The 15 Essentials to Safely Transition to Forefoot/ “Barefoot” Running
1) Learn that ‘Getting Out the Door’ is Harder than the Actual Running. And How Not To Let that Stop Us. Our Human Nature is Getting in Our Way, But Doesn’t Have To. We Must Understand that our psychology to dread new challenging things is stopping us from succeeding. If we know this about ourselves, we can more confidently push through this initial self resistance. Once we get out the door, we will find sooner or later that; “we love going out to run.”
2) ReWrite Our Definition of Success, As one of Building a Consistent Healthy Habit and Being True To Ourselves Today, Rather than one of Pushing Hardest to Our Goals. Pushing hard Doesn’t Actually make us feel success in any lasting way, and it can Put Our Body at Risk of Injury. Being Consistent and True To Ourselves Does Feel Successful and Is Safe. Success is About Today, Not some Future Day When we Reach our Goals. It Is Always Today, And Rarely is it Personal Record Day. Success is Not About Our Time and Distance Goals. Success is Not About Pushing Our Hardest. Success Is Getting Out of The Door and Reaching For Our Goals. While Keeping Ourselves Safe In The Process. Only by Keeping Ourselves Safe During Our Exercise, Can We Continue Succeeding Tomorrow and Beyond.
3) Learn that Every Day Feels Different. So Embrace the “Short Run,” and Don’t be Discourged by the Data.. Progress is Gradual, But Not Consistent. Some days Won’t feel good. Sometimes we feel progress and then weeks go by without seeing progress. One day we get a Personal Record, and then we don’t seem to be able to achieve that again. This is part of the Process. By knowing that we will Not Always Be Better Today, Than We Were Yesterday, We can stay Confident Through the Worse Days. And By Having a “Short Run ( A Mile, or 10Minute Run, A Default Easy Run that we should be able to handle on the worse days, w/ walking of course), We Can Keep the Habit Forming Practice, Through The Worse Days. Keeping the Habit Today is More Important than the Specific Performance Today.
4) Accept that a Safe Transition is a Gradual Transition. This Transition Takes a lot of Personal and Physical Development. Being in a Rush to Achieve Time, Distance, or Other Health Goals is a Distraction from What Is Realistically Safe for Us. We MUST Let the Progress Take as Long as Needs To. Otherwise we will Accidentally Delay it With Stress Injuries, or Falling Injuries.
5) Accept that Running Slowly is How We Learn to Run Fast. Running Slowly Allows us to Focus On Our Form. Focusing on Our Form allows us to Develop Our Muscles, Tendons, and Ligaments into the Proper Structures, and to Use Our Body Mechanics Properly. Focusing on Good Form, also Allows us to Build the Muscle Memory We Need, to Be able to keep good form when we get tired. We Will Eventually Be Able To Run Fast, and Do it Safely. For Now, We Can’t Run Fast Safely. Our Ego Must Get Out Of Our Way for us to Be Successful Here.
6) Accept that for the First Few Months; Safe Distances are Short Distances; When Starting, We can only run a fraction of what we could run before with “common running form” (in which we let our heel touch the ground). Forefoot Running Uses the Muscles and Skeleton Differently. While Adjusting to this, It will take months of training before we get back to, and surpass the distances we were able to cover before the transition. It is hard because; it Feels like Starting Over. And Essentially it is Starting Over. But it Is Worth it.
7) Accept How Important Walking is, to Actually Building a Habit of Running and Becoming a Better Runner. Building a Healthy Habit Requires Enough of a Commitment for it to become a Way of Life. Even just 10Minutes a day can do it. But When We First Start Forefoot Running Form, We Generally can’t make it even 10minutes. The only way to get enough time with the habit; is to Walk Too. Additionally, Walking Breaks Allow our Heart Rates to Go Down, Which can allow our body to potentially Do more running intervals. Effectively turning one run into multiple runs, and building up to the minimum Time required to Build the Habit. Walking also helps remind us that; Success is Not: looking Cool Because We Didn’t Have to Stop.
8) Learn That Running Safety is Achieved by Proper Body Mechanics. If we do not use the proper body mechanics, We Will Wear Ourselves Down Instead of Build Ourselves Up. And, We Will Also Increase Our Risk of Falling Injuries. By Using Proper Body Mechanics, We Build our Muscles, Tendons, and Ligaments in a way that allows them to Respond Quickly, Ingrain Withing Ourselves, Rapid Body to Ground Responses. That don’t wear us down, and Do Keep us On Our Feet.
9) Learn that Healthy Movement is Achieved by In Line Movements. Our Skeletal and Muscular Systems Work as a Mechanism. It Only Functions Properly When All the Parts are Moving In Line With Their Intended Direction of Movement. We Must Keep Our Body Parts and Movements '“all Lined Up.” Not the Same Line, but Rather Parallel Lines. We Must Keep Our Feet Straight, Our Knees Moving In Line With Our Feet and Direction of Movement, We Must Keep Our Hips and Shoulders Lined Up (No Twisting). Always Standing Up Straight (No Bending Forwards, Even on the Uphills).
10) Learn to Keep Our Heels Off of the Ground. And Use Our Legs as a Spring. Only by Keeping our heels off of the ground can we Keep Ourselves from Pronating, Which is the only way we can Keep our Leg Movements In Line With Our Direction of Movement. Keeping our heels off of the ground is also the Only Way We Can Properly Use our Giant Achilles Tendon as a Spring. And this Allows Our Weight to Self-Align Over the Heel, Rather Than Tilting Inwards. And Our Heel Self-Aligns Behind Our Forefoot, because that is where the Weight is. Additionally the Ankle can Counteract the angle of the Ground, Rather than the Angle of the Ground Causing Torque on the Leg.
11) Learn the Importance of a Cadence of Around 180 Steps Per Minute, No Matter What Speed We’re Running.. Maintaining this Cadence, Allows for the Correct Timing for The Achilles Tendon to Bounce Like a Spring. At This Cadence the Springyness of Our Legs is Optimal. Additionally this Cadence Gives Us the Proper Speed to Make Quick Movements on Suddenly Unexpected Unstable Ground.
12) Learn That Proper Body Mechanics is Not Achievable with Standard Running Shoes. And What to Wear Instead. Cushioning and Support is Not What Our Body Needs. We Need Our shoe to protect our skin, while allowing our foot the mobility it needs to use All of It’s Elaborate Structure to their Fullest. Standard Running Shoes Don’t Allow proper Mobility, They Don’t allow us to Utilize All of Our Foot Muscles Together, They Cause Tipping Over Ankle Injuries, As Well as Many Other Falling Injuries Due to Misinterpreting or Not Feeling the Terrain. Safe Running Requires a shoe with a Wide Toe Box and Flexible Sole, so that we Can Truly Interact with the Conditions on the Ground.
13) Learn that the Ground is Unpredictable, so Our Running Form needs to be Reliable through all of those Conditions. The Ground Comes in all different slopes and contours. Even ‘flat sidewalks’ are built with a slight slope, and often include many other tilts and unpredictable elements. Sometimes we misjudge the slope of the ground, or we step in a slightly different place than we intend to, dramatically changing the Angle of Our Foot. Sometimes the ground gives way. Proper Running Form Allows us to Respond Quickly to What is Unpredictable. The Human Body has Incredible Response Times to What it Feels, Faster than Our Own Awareness, But Requires the Right Techniques to Respond Correctly.
14) Think BIG PICTURE. Progress Will Take as Long as it Needs to, and Today’s Habit is more Important than Today’s Performance. By Following This Patient Strategy, We Can Succeed Today, And in Years, We Can Look Back and See that We Have Reached Far Beyond Our Goals.
15) Accept Stopping When We Need To, Otherwise we’re Not Thinking Big Picture. Every Day is Different, Feel What My Body Feels Like Today, AND Respond. See and Embrace the Successfulness of Making This Decision. Ultimately, We are Trying To Build Ourselves Up, Not Tear Ourselves Down.
