconds. And if you're not having fun, do something different until you are. And what that means is that the next day, see if you feel a little muscular sore the way you do when you go to the gym and you add a couple of plates. If you feel a little muscular soreness, no big deal. Rest until you feel better. Do that 20 seconds again until you can do that without any soreness and it feels fun. And then add 10 seconds every time you can keep progressing that way.

Now, if it feels like you hurt something, then you definitely need to make some changes to your form. First of all, rest, get better. And then you need to make some changes to your form that are the ones that we talked about before. Get your feet underneath you, pick up your cadence just a little bit. People have heard, I've seen this happen a number of times. People hear you're supposed to land on the ball of your foot. So they still reach out with their foot way in front of them and then point their toes. It kind of looks like prancing. Don't do that. So one way of thinking about it again, think about jumping rope and then lean forward slightly, or just start leaning and then let your feet only keep you from falling on your face. Don't let them slow you down. That's another way to play. The simplest thing I can say is

start small. You can just start walking at first, build some strength that way until you kind of feel the urge. Like maybe I'll run for a couple of paces and see what happens. That could be a simple cardio session. Could be mostly walking with some running in it. Oh, you can totally do that. Or someone emailed me and said, should I do 20 seconds or two minutes of running and then switch shoes? And my answer is, no, just do the practice with minimalist footwear or barefoot separate

from your normal running days until you can feel confident enough that you can replace one of your running days with a minimalist or barefoot run and then slowly start adding more of that into your other days. Unfortunately, human beings like simple answers, but we're all unique little snowflakes. And so there's no fixed program that works for everybody. The biggest thing, and frankly, the best thing about this is you learn to listen to your body to get feedback from what you're doing about how you're moving and you become your own best coach. And that's a real value. We like to say that our shoes are a coach or our sandals too. If you're running and you're making a lot of noise, if you're hearing slap, slap, slap, that's a form issue. And if you can find a way to make that

quieter, you're going to be improving your form. If you're running totally barefoot, the reason we recommend that as often as we do is you get more feedback faster than anything else you could possibly do. And yes, you end up looking like a freaky hippie person, but you're also going to have fun. So do it when no one's looking, no one's going to care. Or who cares? Who cares what they think? If you could follow them around all day, you'd probably find some things that they'd be embarrassed about too. So hey, it's okay. It's totally true. I mean, I want to back up to the, if it's not fun, do something different until you are. People have been running this way since the beginning of people. There's nothing

that stands in the way of you doing the same or anyone doing the same. There's nothing that stands in the way of having, I mean, you know this as well, if not better than anyone, it's never too late to start building strength and fitness. Same thing with your feet. It may take a little time, but it'll last you for a lifetime. Being stronger and having some more muscle mass now will help you in ways that you can't even imagine when you're in your 70s and 80s. Same thing with your strength and flexibility and sensation in your feet and ankles. If you broke your arm, when it comes out of a cast, you have two choices. Never use it again, and it'll just get weaker and weaker and weaker and more and more useless. Or you do some PT for a while until it's back in shape, and then you're good to go.

Think of it the same way. If you've been keeping your foot immobilized or in what we affectionately refer to as foot coffins, yeah, it'll take a little while to build up strength and to read. Mummified. Yeah, and to learn how to move more effectively and efficiently and enjoyably. But once you've got that, there's just no turning back. It'll change your life. I have to ask this point of flexibility. Is there anything special that you want to share on that? Or does it come naturally as you start to use your feet the way they were meant to be used? I've never done any specific foot flexibility things. I mean, mostly massage is a really good one, just mobilization, but the bigger

one is going to be strength more than anything else. And oh, you know, I didn't even finish the end of that story about the flat feet thing. Sorry. That once I started doing this, I developed arches in my feet. They're not huge, but they're crazy strong. And we've heard this again, I'm not making medical claims or promises, but we've heard this a bunch of times. A guy married to someone who worked here and he, at the end of the ski season, bought a very expensive pair of ski boots. Then he was wearing our shoes and sandals during the summer. And he noticed that when he got out of his hot tub, his footprint looked like a footprint instead of like a paddle. And then when ski season kicked in, his new boots didn't fit. And happily, he was able to get them resized. But I'm not saying that your feet will definitely change shape, but it's entirely

possible in the same way the rest of your body can change shape as you get stronger and better at using it. Your feet can do things too to better support you as you get stronger and more comfortable with that. That's great. And so then that's just encouraging for anybody. I think one of the guys who works with me, he made a point of wanting me to ask you that because if I'm remembering correct, I think one of the guys who works with me has flat feet. So he was curious. And so for someone like him and for all

you out there who are currently using orthotics or have flat feet, you may be able to resolve that naturally, which is cool. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome, man. Well, hey, this was a great interview. Lots of good information. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of good feedback on it. Let's just wrap up with where people can find, because there's obviously your shoes and then you have a lot of educational information as well. You should probably share that. And then for anybody who wants to try this for the first time, you have quite a few different types of shoes.

Are there like a couple that you'd recommend? Hey, if you want to do this, go grab one of these. If it's more of this, grab one of those. I recommend, of course, you buy everything that we've ever made and everything. Naturally. Naturally. That's just me. So first of all, you can find us at xeroshoes.com and that's X-E-R-O shoes, plural,.com. But happily, if you go to Xero by accident because of autocorrect, you'll get to us as well. And in terms of things to recommend, I mean, we do have boots and shoes

and sandals, both casual and performance. And it's really up to you. It's really based on what you want to do. Do you want something casual for just walking around or night on the town? Do you want something for going to the gym? Do you want something for running? Do you want something for hiking? Everything we do is based on the same fundamental premise of wide toe box, low to the ground for balance and agility, super flexible, super lightweight, really, really comfy.

And then we just make some tweaks for use cases. So our trail shoes have a grippier, luggier sole than our fitness shoe. Our road running shoe has a slightly more rugged sole than our racing shoe. Our sandals, they're stuff that's just like as close to barefoot as you can get and super cute, two things that you can hike the Appalachian Trail in. So poke around, you'll see what you like. We have a customer happiness team who is more than happy to give you any specific guidance if you have any questions. And then you can also find us at Zero Shoes or slash Zero Shoes on every social media channel you can think of. And I have a podcast, what's called the Movement Movement Podcast. And the website for that is at jointhemovementmovement. And it's join thee because it's again, a movement that involves people.

So you can join about natural movement. And so that's where I talk to fun, interesting people, and also just go on some rants about what's the word I want to use? The state of things. Yeah. The mythology propaganda. Sometimes the lies you've been told about what it takes to run or walk or hike or lift or do whatever it is you'd like to do enjoyably. Awesome, man. Well, thanks again for taking the time to do this. This was great. Absolute pleasure, Mike. the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from, because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more

people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you're using to listen and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming. And last, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.