Zero Drop Shoes

Audio Transcript

Michael Hammond: Hey Runners Connect Fans, welcome to another episode of the Run to the Top Extra Kick podcast. I’m here to answer a question from Christy about zero drop shoes.

Christy: Hey coaches, I have a question on integrating zero drop shoes into your training plan.

I heard on a recent webinar you guys did about running form, that integrating some lower, maybe some zero drop shoes into training could be helpful for building up foot strength, getting a natural foot strike, and making sure that you’re mixing up shoe variety.

I picked up some zero drop shoes. It was time for me to get some new shoes anyways, and so I have one pair of zero drops. Then I’ve been walking in them for a couple of months to get used to that change, and I’m wondering about putting them into my running.

Is it best to just start with strides? Do I start with running easy days? What are some general recommendations on how to integrate zero drop shoes into training plans? Over what period of time can I do that, and timing mileage wise? Thanks so much.

Michael: That’s a great question, Christy, and one that we talk about a lot in the running world.

Obviously, I think with the release of that book, Born to Run, the book got the conversation going about whether shoes were more detrimental than helpful, which has been an ongoing conversation ever since.

I think at least I have settled on a somewhat position on this, and I will go over that today. But first some quick background.

The theory behind this goes that essentially, by wearing shoes that are built up in the heel, which most running shoes are, what this does is lead to improper form, specifically it leads to heel striking.

Because you have this big built up heel, you’re able to strike at the heel without hurting your heel.

If you go walk barefoot outside, or try to run barefoot outside, there’s no way that you’re going to land on your heel.

There’s no way especially if you’re on concrete or something hard, there’s no way you’re going to land on the heel because the heel doesn’t have a lot to protect it.

You’re not going to land at the heel if you’re barefoot. That’s the idea behind the theory that shoes are not good for you, that big built-up shoes are more detrimental to your running form and efficiency overall.

The idea behind zero drop is that it’s going to encourage a more natural foot strike. That’s going to mean several things, but the biggest one is it’s going to encourage that mid foot strike.

As we were talking about with the heel striking, ideally, you want to be more of a mid-foot strike.

Don’t take that to mean you should be landing on your toes, because there’s a whole host of problems associated with that as well.

You want to be striking somewhere right in the mid foot. What that’s going to do is help you strike under your center of mass.

When you heel strike, typically people over striding, heel striking, their foot is striking the ground ahead of their center of mass, in front of their center of mass. What this does is it slows you down, it completely halts your momentum.

If you think about it, you’re always moving forward. You have this forward motion when you’re running.

But when you heel strike, when you strike out front of your center of mass, the energy goes backwards, goes back towards you, so you are slowing yourself down actively when you’re heel striking, with every single step.

It’s small, very small amounts, but if you multiply that over 26.2 miles, it makes a big difference.

Ideally, your foot strike is going to be on your mid foot, and it’s going to be under your center of mass.

The idea here is that it’s going to improve your efficiency overall, and probably the biggest thing is it’s going to reduce injuries.

The theory therefore goes that by wearing those big shoes, big built-up cushion under your heel, you get a little lazy.

Your form relies on your shoes in a way because you strike at the heel, you strike in front of your center of mass, which eventually ends up affecting your hips.

It affects your forward lean. You start to lean back or be perfectly upright, which isn’t correct either, because you want to have a bit of a forward lean going on.

Eventually this is going to lead to a host of injuries.

Regardless of what shoes you’re running in, if your form is terrible, you’re going to get hurt, and you’re not going to have an efficient running stride and you’re going to get injured a bit more often.

All of this is good but I want to give a disclaimer, this is not a magic bullet. Anyone who thinks it is a magic bullet is just wrong.

We’ve seen hundreds of people try this and there’s always issues with it.

To give a background, a certain company that rode the wave of the more lower drop, zero drop shoes, got sued because people wore them and they got injured. They got all sorts of injuries and blamed the shoes.

This is reasonable. When you get these shoes that guarantee you fewer injuries and more efficient running stride, and then when you wear them, and then two weeks later you have Achilles’ tendinitis, I don’t blame you for being upset about that.

What usually happens is that most people do it way too fast. They transition into these shoes, buy a pair of zero drop shoes, and start doing their normal mileage in them.

That’s way too fast and these people almost always end up injured.

Usually the Achilles is the first thing because it’s doing a lot more work, it’s getting stretched a ton more when you’re in a zero-drop shoe.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing because the other argument is that your Achilles is not being stretched out enough when you’re in bigger drop shoes, like a 12mm drop shoes.

But nonetheless, if you immediately transition from, say, a 12mm or even 10mm drop, down to a zero, that’s going to be a huge difference for your Achilles.

The calves are very commonly affected and from there it expands, depending on the person, to what sort of injuries they’ll get, but injuries almost always come.

The talk about our ancestors running barefoot, I hear that, but that said, with our ancestors we’re talking about many thousands of years ago.

They didn’t have roads and sidewalks.

It’s different when you’re talking about the world that we live in now, especially in a first world country, where you have roads and sidewalks everywhere.

For goodness’ sake if you go try to run barefoot, that’s not going to be pretty. It’s not good at all.

Some Africans run barefoot very commonly, and the reason they do that is because they have dirt and grass and soft surfaces to run barefoot on, and they’ve been doing it since they were kids, probably since they were born.

All this is to say be very careful. This can help, but you want to be very cautious.

On how to implement, first things first. Christy mentioned this in her question but it’s worth repeating to everybody.

You want to take it very, very slow. I like Christy’s idea where she said she started with walking, I think that’s fantastic.

In fact, I used to say to start implementing it on your strides, but I’m going to take that back, and I think I’m going to take an idea from Christy here, and that’s to start with walking, I think that’s fantastic.

Most people do some sort of walking, even if you go on your weekend errands, your weekend shopping, whatever it is you’re doing, and you wear your zero drop shoes.

That’s a great way to get your feet ready to wear something that’s totally different.

You don’t want to start with running; starting with walking is a great idea.

From there you can progress to strides, I think it’s probably the second thing to do, and it is good on two fronts.

One, strides are not that long, we’re talking about four to six times, maybe a 100-meter strides, two or three times a week tops, so we’re not talking about a lot of running.

The other nice thing is that zero drop shoes are almost always lighter, much lighter than a regular training shoe, which is great for strides because it makes you feel nice and fast.

It can help you when you’re working on your running form, as that’s a good time to use them as well.

From there, you want to go to very short easy runs, I’m talking three to five runs tops.

Ideally, and this applies to strides as well, but especially once you start running, get on some soft surfaces for these runs.

I know this is easier said than done for a lot of people, but if you can find, certainly some trails would be great, but if you can find a grass soccer field that you can go run on, that would be great.

You can test them out a little bit on a soft surface. It’s going to be a lot safer for your legs, for your Achilles, for everything, than a road is.

Then from there, you work up slowly, from short easy runs, you progress to long easy runs, from those you progress to even long runs or workouts.

I think the best way to end up, in my opinion, is to get to the point where you do most of your faster stuff in lower drop shoes, and this is where I have settled on, after seeing the science in addition to just experience.

Maybe your harder workouts, maybe even your long runs, though I would still recommend doing those in regular shoes, and I will get to that in a second.

But get to the point where you do two or three days a week, where you do almost your whole workout, at least like the faster part in your more zero drop shoes.

That’s a great idea because then you’ll feel nice and fast, you’re working on your form while you’re going faster, which is obviously good on several levels, and it just works that way, it’s a good way to implement it.

I don’t recommend doing all your mileage for a couple of reasons.

One, from experience, I’ve met a ton of the best runners in the world and I’ve seen them, I’ve watched them train, I’ve seen all around, and I’ve done research, and all the best runners in the world use normal shoes for probably the majority of their mileage.

Of course, they do their shorter, faster stuff in maybe flats or zero drop shoes, and they do a good amount of mileage in that stuff. But at the same time, when they’re out going for an easy long run, they wear normal shoes.

I’m not saying that makes it right, but I’m saying, from my experience, that is what has worked.

I’ve seen people try the hand where they try to make all their mileage in zero drop, and from what I found, it doesn’t work very well.

I’m not saying people can’t do it, I just haven’t seen it work well when you’re doing this much training.

That leads me into the second point. To be honest, marathon training is not natural.

Running a marathon is not a natural thing for a human to do. I’d like to hear an argument that it is, but it’s just not.

If marathon training isn’t natural and you’re talking about the natural foot strike, the natural form, whatever, it’s hard to relate those things because you’re doing something unnatural.

That’s why, from my experience, I think it’s better to do at least the majority of your miles, maybe even half of your mileage in regular shoes, whatever works well for you, and then from there doing the shorter faster stuff, maybe some threshold tempo workouts, in flats or zero drop shoes.

Another thing to check out before I sign off here, is some companies I know, I believe Saucony, Brooks, several companies, will make not zero drops, but they make low drop shoes, like 4mm which is a great place to start implementing these.

Nike does as well, a lot of the companies will make 4mm drop shoes, a lot of them call them flats because they’re more so designed for workouts.

You can use them on your tempos, your thresholds, your speed work, and that’s a good way to transition in without necessarily going to zero drop.

But for those who are going straight to zero drop, make sure that you’re very careful.

Okay Runners Connect fans, that’s it for today.

Finally, I want to thank our sponsor, Audible.

First off, do you run with headphones? Want to make those long runs go by a bit faster? Audible makes running go by much faster with an incredible selection of audio books, both running and non-running related.

Sometimes it can be nice to take in your surroundings and be left with your own thoughts on a long quiet run but sometimes it can just be pure agony.

I started running with music maybe a couple of years ago or so, and while it helped me get out the door and it made solo runs much more enjoyable, even music can get old and especially when you’re exhausting the same playlist after every second or third run.

Podcasts like this one helps to spice things up but it’s hard to beat a good book when you’re logging mile after mile. That’s why I decided to give Audible a try and I’m so glad I did.

It’s got a tone of great running and non-running related books to help keep your mind off the run during those inevitable rough patches and it also exposes you to some new insights on training, nutrition, and the mental side of running.

I’m currently listening to a great book and it really gets me pumped to go for a run even when I’m tired because it means I finally get to listen to those next few chapters.

Not just that, but Audible has a free 30-day trial to test it out and see if it’s right for you. Check out Audible’s extensive running selection and start your free 30-day trial at runnersconnect.net/audible, and make those long runs go by a little faster.

Thanks for tuning in Runners Connect fans, enjoy your run today.