Blog<Resistance Training> Coming Around

I've mentioned a couple times that resistance training is a necessary part of weight loss, but that I only do it begrudgingly. Well, I haven't totally changed yet, but I'm starting to come around. First, a little back story.

The History

My first experience with weight training was in High School. As a part of our off-season training for the swim team, our coach had us lifting weights 3 days a week. We did a fairly standard set of exercises (bench press, military press, maybe squats, ...), all for 3 sets of 12 reps. The weight was selected such that you lifted enough weight to fail on the last 1 or 2 reps of the 3rd set. You basically went up in weight whenever you felt like you could. Not really any rhyme or reason.

The problem is that this is not fun. Failing on the last rep is painful and requires a spotter to prevent an almost guaranteed injury. Furthermore, progress is slow. We didn't really have any goals and no plan to achieve them even if we did. As a result, I think I maybe went up from 90 lbs to 110 lbs on the bench press in the course of 3 months. By the end, I didn't really feel stronger.

Throughout college and up through last year, my resistance training was mostly the same. Except that instead of using the barbell for things like the bench press or squat, I used machines. Mostly because spotters are hard to come by, but also because I just didn't realize that machines are so bad for you. Of course, even if I had known, a lot of gyms these days don't have a big section devoted to free weights.

Finally, about 6 months ago, I realized that I wasn't getting any stronger at the gym (but it wasn't really a goal either) so I decided to just do body weight exercises at home. I started off doing a whole bunch of stuff: planks, side planks, pushups, dips, military press, squats, curls, and calf raises. I did 3 circuits, going through each exercise from between 12 and 16 reps. I did all of this in about 30 minutes. It was as much of a cardio workout as it was a resistance workout. I got about the same results (if not better) than I did after 6 months in the gym.

At some point though, I realized that the only way to push myself was to increase the volume of exercises. Given that my free time is finite, this meant splitting exercises across different days and cutting some entirely. I focused on the ones that worked the most muscles. By the end of January, I was up to 5 sets of 17 pushups, 5 sets of 25 squats, and 5 sets of 45 second planks (and 35 seconds left and right side planks), as well as curls,, military press and dips on alternating workouts.

It didn't take long before I realized that I'd have to continue to increase volume to keep improving. Either that or go back to the old way of doing things: adding weight.

So I did what I always do when I'm looking for a more efficient way reach my goals.

The Research

I really just wanted to keep getting stronger. It would seem to make sense that strength goes hand in hand with muscle size, which (as I've written about previously) goes hand in hand with weight loss. Strength is easy to measure. How much weight can you lift for how many reps? Muscle size and body fat % are a little more difficult to measure, and change so gradually that they're hard to use as a motivator.

So with that in mind, I researched how to get stronger. I stumbled across this article in Men's Journal which has been adorned with a fairly hyperbolic title ("Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie"), but contains a lot of good information. It made me start to realize just why I had spent so much effort and time on various machines with so little to show for it.

For starters, strength should transfer to your life outside the gym. So, why are there so many machines and exercises devoted to training 1 or 2 specific muscles in a controlled rigid motion? Do the bench press on a machine and you'll get better at using that machine, but how much does it transfer to real life? Considering I'd managed to gain strength going from the gym to pure body weight exercises, I'd say not much.

I started reading articles about barbell exercises like the squat and deadlift. I'd never even heard of the deadlift before, but of all the exercises I've tried it's the one that directly translates to my actual life. Imagine something heavy on the floor. Now, pick it up safely. What could be more useful? The squat, I read, involves just about every major muscle group in the body. I realized that the military press (which is seated) is inferior to the overhead press (which is done standing) because it restricts motion and doesn't require you to stabilize your core.

I also learned that the key to getting strong fast is to lift heavy weights. And continuing to lift heavier every workout. No more 3 sets of 12-16 reps of the same weight for a month. Endurance training has its place, but it doesn't get you stronger. And finally, I learned that you don't have to workout to muscle failure to build muscle. In fact, focusing on fewer exercises and doing them well will give you the best results, and means you don't need to spend a lot of time in the gym. Especially while starting out.

The Plan

So, naturally I was itching for a way to use this information, but I didn't really have much experience with the barbell. And some of these exercises (deadlift and overhead press), I'd never done in my life.

My first step was finding a plan. The one I found has you starting with low weights (the 45 lb. bar) and gradually increasing by adding 5 lbs on every workout. It's called StrongLifts 5x5, and the website has a ton of information on what it is and how to do the 5 exercises involved. There is also a free e-book that you can find if you look around the site a little.

The basic gist of the program is that you lift 3 times a week. Each exercise is 5 sets of 5 reps (with 1-5 minutes rest between reps). Each workout you increase the weight by 5 lbs. You do 3 exercises on each day, squatting every day and alternating bench press and barbell row with overhead press and deadlift (which you only do 1 set of 5 reps since you're getting a leg workout with the squats). It's simple and you see results for a long time, while starting off at a low weight gives you time to learn the proper technique on all the exercises.

So, I figured out what I needed get strong, now I just needed access to the weights. I contemplated going to the gym. The problem is that I've gotten used to all the free time that working out at home has given me. So I went onto craigslist and got an olympic barbell, a squat half rack, a bench, and weights (and an assortment dumbell and curl-bar weights that I'll probably never use...) for $250. And now a big chunk of my garage is devoted to something that I never thought I'd have... or even want.

Well, it's been a little over a week since I've started and it feels pretty good. I've done 4 workouts and I've changed my diet to focus on lots of protein. Who knew hard-boiled eggs were so good (and so good for you)? It's weird going from a diet where you limit your calories to lose weight to a diet where you need excess calories to gain muscle mass, but I'm slowly transitioning. So far I feel pretty good.

I've decided to keep a workout journal to track my progress. Notice the low starting weight, the squats every workout, and the increase in weight every time.

At this point, I'm not sure how this will affect my running goals, but I don't have any intention of sacrificing one for the other. I'm sure that adding more weight will probably not make me a more efficient runner, but on the other hand, all of my increased mass will be in the form of muscle (if I do it right), which I think would probably be helpful. But the thing I'm most hopeful for is that muscle mass increases metabolism. One of my goals for this year is to show off a 6 pack, and you can't do that without dropping overall body fat %.

Isn't it nice when your goals reinforce each other?

And on that note, I think I'll stop. Once again, I've written a wall of text, so congrats (and apologies) if you made it this far. I plan on keeping the workout journal up to date, so you can follow it if you want. I'm sure I'll be updating in a month or 2 with an assessment of the plan (and probably pictures), so you can look forward to that as well. Talk to you later.

-Kyle

Blog<Meta> Retrospective

It's been a couple months since my last update. Sorry about that. It's a combination of end-of-the-year travel/holiday stuff and general laziness/procrastination. Okay, I'll cool it (a little) with the slashes. (But no promise on parentheses.)

I know it's well into the new year, but since I didn't do it in January, I'm going to use this post as an opportunity to reflect back on the previous year and to record my goals for the new year. So please bear with me as I do a little navel gazing.

Exercise/Weight Loss Goals

I had specific goals, so it's easy to judge my progress. Here was my one and only goal at the beginning of the year:

• Go from 266 lbs to 206 lbs.

By the end of July, I had completed this goal. Around the same time, I found running as an enjoyable way to maintain the weight loss. As happy as I was to lose the 60 lbs, I realized I still wanted to get in better shape. So, I reevaluated my progress and set a few new goals for the end of the year:

• Get down to 190 lbs.
• Be able to run 5 miles.

By December I was hovering between 190 and 185. Success! I'm still hovering around this weight, but I've got a few different goals in mind for 2011 (which I'll get to in a couple paragraphs).

My goal for running was probably a little naive. I had just read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. This book went a long way towards making me believe that I could actually run and enjoy it. But, after never running more than 1.5 miles in my entire life, I somehow decided I could run 5 miles by the end of the year. I didn't realize at the time that it would take so much effort and patience to learn the technique that allows a person to run long distances. And this is doubly important when running barefoot. Even with all the setbacks and generally slow progress, I was still able to get up to 4 miles on 2 separate runs by the end of the year. If you asked me a year ago if I'd be able to run 4 miles without shoes, I probably would have laughed in your face.

So the final tally for my exercise goals in 2010 was 2 successes, and 1 failure (but I made some good progress). Keeping this in mind, I've decided to divide 2011 into short term and long term goals. I've learned that short term goals are important because they are easier to visualize success, and upon completion, they provide motivation to continue striving for the long term ones. Long term goals are equally important because they provide you direction when you inevitably hit a roadblock or start to plateau. They are the reason for putting in all the hard work. As such, here are my goals for 2011:

Short term:

• Run my first official barefoot 5k by the end of May.
• Acquire access to an Olympic bar and weights, and learn proper technique on several compound lifts (squat, bench press, dead lift, overhead press, barbell row).
• Create and follow a new diet geared primarily toward gaining muscle and burning (or at least not gaining) fat.
• Create workout/diet journal to track progress for at least the first 3 months.
• Gain at least 5 lbs of muscle in the first 3 months without increasing body fat %.

Long term:

• Run an official 10k by the end of the year.
• Squat: 5 reps at least 100% of my body weight.
• Bench press: 5 reps at 75%
• Dead lift: 5 reps at 100%
• Drop from ~15% to 10% body fat by the end of the year.
• Visible 6 pack abs (and finally lose this damn belly)

You'll notice that I'm planning on making weight training a big part of my exercise plan this year. A year of losing body fat and building a little muscle (mostly endurance) has left me with the desire to get stronger. You might remember that I hated my resistance training over the past year, and you might be wondering why the change in heart. Well, I've been researching again and I've discovered that I've basically been doing it wrong. BTW, those body weight % numbers are not considered strong by many standards, but I don't want to make the same mistake I made with running and just assume I'll get there easily. I'll be writing a post soon to talk about my new fitness goals and give more insight as to why I'm (finally) taking weight lifting more seriously.

Programming/Hobbies

This is one area where I haven't been very prolific. My intention when I started this blog was that most of it would be technical posts about programming and specifically creating games. I'd still like to continue talking about it, but the exercise/fitness stuff has been taking up a lot of my time and it reaches a broader audience of people. I didn't really have any goals last year, and I still don't really have any this year. You can expect the occasional game or prototype project update, so those of you who don't read this for the technical stuff can feel free to tune them out.

The Blog (meta-goals)

I had a few reasons for starting this blog last year. The main one is that writing things down helps to solidify them in my mind. And even if no one ever reads the blog but me, it's difficult to discount the pressure of Internet Accountability™. Of course the downside is that if I ever stop doing this for more than 4 months, the Internet Shame™ will keep me from ever dredging it back up. So part of this process naturally involves coming out of my cocoon and advertising myself a little. The more real readers, the harder it is to let myself quit.

There are 2 other main reasons. The first is that I want to become a better writer, and you only get better at something by practicing. The second is that (I think) I have something interesting things to say, and (if I can improve my writing) the information just might be useful to other people.

So, here were my goals for 2010:

• Write something once a week.
• Write something useful once a month.
• Get some actual humans to read the blog.
• Improve my writing ability.

Did I succeed? Well, my goals weren't very clearly defined. Heck, this is the first time that I've actually written these down, and I have to say they're pretty weak. I could come up with a few reasons why I succeeded, and I could come up with a few reasons why I still need to improve. If my weight loss goals have taught me anything, without specificity it's very difficult to analyze results.

The first 2 goals are better than the last two, but they don't mention a duration. Did I want to do this forever? For a year? A few months? If I wanted to keep up the volume of writing for more than 5 or 6 months, then I guess I've failed miserably. At the time I started the blog, I didn't really know.

The 3rd goal is even more vague, but I still think I did okay. I've got a small set of followers, comprised mostly family and friends. These are the people I'd actually want to give me feedback, so I'm fine with the small readership. Plus, there's still a pretty big mental stumbling block to overcome when I think that I actually have something important or useful to say. Plus, plus, strangers are scary. Anonymous strangers are basically the bogeyman. But still, it would be good to venture out of my shell a little more.

The last goal is almost useless. I don't know if I'm any better at this than I was in June. The idea was that practice would make it easier and improve the quality of my writing. After 6 months, it's definitely easier to type a lot of words in front of a computer screen. I have no idea if the quality has kept pace with the quantity.

Goals for 2011:

• Write something useful/interesting once a month for the rest of the year.
• Promote the useful/interesting posts on facebook.
• Extra posts are a bonus, but I also want to start using the space as a way to give smaller/quicker status updates. As such, a set schedule or number doesn't really make sense.

I think these are better than the previous year's goals. As far as improving the quality of my writing, I'm not sure how to do this except to just solicit feedback occasionally. Honestly, I still think that writing more will naturally improve the quality, and I'm comfortable not having a specific goal.

Hopefully I'll be well on my way toward my 2011 goals by my next post. I think I might have found a good deal on craigslist for an Olympic barbell and weight set, so after a month of indirection, I'm starting to make some progress. :)

See you next time.

Blog<Running> The Perils of Running

The Bad News

So I went for a run today, down by a green belt that has a nice bike/walking path running through it. On my way home, I didn't lift my foot high enough and stubbed my toe and tripped over a raised sidewalk panel. On the way down, I remember making a noise like "WULLLAAG!" I then landed kind of awkwardly on my knee and hand. Here are a few pictures:

(Wounded Knee)

(The Dirt Makes It Look Worse Than It Is)

I ran home the remaining quarter of a mile and didn't notice the knee until I got to my door. The cleaning process was not very fun. Here's a pic after several cycles of running water, soap, and hydrogen peroxide:

(Clean Enough To Eat Off Of. Yum!)

I made a trip to Wal Mart to get giant bandaids and neosporin. Not sure how long this is going to take to heal.

The Good News

The good news is that the preceding 3 miles of my run were pretty awesome. The path I ran on goes through a green belt so there was a lot of interesting stuff to look at. I ran by a bunch of joggers and walkers. I even had a short conversation with a young kid on a bike (with training wheels, so we kept each others pace for a while). By conversation, I mean that he reminded me to watch out for glass for about a minute. I'm pretty sure that his dad said something to him when I ran by them a few minutes earlier.

The other bit of good news is that I've now beaten my distance record by about a third of a mile, up to 3.33 miles. And no pain in my feet or ankles!

A Positive Change

I've been switching up my normal weekly running routine. Before the change, I was trying to run the same distance at about the same pace every day. The problem is that it limited the progress I was making. Running 1.5 - 2 miles every day takes its toll. I wasn't giving my feet time to recover from the previous days' runs before asking them to do it again. I ended up with a bruised tendon on my left foot, and it limited the maximum distance I was able to achieve on any given run to about 2 miles.

After letting the tendon heal (by sitting at home for a week... boo), I decided to make a change that corresponds to my resistance training schedule. Basically, on M-W-F (resistance training days), I run a mile. On T-Th I run between 1.5 and 2 miles. On Saturday or Sunday I go as far as I can before my feet (or any other part of my body) tell me to stop, and on the other day I rest.

After 3 weeks, it's worked out pretty great. During the first week, I managed to get up to 3 miles for my long run. Last week was Thanksgiving, but I still managed to get 4.5 miles in. And this week, despite only running 4 days, I have run almost 8 miles, and 3.3 on my long run.

It's been cold and my weekday runs are at night, so that is another factor in why I made the change to do shorter distances throughout the week. But so far, the cold hasn't prevented me from going barefoot. Although if I hadn't been able to gradually transition into the cold weather, I'm not sure if I would have stuck with it all the way until now.

Despite the minor setbacks, I feel like I'm on the right track. I probably won't reach my goal of 5 miles by the end of the year, but I've already run further than I've ever gone before. And I don't feel like there is anything holding me back to go and faster and longer.

Running Log - Tuesday, 10/26/2010

Dist: 2.5 mi

Shoes: barefoot

Had an awesome run tonight! Recently, the big toe and inside ball of each foot have been feeling tender after about 2 miles of running. Because of my flat feet, I tend to overpronate which causes me to use my big toe for stability. The added pressure on that part of my foot is what was causing the tenderness.

I played around with my form a little, trying to minimize the unevenness and I think I may have fixed it. I angled my feet so that if I formed a straight line from my heel to my big toe it would point slightly inward. I believe my feet were pointing outward before, especially on my right foot.

As soon as I made the change I noticed a difference in my form. I could tell that I was landing (and lifting off) more evenly on the entire surface of my feet. And on top of that, it made an immediate improvement in my pace. The loop I run has a slight hill, and on the downward part I felt like I was flying. I have no idea how fast I was going (I don't carry a watch; just shorts and my house key), but it was way quicker than my usual pace. I'm feeling a little muscle soreness, probably from engaging new muscles, but there was no other pain. I ran 2.5 miles, but my feet felt like they could have done more.

I also had an interesting conversation with one of my neighbors. She was walking her dog with her son and she asked me about my bare feet. She seemed skeptical at first, but in the end she seemed fairly open to the idea. It's been pretty neat how interested random strangers have been, and then getting an opportunity to explain it.

Oh, and to top off an already good night, I have now run 50 miles barefoot this year (since late August). Going to shoot for a 3 mile run this weekend, and then maybe sign up for my first ever 5k!

Blog<Running> A Few Barefoot Running Videos

After my last post, I realized it might be helpful to see what barefoot form looks like. Here's a few I watched when I was was in the beginning stages and a couple more that I found more recently. Note: none of these are of me. Maybe I'll get Lauren to record me running sometime, but for now this is what you get:

Intro to barefoot running:

A follow-up video by the same person:

Video of a woman running barefoot:

Long video of a barefoot runner. Kind of crappy sound quality, but his speed is pretty impressive.

And one more (notice the smile on her face at the 1:00 mark)

Blog<Running> Beginner's Guide To Barefoot Running

I've had several people ask me about barefoot running over the past few weeks, so I figured I'd compile everything I've learned into a handy guide. Please keep in mind that I've only been doing this for a few months and that I shouldn't be considered an expert.

Why Do You Run Barefoot?

I get asked this question a lot. It's kind of hard to dive into my personal reasons for ditching shoes without sharing a bit of my running history first. Luckily, I've chronicled most of it in a few posts which are way too long for humans to read. But, maybe you're a robot, or some kind of super-intelligent literate cephalopod (we're equal opportunity here at Blog). In that case you can find my first 2 posts about why I started running here and here. And then maybe read a few posts where I started to realize that losing the shoes could be more fun: here and here.

Everyone probably has a different reason for trying barefoot running. For me, I just wanted to learn how to run. Period. I tried running in traditional running shoes and I ended up injured. I tried jumping feet first into the minimalist movement with a cool pair of toe shoes and I ended up injured again.

I tried barefoot running as a last-ditch effort before throwing in the towel for good, and all my previous pain has gone away. For me, barefoot running started as a way to avoid injury, and it turned into something that I find rewarding, freeing, and fun.

Most of the advice I'll be giving later in this post applies to minimal running as well. Not everyone is as dense as I am when it comes to learning proper "natural" running technique, so the minimal shoes might work out better for you than they did for me. But if you get frustrated or injured in your new "barefoot" shoes, remember that you can always take them off. While the soles of your shoes might be thin, the feedback of your bare skin just has no comparison. It made a world of difference for me.

How Pain Teaches Proper Technique

Pain is bad. A repeated painful motion can lead to long-term injuries. Pain from running is caused by 2 things: improper technique, and over-training. The underlying principal of barefoot running aims to solve both of these problems.

Traditional running shoes try as hard as they can to mask pain. That's why they put an inch of padding, rubber, gel, air, etc... between your heel and the pavement. The problem is that they can't tell you when you are running incorrectly. You could be pounding the pavement for miles before you start feeling any pain, and at that point you don't know what specific movement caused it. I used to get shin splint pain anywhere from 1-24 hours after I stopped running. How are you supposed to know which part of your form is incorrect, when you don't get feedback until it's too late?

By taking off the shoes, you remove all that extra stuff that is meant to hide the pain. Now, if you take more than 3 steps with bad technique, you will feel it immediately. If you overstride or push off with your toes, you will feel friction and get blisters, or maybe shin splints. If you don't land with your knees bent, or run with a straight posture you will bruise your feet from the impact. If you don't engage the entire surface area of your foot, you will get pain from over-use. Barefoot running teaches you to avoid this type of pain, and the benefit is that it naturally teaches you proper running technique.

So one of the most important things to remember when starting out is that pain is bad. Do not try to run through pain. Either your technique needs improvement (change your form until it doesn't hurt anymore), or you are doing too much too soon (call it a day).

Okay, enough with the boring stuff, let's move on to the actual advice...

Take It Slow!

If you are a typical Westerner, your feet have been locked up in shoes for most of your life. They have become dependent on all the support, padding, motion control etc... In short, your feet have become incredibly weak. I'm not talking about just your muscles, but also bones, ligaments, tendons, and skin. As you use them more they will get stronger, but for now remember that it's going to be a slow journey.

Your first barefoot run should be no longer than half a mile, but in all likelihood your feet will tell you to stop sooner. Your first time, you will probably end up with blisters, or bruises, or pain in the top of your feet. When you feel this kind of pain, stop and take at least a day off before trying again. You don't want to make the pain worse, as it could lead to injury. While you're resting, read the section about pain avoidance to see what you need to change. Starting off by walking barefoot is another good piece of advice that I wish I would have taken when I started.

Run Gently!

You need to avoid heavy and sudden impact. Without any protection between you and the ground, you can't afford to stomp or plod your way down the road. Fortunately, humans are practically engineered for this type of quick and light movement. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you go out on your first few runs.

• Land on the front or middle part of your foot. Heel-striking is only possible if you are wearing big clunky shoes with a bunch of padding in the heel. If you run this way barefoot, you will bruise your feet. Instead, focus on landing on the entire surface of your foot. You should land slightly on the front of your foot and then immediately touch down with and heel. The more surface area you use, the more you will benefit from your arch's natural shock absorbency, and the less pressure you will put on any specific area.
• Run on pavement/cement/asphalt. A smooth hard surface is the best place to learn proper technique. Roads and sidewalks are relatively flat and frictionless, and are hard enough that you must run softly to avoid pain. Save the grass and sand for special occasions. I recommend that you do 90% of your initial learning phase on a hard surface.
• Take short quick strides. The less time you spend in the air between each stride, the less impact you will feel when you land. You can recover from many small impacts much easier than from a few large impacts. Imagine the difference between a car crash at 40 miles per hour and a few fender-benders at 15 miles per hour. Which one does more damage to your car? To your body?
• Land with your feet directly under your hips. Over-striding causes a braking motion throughout your legs. When your foot lands in front of you, you nave to expend more energy to push yourself up and over it. This extra energy puts stress on your feet, shins, and calf muscles. It can transfer the impact force all the way through your ankles, knees, hips and into your spine.
• Bend your knees. Your leg needs to act as a kind of spring. This means bent hips, bent ankles, and bent knees. As you land all of these joints should flex, storing energy to be released when you take to the air again. If you feel your feet plodding or slapping the ground, you probably need to bend your knees more.
• Straight posture. You do not want to slouch or lean back. Your back, neck, and head should form a straight line. Any lean should be slightly forward and from your hips or ankles, not your back or head. Having a strong core allows you to use your body's center of mass to maintain your momentum.
• Relax! You are way more likely to run lightly and with minimal impact if you are not tensed up. Remember that it's about staying injury free and having fun. Try smiling. It will freak out all those grimacing joggers to see you having fun while they're repeatedly pounding their feet into the ground.

One good way to think about running is as a controlled falling motion. Lean forward enough and you will start to fall. You will naturally move your foot to land under you before you face-plant. The momentum of this falling motion is what propels your body forward, not any kind of push from your feet or legs. Your legs are just there to make sure you stay somewhat in control and to efficiently store and release the impact of landing. You can easily control the speed of your run by changing the angle of your lean (it doesn't take a big change in your lean to cause a drastic change in speed.)

So What Role Do Your Feet Play?

Your feet are extremely sensitive instruments. They can feel a pebble or a slight change in the grade of your running surface and react instantly. They are like the active traction control system in a luxury sedan. If the ground slants in some weird direction, your foot will land in a way that keeps your leg directly over your center of gravity. If you land on a pebble, your foot will naturally relax around it, allowing you to keep running with only a small discomfort. In short, they allow your body to land in a way that provides maximum stability, support, and traction.

What Role Don't They Play?

Your feet should not contribute to your forward movement. Doing so is the fastest way to an over-use injury. Imagine for a second that you are pushing something heavy with your hands. Do you spend a lot of energy extending your fingers and wrist? If you are like me you only use your hands for placement or grip, and then you use your arms, chest, core, and body mass to move the heavy object. The reason is that your hands do not have the strength because that's not what they are designed for.

Your feet and ankles are built in roughly the same way. So, don't "push off" with them. Instead, allow them to provide your foundation and connection with the ground and then use your legs, core, and center of gravity to actually move your body forward.

I Did What You Said, But I Still Got Hurt

Over the past few months, I've encountered a lot of pain. It's one thing to read about proper form, and it's another to convert that knowledge into the proper movements. If you experience any pain, I've probably felt it before and can give a few pointers.

• Blisters. Blisters are caused by 3 things. Heat, moisture, and friction. Hot roads might mean you need to cut your run a little short. Moisture from rain or sweat just means you need to be extra careful about how your feet contact the ground. Landing in front of your body can cause your feet to slide. Which brings us to friction. Friction is caused by a few things. Most likely is that you are landing or pushing off on only one part of the foot (usually the ball of the foot). The problem is that it puts most of your body weight on a disproportionately small surface area. Your skin just isn't mean to handle that type of pressure for too long. The solution is to try to shorten your stride so that your foot lands directly under you. This also increases your stride-rate so that your foot physically spends less time on the ground. Try to land on as much of your foot as possible, and then try to lift it straight up without pushing off with your toes. Also, avoid any twisting motion. Once your foot is on the ground, it should stay motionless until it leaves again.
• Shin Splints. Shin splints are caused by 2 things: over-striding and over-use. The first one can be solved by shortening and speeding up your stride (seeing a common theme?), and the second just means you need to take it a little slower. My shin splints went away naturally when I corrected my stride to avoid blisters.
• Top of Foot Pain. Top of the foot pain is caused by "pushing off" with the ball of your foot. Your foot muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments are not meant to endure that much stress. You can easily correct this problem by focusing on lifting your foot instead of pushing off with it. Your entire foot should lift off the ground at the same time. It helps to try pulling your toes and ball of the foot up before the heel. You can also try running on gravel or a rough surface. You will immediately know if you are pushing off because it will hurt the ball of your foot.
• Bruised Soles. Bruising is caused by not running softly. You need to make sure you bend your knees (probably more than you think). Land with relaxed feet and make sure that you land with the entire foot so that you are spreading the impact across more surface area. Again, you can try standing, walking, and eventually running on gravel as a way to make sure you are landing and lifting off with your entire foot. Put more pressure on any one area and it will be very painful.
• Rocks, glass, dog poop, needles, etc... If you somehow manage to step on glass or dog poop without seeing it, then I recommend that you open your eyes. Seriously. It's easy to avoid 99% of everything on the road just by looking at it and going around. You will find it surprising how little glass and debris is actually on the road. I've never seen a needle in the street. You will on occasion step on a well-disguised rock or twig, and it will hurt for about 3 steps, but if you run gently your foot will naturally roll over it and avoid most of the pain. After a few steps you will have forgotten it was ever there. And if not, it just means you need to run more gently. :)

Well, that was long (big surprise if you have read this blog before), but hopefully it's a good primer on getting started. Just remember to keep it light, and keep it fun. You won't learn perfect technique in a day or a week (or even a month or more), but if you keep at it you will get better. Eventually you'll make it to a mile and then two, and before long you'll be doing a barefoot 5k or further. Maybe you'll eventually be able to do a half or full marathon, or even longer. Happy running!

Other Resources

• http://therunningbarefoot.com/ This is basically the original site on running barefoot. A lot of the information in this post is the direct result of reading and trying the tips and advice from this website.
• http://www.runnersworld.com/community/forums/runner-communities/barefoot-running/ A forum at Runner's World, specifically for barefoot/minimal runners. The people there are generally knowledgeable and there's about a 40/60 split between barefoot and minimal running.
• http://www.barefootrunners.org/build2/ I haven't spent a lot of time here, but The Barefoot Runner's Society is a site with a lot of information about races/events/meetups. It also has some pretty good forums.
• There are lots of other resources out there. Just do a search for "barefoot running" and you'll see that it's not such a tiny/crazy movement.

Running Log - Monday, 10/11/2010

Distance: 1 mile

Shoes: barefoot

I haven't updated in a while, but I've been running. I've decided to save the run logs for the days that are especially good (or bad). Or for days where something noteworthy happens.

I'm trying to increase the frequency of my runs, and so I'm backing off the distance a little. I went for a nice and easy 1 mile run tonight after about 30 minutes of strength training at home (push-ups, core exercises, bicep curls, tricep extensions, and military press). I might have found a way to get out of the gym for good. :)

Anyway, the run felt nice and easy. I may have had a revelation with regards to up and down movement. I initially thought that any vertical motion was bad, but after I thought about it, you need a little downward motion for shock absorption and then you need a little upward motion to get back to where you started. I transitioned to a slightly springy step for the second half of the run, and it was surprisingly light and easy. I'll try it again for my run tomorrow night.

Feet felt fine, but then again, it was only a mile.