I receive emails frequently requesting that I review various products. I’ve come to realize that this is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, it’s nice to be able to test out gear, but the downside is that it takes time to test and write reviews, and time lately is something that I have precious […]
Archives for 2011
Gear Reviews: Nalgene Water Bottles, Arctic Ease Cryotherapy Wrap, and Febreze Laundry Odor Eliminator
By 4 Comments
Congrats to Steve Magness on his New Job as Assistant Coach to Alberto Salazar at Nike
By 2 Comments
Well, looks like the cat is officially out of the bag – I’d like to extend a big congratulations to friend and fellow running blogger Steve Magness on his new job as assistant coach to Alberto Salazar out at the Nike Facility in Beaverton, Oregon! As assistant coach of the Oregon Track Club, Steve will […]
Vertical Impact Loading Rate in Running: Post #2 from Jay Dicharry of the UVA Speed Lab
By 5 Comments
Yesterday I published a post on the topic of vertical impact loading rate in running – sounds like a complex topic, but in reality it simply represents how quickly you impact the ground when you run. The topic has gained a lot of interest among scientists lately as recent research has suggested that higher loading […]
Vertical Impact Loading Rate in Running: Linkages to Running Injury Risk
By 14 Comments
Last week I wrote a recap of the course I recently attended on the prevention and treatment of running injuries. In that post I mentioned that the topic of impact loading rate has gained a lot of interest lately in terms of it’s potential relationship to injury risk in runners. In the comments that followed […]
Gait Retraining and the Treatment of Running Injuries
By 28 Comments
Image by SashaW via Flickr In my previous post I summarized a slice of what was covered at a three-day course called “New Trends in the Prevention of Running Injuries” that I attended last weekend in West Virginia. In addition to discussing what we do and do not know about the causes of running injuries, […]
New Trends in the Prevention and Treatment of Running Injury, and a Healthy Dose of Natural Running
By 30 Comments
Every once in awhile in life you get the feeling that you are part of something big. Something that might really make a difference beyond just the small pool of people that you interact with on a regular basis. That was how I felt as I sat in a darkened conference room at the National […]
Shepherdstown, West Virginia: A Natural Running Community
By 1 Comment
I spent this past weekend at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV, a small town tucked along the Potomac River near the border with Maryland. Though I have spent time in West Virginia in the past, I’d never been to Shepherdstown, and thus knew very little about it. My reason for traveling to […]
Attending a Running Injury Conference in Sheperdstown, WV
By 19 Comments
Why runners get hurt is a question that occupies my mind almost constantly. It’s amazing that so simple an activity can cause so many problems for so many people – for example, the scientific literature reports injury rates ranging from about 20-75% of runners in studies that have been conducted to date. In my quest […]
On the Limitations of Science in the Study of Running
By 19 Comments
Image via Wikipedia As runners, we often want concrete, black and white answers to questions about things like shoe design, running form, training methods, and so on. Does running in a minimal shoe make you less prone to injury than running in a traditionally cushioned, heel-lifted shoe? Does switching form to a midfoot strike make […]
Proper Shoes for Kids: Thoughts From a Family Doctor
By 30 Comments
A few months ago I published an interview I conducted with Dr. Mark Cucuzzella. Mark is a family physician at Harpers Ferry Family Medicine in WV, an Associate Professor at West Virginia University School of Medicine, and the owner of Two Rivers (TR) Treads, the nation’s first minimalist-only running store. Like me, Mark has a […]
Forefoot Striking and Pronation: Insight from an Ultrarunning Podiatry Student
By 28 Comments
Image from the Runner’s World Wiki Just before Christmas I received a very thoughtful and well researched email from ultrarunner Phil Shaw. In addition to being a very successful long distance runner, Phil is also pursuing a doctoral degree in podiatric medicine – quite a dangerous combination! Like me, Phil feels that the current paradigm […]
2011 Minimalist and Barefoot Style Running Shoe Preview on the dailymile Blog
By 8 Comments
Quick post – just wanted to pass along a link to a post I published yesterday on the dailymile Community Blog that featured a preview of some of the minimalist and barefoot style running shoes set to be released in the next few months. It’s a very superficial overview of shoes from Altra, Merrell, New […]
Toe Salad: New Website For Minimalist Running Shoe Fanatics
Friend and fellow minimalist runner Damien Tougas of the Adventure in Progress blog has just put up an interesting new site/social network for shoe fanatics. Called Toe Salad (named by his daughter), the site features reviews and information centered around every manner of minimalist running shoe. Here’s how Damien describes the site: “After writing about […]
Vibram Fivefingers Success Story: Robert K.’s Experience in Toe Shoes
Image via Wikipedia The January 9th issue of the Boston Globe featured an article by David Abel recounting his story of running into a stress fracture in his Vibram Fivefingers. David’s story is certainly not unique as I have read reports of a number of cases of this happening. However, I have also received numerous […]
Interesting Article on Orthotics by Gina Kolata in the New York Times
Image via CrunchBaseReporter Gina Kolata published an excellent article today in the New York Times that discusses what we do and do not know about how custom orthotics work. She interviewed renowned running biomechanists Benno Nigg (University of Calgary) and Joesph Hamill (University of Massachusetts), as well as several orthotic makers. Here are a few […]