Part 1 is about Natural Running Form, Posture, Movement vs How Shoes Tend To Modify Running Nerve Sensations or Bio-Feedback, Foot, Leg, Hip, Spine, Arms and Even Head Motions Motions Over Time.
Part 2 will give the same contrast to Natural Raw Food Consumption vs Cooked Foods and Food Like Substances.
Part 3 will Illustrate and Illuminate Systems That Can Allow Anyone to Earn a Location Independent Income From Any Internet Connected Device including Your Mobile Phone!
Read these 3 post contrasting the patterns you will see against your own patterns in life for signs of Alignment vs Misalignment.
I am a Lifestyle Trainer and my hope and intent that this awakens in you new perceptions of what your Truest Self is trying to get you to see within your own life.
Galileo the astronomer once said: "We cannot teach a man anything. We can only help them see what already exist within themselves."
This means that we can only perceive that which lives somewhere within ourselves.
If we could show a cave man or even someone from 200 yrs ago the "Smart Phone", Tablet or Laptop your reading this with, they could begin to "inner stand" what they are looking at? Not a chance!
Think about this also... Everything humanity has "discovered" or written about, came out of these blobs of fat between our ears called brains. Where do brains get their visionary constructs of ideas and information?
We tell ourselves our intelligence comes from education, yet all the great minds of history either avoided schooling or found it stifling to true intelligence and left formal education.
We are all born geniuses and are dumbed down from there.
My mission is to share perspectives that inspire everyone to look within themselves and question whether there is more about themselves to discover or learn that can make life more valuable, enlivening, and a more magnificent adventure.
More and more realized via the field of quantum physics that we are all connected to a "Cloud Like" realm where all knowledge exist.
A realm waiting for our senses and neural pathways to expand to connect the dots of the reality that we live in a sea of possibilities.
In many ways, we are like fish, unaware that we live in something called water because its every where!
But what happened when the first fish: for whatever inspired reason, decided to launch itself up and out the surface of the body of water it had always lived in?
It realized that there was something beyond the existence it had only known and rapidly created new synapses or brain cell connections expanding its own consciousness permanently to include knowledge of an atmosphere. Later on, a similar expansion happened when the first fish leaped and landed on land and made it back to its body of water.
Ok, Let's take The Deep Dive into Natural Running vs Unnatural Commercial Traditional Shoe Based Running Motions....
I’m not into cars but one thing I do know about them is it’s essential that we know how to drive one before we are given the keys to one and set loose on our own with it. Would you agree?
Then how does a toddler go from crawling to walking to running so prolifically that every adult around it is wondering when it will run out of gas and sit down to a middle schooler who you couldn't pay to run and constantly bugs its parents about getting it some wheels of some configuration to get around on?
Humans are born to run. Why would I say that? Unlike any other primate creature on Earth, we developed a pelvis structure designed to hang a much more developed Gluteus Maximus or butt muscle than any of them.
Every structure as a part of our bodies has a specific specialty or function that it does well compared to others with different sizes, lengths, volume, width, depth, leverages to each ends of those structures or in this case muscles and their attachment points.
Example: If I was only 5 foot tall and had very short upper leg bones (The Femur or Thigh Bones) compared to someone that's 6 foot 5 with much longer thigh bones its highly likely that I could squat much more than the taller person due to my quadricep and gluteus muscles, shorter length and thicker ligament attachment points. I happen to have a well developed gluteus because I have a relatively short upper attachment point to the top rear of my pelvis.
This reality makes me a powerful sprinter in the final yards of a foot race or the final 100 meters of a bicycle road race.
Another factor that influences what kind of runner a child is born to be is the ratio of Fast Twitch Muscle fibers vs Slow Twitch Muscle fibers. Fast Twitch then to have low capacity to store lots of muscle glycogen or muscle stored carbohydrate in the form of polysaccharides which forms glucose as the muscle releases stored water a process called hydrolysis.
So those with lots of slow twitch muscles tend to be natural endurance runners, cyclist or speed skaters vs fast twitchers tend to find their calling in sports that involve off the line speed or end of event speed.
I happen to be about 50-50 so I can do pretty well in either environment.
Our natural feet contain just as many nerve endings, muscles, joints, bones, capillary beds (tiny veins and arteries) and ligaments as the hands.
The design of the feet is highly organized for a specific function making it ideal for NOT landing on its heel bone (The Talus bone). Yet look at how you land while walking. Then try running... Most land on the heel bone! But Why?
Toddlers don't start out landing on their heels. They start out landing on the balls of their feet. This activates the toes to splay out creating spread out stabilizing landing platform attached the Metatarsals or the bone that attach the toes to the Tarsal bones which include the heel bone or talus at the very rare of the foot.
The ligaments that the various muscles of the foot and lower leg hold in tension in the foot all the way out to the ends of the toes serve as elastic energy storage devices along with creative stability on landing. That landing energy is transferred to the Plantar Facia ligament connecting the ball of the foot to the Talus - wrapping right around the back of the Talus and continuing up as the Achilles tendon to the calf muscles.
This arrangement means that the force of each foot taking on the weight and momentum of each foot, leg and the body above all this on each step becomes like a giant shock absorber or loaded spring on each step that's capable of and actually does release much of that stored energy on every lift off if the person is landing that foot directly under their Center of Mass or Gravity which happens to be the hip joints.
Whereas, a person who is not barefoot and especially has grown up wearing hard soled or padded sole shoes who is neurologically blind because of the excessive muting of the nerves that are all over and in the soles, will tend to straighten the entire leg and hyper extend the leg out front of the hip joint landing it on the talus bone.
Because of the muting effect of padded shoes, especially with semi built in orthotic like arch supports that go all the way back into a heel cup built into the sole between the actual sole, the foam and the shoes inner liner, your unaware of the heel bones lack of padding, creating an unstable landing point for the forces coming down the entire leg from everything above the heel bone to at least the hips but actually includes all the body mass to the top of the head. All slamming down on a roundish bone - the heel.
Landing on an almost golf ball sized round bone creating a massive braking effect, no different than if you were falling towards a face plant and stuck your arms out with your elbows locked straight out in front of you to try to catch your fall! The natural outcome of this could be destroyed bones and joints in the hands, wrist, elbow, shoulder, on over into the shoulder blades and spine. As above so below!
Imagine all that braking force going into the soles of your feet and toes as your entire leg is hiked out in front of your hip joints like a pole vaulter shoving his or her pole out front to plant into the end of the runway pit.... shoving all your momentum into the ground to create vertical lift instead of more forward momentum....
Then having to shove the whole leg and foot out back again to try to regain ones lost momentum. For most who've forgotten the role of sole level feedback consciously they are relegated to this clawing like leg motion.
Braking and pushing off, braking and pushing off... over and over and over again until the run is over!
Imagine the pounding your knees and hips would take with the knees almost locked out with each heel strike and the hips being at an angle that allows no landing force to gently go up the spine activating its innate suspension capabilities!
So what's our Natural Running Form or Motion supposed to look like or be like?
Landing the feet under the hip joints and adding a slight forward lean like a Ski Jumper or Unicyclist.
Imagine running in place... Do this right now: Remove your shoes and socks. Begin to run in place. You're simply picking up your feet directly under your hips to about knee height creating kind of the shape of a 4 with the rising leg and foot.
What part of your foot do you naturally land on during this activity?
Biomechanical Visual: Landing on the ball of the foot activates the arches of the foot, which on its underside is held in tension in the shape of an arch by the plantar facia ligament which connects the ball of the foot to the heel bone, this ligament wraps around the heel bone becoming the achilles, which connects to the 3 segments of the calf - (think like 3 segments of an orange still all connected, onwards to the ligaments that connect to and stabilize the flexed knee joint and its cap, upwards through the flexed quadricep being held in balanced tension by the 4 segments of the hamstrings and onwards to the flexed hip or gluteus muscles, through the pelvic girdle of bones and muscles in up the entire S shaped curvature of spine. Add in the rhythm of the arms swaying up and down and back and forth to store landing force energy for rerelease on each lift off.
This flow of landing force results in the body becoming a storage device instead of stomping all that energy and momentum into the ground or pavement.
With every liftoff of the unloading opposite foot much of that energy is recycled like spring releasing its stored tension once stretched or compressed to create a lower need to put out energy to sustain forward momentum.
This in essence is why the professional runners from so called 3rd world countries that grow up running barefoot dominate high level running in international competitions - especially on the professional levels.
BTW: When stiff legged heel strikings: the leg is a stick pole and not a spring like lever. This means when the heel is hyper extended out front of the hip joint the hip gets shot upwards at heel impact, like what happens when a fist impacts the soft parts of human face in boxing on every landing!
As the full forward momentum plus the falling body mass slams into the pavement under the heel bone, that stiff, locked out leg is trying to act like the pole vaulters pole; to lift the whole body up into the air!
This is why those who grow up in shoes look like they're are pogo sticking down the street while the professional runners from Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria who grew up running barefoot look like they are floating down the road as if they are on a bicycle.
Where the foot lands in relation to the center of mass (under the hips), plus sole level sensory perception gives the brain and body information on how much force the motion is putting into the running surface.
The surfaces firmness vs give helps the brain and body to tension each toes and its attached metatarsal bones (metatarsals are like the finger like bones in the palms of your hands) stabilizing each step.
The brains perception of the foots sole, meeting the running surface at the actual speed of forward travel vs the sensory blindness created by the shift in landing point in relation to the hip joints compounded with the locked out joints from the hips down, creates a skidding like landing on the heel.
With the loss of momentum, we now require the pushing off motion to relaunch our momentum.
In bare feet this would sand skin off the heel area and fatigue the shin muscles which are being over stressed just trying to keep you from breaking any and all the foot bones by slapping the pavement in a motion that is structurally backwards to how feet were meant to land and soften the landing.
This heel striking is what causes both blisters on the soles, toes and heels and shin splints below the knees.
Why is all this important to begin to understand or more accurately innerstand what your doing when you set out to “just run?”
Remember the: “Learning How to Drive a Car Analogy?”
What happens from the inside of the child once shoes are forced on, is that they become functionally blind in the feet. They can no longer “see”or feel the ground for the inside out. Instead if becomes a confusing relationship with socks, much thicker than skin soles, then eventually padding between the rubber, plastic or leather soles, then plastic inserts between the foam layer and the shoe lining. Never mind the loss of being electrically grounded to the earth through the bare soles. Remember, human meat suits AKA as our bodies, are electrochemical mechanisms driven by actual electrical voltages generated by the brain and muscles from the foods we eat. All electrical systems work base on polarization or positive and negative polarities of current. The Earth is ultimately all forms of electrical flows "grounding".
Running innervates a ton of nerves which are electrical switches that relay feedback to the brain. The excess electrons or both positive and negative flow are by design, supposed to flow back and forth into the earth and into our feet, reharmonized with flows and frequencies of our bodies.
When our feet are insulated from this natural source of balance and rebalance we tend to eventually experience imbalances in the realms of sensations, perceptions, nerve energy flow, muscle tension, sense of balance in motion, blood flow, lymph movement and on and on until we no longer feel invigorated in our bodies.
With feet that can’t feel the textures of what we traverse, the give or firmness accurately of what they step on, the variations in temperature and even humidity, the feet become just parking places for shoes with no real useful role to play in human locomotion.
Think of most shoes as plastic bags or even plastic bindings that contain a kind of hand cast splint that immobilizes most of the foots functionality. Remember a foot has just as many bones, joints, ligaments, muscles as our hands and are intended to just as sensory perceptive and responsive in all possible directions as hands.
Heres an interest fact few realize about feet: Whether covered or uncovered each foot sweats about 2 pints of sweat every day! (which is actually very similar in chemistry as urine).
When people ask me about foot hygiene I like to trigger their brains to actually ponder an original new thought train, so I ask them....
"When was the last time you washed the shoes on your feet right now? And how many days, weeks, months or even years have you been wearing those shoes?
Then I share about the very natural amount and function of the sweat they inadvertently soak their socks and shoes with every day and ask them if they would put on the same shirt everyday if they poured a pint of urine onto them every day?
You see, mine gets a bath when I shower and shave each morning. In the afternoon to evenings when I get home from my days running around and actual running, they get another bath as a shower to freshen up once more. So you see my feet as a matter of hygiene are far more sanitary and free of decomposing skin, mites, mold, fungus and such than most shoe based fellow humans.
My mom had no idea what she set in motion during my toddlerhood years when she thought it would be cute to stuff my feet into baby shoes.
That original loss of my sole level connection to Mother Earth led before even kindergarten to my having lost that loving feeling towards running and beginning my almost 5 decade addiction to human powered wheels of one configuration or another.
From Tricycles, to Roller-skates, to single speed bicycles to 10-speeds to road racing bikes, I ended up logging over 750,000 miles!
In that season of life, I occasionally longed for the simplicity of running and revisited it in the off-seasons when long bought of snow or rain made it dangerous to impossible to ride.
Between nerve damage to the entire right side of my body caused by a primitive vaccine I got in about the 2nd grade that resulted in cognitive regressions that required me to repeat the 2nd grade and the related pattern of high speed crashes on both skates and on bicycles through out my cycling career, my entire right side grew weaker and weaker no matter what I did for workouts combined with the atrophy of the muscles of my feet and lower legs.
I should mention also that thanks to a prolific barefoot runner I found on the web who happens to live about 50 miles from my current location of Riverside, CA over in Huntington Beach, CA Ken Bob Saxton, who recommended I do a bit of self diagnosis by stripping down to just a pair of running shorts and standing in front of white or light colored wall and having someone take frontal, backside, right and left profile views plus a shot from above using a chair to get the camera above my head looking down vertically.
From there I was to upload them to my laptop and expand them to full screen. Then use a sheet of notebook paper to bisect or cover one half of the image and switch back and forth to look for asymmetries right to left and vice versa.
From the side views I was to look for a balanced view in reference to the pelvis. Think of the pelvis in profile as a large bowl. The bowl should sit so the rim vs the bottom sit level in relation to the floor. If tilted forward or backwards from this neutral position that would bind up its ability to sway side to side, rotate clockwise or counterclockwise when viewed from above or below and to teeter totter up and down as each foot lands, loads and lifts off from the ground right to left and left to right.
{My pelvis was pitched or tilted forwards about 3-4 degrees when viewed from either side!}
From the front view I quickly noticed that my nose sat almost an inch off plumb line center of the center of my sternum (the bone that all the ribs connect to in the middle of our chest)
I also noticed that one my trapezes muscles (the muscles that connect the neck to the shoulders and give the shoulders this kind of look - _/ \_ ) was taller and wider than the other side. I had been aware of this but thought I needed to do more shoulder shrugs on the smaller side to balance them out but had never been able to make any headway on doing so at the gym!
One should also be able to drop a plumb line from the ear hole and it should fall through the center of the shoulder joint, the elbow joint, the hip joint, the wrist joint, the knee joint, and finally the ankle joint.
{Mine missed the mark by over an inch before it got to the shoulder joint!}
The rear view was the view that shocked me and made me believe my interest in becoming a bonafide ultra distance lifestyle runner was all in vain!
What I saw was a spine that looked like a coiled up snake or dragon! Scoliosis BIG TIME!
I couldn't believe I've ridden 750,000 miles in the saddle and been under the coaching of Olympic level coaches, the care of chiropractors, masseuse and sports doctors and no one had spotted and spoken about this blaring structural flaw!!!!
I called Ken Saxton back and told him what I had found. I fully expected for him to tell me I should just forget about my ultra running ambitions and get back on the bike. (Of which I was so burnt out on even the idea of dealing with flat tires, dirty chains that get my finger nails black, broken spokes, replacing tires and the daily cleaning of the whole rig, add in the nervousness of city level close quarters with cars and trucks and a growing list of fellow cyclist who have been taken out by inattentive and intentionally malicious drivers.
So... After sharing with Ken what I found, he replies; "Thats good news!" To my astonishment!
I asked; "Where's the good news in all this?" He replied: "Your obviously doing something on the right side of your body that's different from the left! You're not moving symmetrically!" I said; "OK, tell me more!"
He stated: "You're going to need the feedback from the soles of your feet so your brain can tell you over time where your not symmetrically landing, loading and lifting off one side vs the other so you can make intentional micro shifts in the pelvis movements and muscle use to bring balance down below that will resonate back up the biomechanics chain all the way to the head to retention every muscle and ligament to create a perfectly stacked structure that moves in symmetry with grace and sustainability.
I thought this was an interesting view and probably right but I was also a major TENDER FOOT and didn't even take the trash cans out to the curb without shoes on!
As I pondered what Ken had said, I kept on running in my $130 shoes and replacing them monthly as the heels wore out or wore unevenly.
It took me a few more months of growing deeper in right knee pain with more and more inflammation and longer periods of time to cool the inflammation down enough go out for a decent run again before I woke up one night at 2am restless and impatient. I bumped my wife and told her I was going out for a run. She replied, "Its 2:clock in the morning! Where are you going?" I said, "I don't know!" She asked, "OK then when will you be back?" I replied, "I don't know...I'm just going to see what I can do. I can't sleep!"
So I slipped on my shorts, shirt and shoes and headed downstairs and out the door....
As I stepped out the door into the full moon night air I heard Ken's last words to me.... "You nee to LOSE THE SHOES!"
I thought... Well, its cool and well lit and the sidewalks looked clean and no real dangers littering them! So I took the shoes off and held them in my hands as I set off on that fateful night that would change my life forever...
It only took 2 city blocks to realize my right knee wasn't torquing and grinding as much as it did in shoes.
I found that my right knee didn't seem as unstable and I seemed to naturally land on the balls of and mid foot on each landing instead of the heel bones.
My right foot got tired and cramped quickly. This told me that the shoes had hidden real lack of fitness!
After about 2 blocks, I decided to turn around and head back home as I began to notice the right foot and leg fatiguing.
As I trotted along I began to notice hot and tenderized sensations on the balls of mostly the right foot that by the time I got home and examine my soles I saw I'd developed a few tiny blood blisters, and sanded thin patches of skin (not the whole ball of the foot but just smaller than a penny sized spots) and an inability to control the tension stored in the achilles on the right side resulting in my right foots heel sagging after front foot landing creating a slight bruising of the heel area.
I knew from there I solidly needed to continue this exploration to ever have a chance at becoming an Ultra Distance Adventure Runner capable of running upwards of 80-150 miles per week and or running a 50 to 100+ mile distance sustainably.
I figured that's about the running time per week that would be the equivalent to the 400-500 miles per week my body had become used to and enjoyed in the cycling seasons of my life.
As of this year - early 2021, I've run about 140,000 miles and my knee is perfect and none of the other problems exist any more including the scoliosis!
The body truly is self healing and self balancing if given the right raw materials, stimuluses and rest to over adapt to the stresses we ask it to adapt to!
I absolutely LOVE RUNNING FAR... and especially if it involves beaches, mountains, deserts and forest.
I also LOVE EATING LIVING FOODS.... don’t get me wrong, I can find some joy in a warm veggie soup, steamed rice, beans and cornbread, even Thai food with tofu substituted for what is normally meat sometimes.
But the sweetness, the pure water content of, the soft fiber to chew, the subtle oils, and free form aminos and even the unsaturated fats and easy to digest proteins of plants, fruits, greens, veggies, nuts and seeds. Yummy! More on that in Part 2.
And I love growing a Location Independent Business out of my now truly Smart Phone. I've also come to realize our phones are only smart if they make us the money to set us free to live real lives... Out Doors! More on that in Part 3 to come....
Let’s wrap up about running...
So it’s no wonder children lose their love of their very first physical passion as a Natural Runner from toddlerhood.
(Note: it’s possible to regain much of the proper form and function of Natural Running using very thin running sandals or to a lessor extent with very thin sole zero drop wide and tall toe box running shoes. But not the sole health of more or less full time barefoot persistence runner. Using an open toe box shoe or sandal with a super thin sole to traverse extremes in heat, cold or sharp thorns is smart. Otherwise, I suggest to be patient and persistent in allowing the soles to evolve and adapt to be able to go anywhere for any amount of time and distance ones inspired to go.
I’ve posted links to some sandals I’ve tried and may occasionally use when needed.
My sandals stay in my hydration pack when not needed. Or if I need something in my feet to enter a business for resupply of water or food. Or when I am just out shopping or going into businesses with my wife.)
Erskien Lenier
Barefoot Adventure Runner
☀️👣🏃🏾🥭
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