“…no material comfort can equal the luxury of a well fitting, broad-toed, flexible, heelless shoe. Of course, the secret is that a good barefoot shoe enables us to walk naturally and to find in simple natural exercises not only health, but sanity and happiness as well. If I were a fairy and asked to bestow […]
Tread Lightly Book Excerpt Published on Natural Running Center Website
Quick post to alert you to an excerpt from my upcoming book Tread Lightly. My co-author, Bill Katovsky, just posted an excerpt he wrote on barefoot running in the early 1960’s on the Natural Running Center website. This excerpt comes from his two chapter sequence on the history of footwear and the rise of the […]
Moses Mosop–Slow Motion Running Form from the 2012 Rotterdam Marathon
Below is a video shot by Jacky Ledeboer, a phsyiotherapist from the Netherlands, showing the running form of elite Kenyan marathoner Moses Mosop at the 2012 Rotterdam Marathon. The video, posted on her YouTube channel, is shot at 210 frames per second. Mosop will be one of the three men representing Kenya in the marathon […]
Slow Motion Running Foot Strike Video from the CPC Loop Den Haag Half Marathon in the Netherlands
Jacky Ledeboer, a phsyiotherapist from the Netherlands, recently alerted me to a video she shot at the CPC Loop Den Hague half marathon in the Netherlands. The video, posted on her YouTube channel, is shot at 210 frames per second and provides a great sample of the variation in foot strike patterns seen among fast […]
Facts on Foot Strike: My Article in the June Issue of Running Times
I wanted to alert you to an excerpt from my book, Tread Lightly: Form, Footwear, and the Quest for Injury-Free Running, that was published in the June 2012 issue of Running Times magazine (starting on page 26, with a great photo of my friend Mark Cucuzzella!). The article looks at the differences between heel striking […]
Set Your Piggies Free: When It Comes to Kids and Shoes, I Couldn’t Agree More!
As a parent of three kids who love being barefoot, this song just makes me happy.
adidas Adizero Adios 2 Running Shoe Review
“Kenyan runners race in low-support shoes, but they mostly train in big, chunky, cushioned sneakers, just like your average, plodding Western jogger. Oddly, though, and contrary to Lee’s (Saxby) theories, these big shoes don’t force the Kenyans to run heel first. They virtually all run in a lovely, smooth forefoot-first style – what Lee would […]
Nike Free 3.0 v4: Initial Thoughts
I have a long history with the Nike Free 3.0 line. Back in early 2009, the original Free 3.0 was my first foray away from stability shoes, and it was the shoe that convinced me that I did not need a lot of support and structure in a running shoe. I fell in love with […]
Effect of Step Rate on Lower Limb Loading in Runners
Just over a week ago Amby Burfoot wrote a post about a new study from Japan that provides additional evidence supporting the benefits of a shorter stride for reducing loading of the lower limbs. The study by Hobara et al. is titled Step Frequency and Lower Extremity Loading During Running and was published in Orthopedics […]
Introducing My Book: Tread Lightly: Form, Footwear and the Quest for Injury-Free Running
About 16 months ago I received an email from a guy named Bill Katovsky asking me if I had any interest in writing a book. I didn’t know him at the time, but I had at least given thought to the idea of writing something more than another blog post. We spoke on the phone […]
















