I Found My Lost Twin

Have you ever seen someone who you thought was just like you? Maybe not 100% identical but enough that it made you think twice? I chanced upon a book called Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Chistopher initiated an interesting journey based on the question, "Why does my foot hurt?" As I've asked the same question for over the last year, my interest grew as I read more and more and watched video after video. After reading about Christopher and his journey for an hour I happened upon one his blog posts where he was glueing leather as an insole into his Vibram Five Finger shoes. Aha! That's when I knew this guy was my twin. He had a hurt foot, I had a hurt foot, he has no hair, I'm hair challenged, he wears Vibram Five, I long for a pair of Vibram five, he blogs, I blog, he glues leather insoles into his shoes, I velcro. Oops. Well, see? Almost identical except for the glue/velcro point.

Seriously, I downloaded Chistopher's book to my iPod and reading everything realated to the argument he and others are proposing about running shoes, orthotics and whether they're doing more harm than good. I'll be posting many of the links to the related articles and videos tomorrow for Link Friday. In a nutshell the articles are asking if modern athletic shoe design is contributing to poor running form, and as a result to more injuries.

I've had similar questions over the last year.

1. Why does my foot hurt?
2. Why do people drop out of the corporate fitness programs?
3. What is too much of endurance sports? Does running a marathon, if done right, create more bad than good for the body?
   

While they may seem like different questions, I'm thinking that the second question plays a lot into the first. And the third question also plays into the other two as correct form, incorrect form and just plain over use can mean the difference if someone becomes injured or not.

Two statistics to leave you with.

1. It's said that 95% of people starting an exercise program will leave it within the first six months.
2. Dr. Noakes. "I think the Pose (method of running) is advantageous in preventing injuries, which is important since about 60 percent of runners get injured each year." Christopher says it's 80 percent.