Cody Koontz sells shoes and talks about running at RunnersWorld Tulsa. He is a certified personal trainer by the American College of Sports Medicine. He loves helping people meet their goals and overcome their limitations through exercise. Cody believes that deeper understanding and improved perception of movement are the best foundation for fitness. He is also a licensed physical therapist assistant and uses his rehabilitative background to help clients avoid injury and “bridge the gap” between physical therapy and their desired activities.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Cody Koontz about how shoes alter your reality.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How traditional footwear causes people to disassociate from their bodies.
– Why it’s important to be able to feel the ground when you’re walking.
– How your Achilles can’t work as a spring if you wear shoes with large soles.
– Why blocking your foot positions causes your knees to move in ways they shouldn’t.
– How having less support on your foot allows your knee to do what it’s meant to.
Connect with Cody:
Guest Contact Info
Instagram
@okaycodyk
Facebook
facebook.com/cody.koontz.12
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/cody-koontz-021755143
Links Mentioned:
codykfitness.com
Connect with Steven:
Website
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
There’s this idea that what you believe can influence the way you actually perceive reality. What if the way you perceive reality is influencing something else?
We’re going to dive into that in today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to find… Well, to have a happy, healthy, strong body. Starting feet first usually because those things are your foundation. Although we talk about other stuff here too. And we break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the outright lies you’ve been told about what it takes to walk or run or play or do yoga or CrossFit, whatever it is you like to do, and to do that enjoyably and efficiently and effectively and…
Wait, did I say enjoyably? It’s Monday. Ah. Never mind. I know I did because, look, it’s a trick question. If you’re not having fun, do something different till you are because you’re not going to keep it up if it’s not enjoyable.
I’m Steven Sashen from xeroshoes.com, your host of the podcast, which is sometimes just a rant where I’m not being a host but we call it The MOVEMENT Movement because we are creating a movement that involves you, it’s easy, it’s free, I’ll tell you how in a second, about natural movement, helping people realize that letting your body do what’s natural is often way, way better than any of the “technological” improvements that have come around in the last 50 years. So that way you are part of this.
Is really simple, just spread the word. So like us and give us a thumbs up and share and leave reviews and pass it on and go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com to find the previous episodes, all the places you can engage with us on social media, etc. All the ways you can find the podcast wherever you get your podcast. You get the idea. If you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe.
So let us jump in. Cody Koontz, do me a favor, tell people who you are, what you’re doing here, and things like that.
Cody Koontz:
Hey, yeah, thanks for having me. Like you said, I’m Cody Koontz from Runners World Tulsa, which is a running store here in Tulsa, if you can believe that. Yeah, I have a background in physical therapy. I’m a licensed physical therapist assistant, also a certified personal trainer through ACSM.
And yeah, I first got into Barefoot Movement back in college and man, once your eyes are open to that, it’s tough to look back. But yeah, I think I’m really excited to be here because I do work in a running shoe store and-
Steven Sashen:
Ooh.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, it’s having one foot in both worlds.
Steven Sashen:
Pun intended. Well, let me back up a half a step. Your certification, you mentioned ACSM, for people who don’t know, that’s The American College of Sports Medicine, not an actual university, the organization of people who are involved in practicing sports medicine. It’s a wonderful organization.
Happily, the new president is Dr. Irene Davis who was at Harvard, now she’s at University of Southern Florida. And why I say happily is because Irene is the leading proponent for research about minimalist footwear and natural movement.
And the research she’s done has inspired dozens and dozens of other people around the world to do the kind of research to what I call the dumbest science ever because basically most of it is proving use it or lose it. It’s proving that letting your body work naturally is better than getting in the way of that which is shocking that we need to demonstrate that when the big shoe companies have never demonstrated the validity of anything they’ve said. So anyway, that’s a bit of a tangent.
So I tease this episode. Such a weird word to use. I tease this episode with this idea of what we believe affects our perception of reality and maybe what we’re perceiving is affecting something else. And that came from something that you and I talked about for a brief moment before we hit record. Talk to me about what that is. What that was bringing up for you and maybe by the end of this I’ll learn to speak English.
Cody Koontz:
Sounds good. And, well, this is actually my first podcast ever, so if I say something stupid, yeah, you’ll have all kinds of grace from me. And actually if I can go back too.
Steven Sashen:
Yes.
Cody Koontz:
I, earlier today, was just listening to your Dr. Irene Davis episode. I think it was 132. I think the best thing people can do right now is pause this one and go listen to that one because-
Steven Sashen:
Well, if they listen to this-
Cody Koontz:
… it was amazing.
Steven Sashen:
That’s very kind. But I’m not going to take credit because it’s all about Irene. But even more if you want to hear, there’s two other things that are really good but don’t leave to hear them.
Peter Attia did an interview with Irene. I introduced the two of them and that one’s really, really fun. And then so you just search for Peter Attia, A-T-T-I-A. He’s actually peterattiamd.com and you can find… Pardon me one second. You can find Irene’s episode there.
And also there’s a Freakonomics podcast called These Shoes Are Killing Me! That was with Irene and Daniel Lieberman who was at Harvard as well. He’s still there. And that’s another really good one.
And I mentioned those because they’re both more… Freakonomics, one in particular, is really geared towards mainstream people who know nothing about this. And Peter, of course, is geared towards more people who are hip to the health and wellness benefits of things and looking into that. So he takes a deeper dive into that with Irene.
Anyway, but we’re not going to make people leave now. So back to you for the win.
Cody Koontz:
All right. So yeah, you were talking about reality and this idea comes from… I have a friend who’s a psychologist and a counselor and he was telling me… I was trying to get the right words from him earlier today but he said one way to approach mental illness is that people have difficulty engaging with reality.
So I’m not a mental illness professional. I’ve experienced it myself but I think that sort of disassociation with reality is something that traditional footwear causes to your whole body. It takes reality which might be flat, might be rocky, might be quite tumultuous and replaces it with a ramp and tons of cushion. And so you can get away with that for a long time but sometimes, reality breaks through.
Steven Sashen:
There’s a friend of mine who has a line, “You can argue with reality but reality always wins.”
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, yeah. That’s good.
Steven Sashen:
And it’s a really interesting way because there’s another aspect of that which is just the experience or the lack of… Let’s do it that way. The lack of experiencing reality when you can’t really feel the ground, when you can’t tell if you have some gait change.
And I say you can’t tell if you have a gait change because many people… When I was in the lab with Dr. Bill Sands, he was the former head of biomechanics for the U.S. Olympic Committee when I was in his lab, it was amazing discovering how people’s gait would change with every different shoe they put on their feet and most of them never noticed.
Including a guy who was a habitual… Well, he said he was a barefoot runner but he mostly spent his time in five fingers. And when he was barefoot, his form was perfect. When he was in five fingers, he was overstriding and heel striking and did not know it which is amazing.
So when you are wearing something that elevates your heel, that has enough padding so you don’t get enough sensation from the ground or very much sensation from the ground, when the sole is constructed to change the physics of how your foot interacts with the ground, most of this just either don’t notice or we habituate to it.
And so what are your thoughts, and I want to put this through the lens of somebody who works in a shoe store, what do you see? What’s your experience or thoughts about that phenomenon of distancing you from reality and how that then pans out?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. So I just had a customer Friday I think came in and I was working with someone else at the time. This individual had just been trying on shoe after shoe. My boss had about every shoe in the back in the front for this person to try on and it was just not getting anywhere.
And so that’s when I get called over to just maybe use my background in physical therapy to do a different gait analysis. And so I have him trying a couple of shoes that I thought would be telling for his gait and then I said, “Hey, just take your shoes off.” And he did. Took his socks off too. And he ran. And it was beautiful. Something to behold. And he didn’t have pain.
And that is a situation that has happened multiple times working in physical therapy especially with runners or other people. You feel the ground, you orient your body appropriately with gravity, and then things start clicking.
But it is tough working in a running store where we don’t even carry a shoe like Xero Shoes.
Steven Sashen:
Well, that was obviously my next question is… And I’m going to give you a… What’s the word? I’m going to give you a way in for whomever the buyer is which is we don’t need to tell people to run in these.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
This is an upsell. This is an additional product to add to someone… Additional arrow for their quiver.
And there’s an ebook that I’ve gotten put together that I helped contribute to that talks about two things. One research from Dr. Sarah Ridge showing that just walking in minimal shoes builds full strength as much as doing an exercise program. But then the other part is the people who did that exercise program and ran in regular shoes over the course of a year, this is from Dr. Isabel Sacco, the people who did the exercise program over the course of a year had 250% fewer injuries than those who didn’t.
So there isn’t a study yet, yet, showing that if you just walk around and choose like Xero Shoes and run in whatever the hell you want, you’re going to have a 250% lower injury risk rate. But it is the exact same exercise program in the middle of the equation. So do the math even though that specific study doesn’t exist yet.
So when we were at the running event, big trade show for running stores-
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
… that was our pitch. It’s like we’re not telling people to not wear their Gel-Kayano or their HOKA or their whatever the hell it is that all look exactly the same now. We would, but I’m not going to tell that to people who think that will threaten their livelihood somehow.
It’s like this is an additional thing when you’re done running, especially these super maximal shoes where they’re really expensive and they break down really fast. It’s like get out of them as soon as you’re done running and then wear something that’s going to build strength back into your feet.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Oh, I just had a follow-up thought and I lost it.
Steven Sashen:
Exercise program, barefoot, difficulty being in a running shoe store.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. I don’t remember.
Steven Sashen:
But seriously, how do you… Given what you know and what you believe, how do you deal with doing the exact opposite of it all day?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Yeah, you have to admit it. It does feel like doing the exact opposite of what I know.
And I’ve been thinking about that because I assumed that would come up in our conversation. But I think it comes down to thinking about what a running store provides. And so the store I work for, locally owned, it’s just us, owner’s been working there for 40 years now in the community.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, wow.
Cody Koontz:
She puts on a ton of races like Runners World Racing. And so really what I think the local running store provides is a community hub for runners. And so in that lens, I’m more so selling running than running shoes. And with my background, I can get someone to try on a shoe that they haven’t tried before that might have less of a drop, lighter weight, or more forefoot room and they like it and they keep running, then that’s great.
But ultimately, if I can just keep people running, and often people will have pain and I’ll tell them, “I’m a personal trainer. I can help you rewrite some of these patterns,” then before they know it, they’re in one of my sessions barefoot. And we’ve begun.
Steven Sashen:
I won’t tell if you won’t tell.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, yeah. Yes.
Steven Sashen:
Well, in a related note, this is an interesting question perhaps. At the store, have you ever sold the copy of the book Born to Run or the new one Born to Run 2?
Cody Koontz:
It’s in our little… We have a little library. It’s over there.
Steven Sashen:
Fascinating. This is one of my favorite thing is when I go somewhere and I see that someone has the book, I was in a doctor’s office recently, orthopedic surgeon, and he had a book or had a copy of the book in the room that I was in and then everyone walked in big, thick, stiff motion controlled padded bullshit shoes and they talked about how much they love the book. It was like, “But didn’t you… Wait, what?” So-
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, it’s like that disconnect.
Steven Sashen:
It’s a tricky one.
Cody Koontz:
And I think… Oh, at the end of that episode with Dr. Davis, you and she were discussing how do you get more people to wear the shoes. And I wanted to yell one way… You could copy what the other brands have done. You’ve probably thought of this already. Get in the stores, have people try them on.
Steven Sashen:
Well, easier said than done. Yes, the goal would be just to simply get people to try things on or for people listening, if you’re not going to get a pair of Xero Shoes or some other truly minimal shoe which there are very few, just take off your shoes and start walking around.
Cody Koontz:
Right.
Steven Sashen:
You can start there. But the challenge with running shoe stores, I’ll tell you this story, and I’m sorry, this me yapping away so much. We had a salesperson working for us who’d been in the footwear business for a while and had moved from brand to brand. And then came over here and loved what we were doing, changed her life. And then we go to, in fact, it was the running event last year, and we go to the running event and all of her previous accounts showed up and they couldn’t have been happier to see her. They were thrilled to hang out with her. And none of them brought our shoes into their store. And she was very distraught by that.
And I said, “Well, it’s not personal. It’s not because they don’t like you, they adore you. The difference is that previously when you moved from company to company, they didn’t care if they were selling Saucony, Mizuno, ASICS. It just didn’t matter to them. It was all basically the same. But now you’re asking them to not only buy something very different but think differently and have to tell a new story, even if it’s just an additional story. It’s a new thing they need to learn and they just weren’t confident that they’d be able to make money despite the fact that every store we’ve been in makes money selling in our shoes.”
And she was so upset not only by their behavior or lack thereof but realizing that they weren’t doing anything to be helpful that she said, “I got to get out of the business.” And she left footwear sales forever.
Cody Koontz:
Oh, that’s so sad.
Steven Sashen:
So getting into shoe stores, running shoe stores in particular, has been incredibly challenging.
Cody Koontz:
Sure.
Steven Sashen:
Because they still believe that barefoot or minimalist or frankly natural movement is somehow going to hurt you despite the fact that their runners are coming in already saying, “I’m hurt. What do you have for me?” So it’s a bit of a cognitive problem where it’s like, “No, they already have the problem you’re worried they’ll get here.” And what we are finding is the opposite is that problems somehow often disappear.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. No, I’ve had some conversations with over the years different… And I’ve worked at a couple different stores and asked them, “Why don’t we carry a barefoot option?” And they have the same answer because I’ve been really grateful to work at stores that want to educate more than sell and so the locations I’ve had where they’ve told us to educate ourselves. And so our gait analysis probably looks a little different than most locations. But yeah, it is that paradigm shift.
But I think if we got some barefoot shoes in one of our running clubs and just, “Go for a run in these and see what you think.”
Steven Sashen:
Well-
Cody Koontz:
I think it would change minds.
Steven Sashen:
… I would argue that’s probably the worst thing to do because-
Cody Koontz:
What?
Steven Sashen:
… you don’t want someone just put on a new pair of shoes. You wouldn’t do this with a regular pair of shoes. You wouldn’t say, “Here’s a brand new pair of shoes, you just go for a run.”
Cody Koontz:
But we do.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, really? Oh, man. Well, you certainly wouldn’t say go for a race.
Cody Koontz:
No. No, no.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. But especially for something minimalist, you don’t want people just to take their normal 5K a day and just switch to 5K a day in a shoe that’s going to be biomechanically different.
Cody Koontz:
No.
Steven Sashen:
So that’s why the whole idea of use these as something when you’re done running… Because one day you’ll be walking around picking up the mail, doing whatever, and then you’ll run to the corner or you’ll chase something and realize, “Oh, wow, I can do this.”
And I’m particularly intrigued. We have a lot of very… How do I want to put it? Really good runners in my neighborhood. Bunch of world champions. And I’ll see then a bunch of really good casual runners and I’ll see somebody run by technically they have good form, landing midfoot underneath their body, everything looks great except they’re in a big thick shoe and their heel never touches the ground. And so they’re not getting the full use of their Achilles as a spring. And I wonder what they would be like switching because fundamentally it wouldn’t be any different for them. So that would be intriguing.
Which brings me to the question, what do you guys do for gait analysis since nine times out of 10 it’s complete bullshit?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Well, I would say I think it might be worth having people just throw on the shoe and jog around.
Steven Sashen:
Maybe-
Cody Koontz:
Not for a training run, but-
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. To get the feeling?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Well, we saw that in Bill Sands’ lab. We saw that most people, not literally 90%, when they switched to barefoot, their form instantly changed. When they switched to our shoes, it stayed the same as when they were barefoot. And then the 10% who didn’t, it took 30 seconds to give them some coaching to change that. But again, I’m really curious about what you guys do for gait analysis.
Cody Koontz:
Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. So what we do it’s different per person. I have a different background than my bosses so-
Steven Sashen:
Well, let’s start with a simple thing. You’re putting them on a motorized treadmill, yeah?
Cody Koontz:
No.
Steven Sashen:
Non-motorized or running or how are you doing it?
Cody Koontz:
Running around the store or outside.
Steven Sashen:
Okay. So they’re running around outside and are you just looking or are you videotaping?
Cody Koontz:
So I do a gait analysis where I do a video, but just for general people coming into the store, we just watch.
Steven Sashen:
And so what are you looking for then?
Cody Koontz:
The main thing is we look for asymmetries and going from there, we look at what looks off and we’re basing that on. Are you using one side more than the other? Because most people do that. It’s less about everyone asks right away.
So I used to be a heel striker but now I land on my forefoot and they still land on their heel. But-
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, the number of times where I’ve heard someone say that they don’t heels strike and I watched them do it is very high.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. So I guess our gate analysis is it’s kind of vague in what we’re looking for and more comes down to can we find a shoe to support, by support, I mean comply with this person’s stride, in a way that they might not be getting right now. And my mind is working on how can I talk about getting them in less shoe.
Steven Sashen:
So first of all, if you’re looking for asymmetry, I’m assuming that means you’re watching them either from the front or the back as they’re running toward or away from you. And can you… For people who don’t have a sense of what that might be like, what kind of things do you see that are asymmetric?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. So it’s tempting to look right at the feet but you see a lot more sometimes looking at the shoulders. And so you might see someone twist their shoulders more towards the left or more to the right or their arm swing is asymmetrical. That can give you a lot of cues as to what’s going on farther on down the chain. Or they might have landing on their left foot, their right hip might drop which could be a cue that they are not fully activating their glutes on one side.
Yeah. It can get pretty complicated. And I’m definitely guilty of getting in the weeds with people. But I think a lot of people are a little bit more receptive to being told, “This is something you’re doing. You might not be aware of. It turns out you’re using this side more than the other. Let’s try to equal that out.”
Steven Sashen:
The reason I said that it’s mostly bullshit is that… Well, because the research backs that up, but more specifically when I go into most running shoe stores and they got a treadmill set up, there’s a camera there that’s filming it 60 frames a second basically from the knees down. So they’re missing all the things that you said you’re primarily looking for from the knees up.
Cody Koontz:
But that’s how I started. Same-
Steven Sashen:
Oh, yeah?
Cody Koontz:
… awful setup. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And I think about the video they’re using which is at best 60 frames a second in Bill’s lab, he was filming you at 500 frames a second because he said, “You can’t learn anything with less than 250. So let’s go to five.” And then the last part is that they’re using this with some prescribed notion of if you do X, then you need Y shoe.
Cody Koontz:
Right.
Steven Sashen:
And the army studied that and found that it didn’t matter. They could put people in the shoe that they were prescribed or a random shoe and the injury results were exactly the same. Performance was exactly the same. There was just no… This whole idea that you need that you can figure out how someone’s running and find a shoe to adapt to that or change that or something and help them become less injured. There was no evidence for that.
So when you’re looking even though you’re not using 60 frames a second on a motorized treadmill and you can answer for other people in the store perhaps, how are you then… That thing of picking a shoe that can comply with them or work with them or do something with or for or to them? How do you do that math?
Cody Koontz:
Oh, it’s tough. Honestly, it’d be way easier just to say, “Take off your shoes and…”
Steven Sashen:
Well, since you don’t have that luxury and other people don’t have that-
Cody Koontz:
I don’t.
Steven Sashen:
… mindset, then what happens?
Cody Koontz:
Just a lot of time asking questions. How did that feel? First of all, does the shoe fit? Most people are wearing shoes that aren’t only too much shoe but are way too small.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, really?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. You generally should be able to put your thumb between the end of your toe and the front of the shoe for most people in traditional running shoes-
Steven Sashen:
Oh, I’m so glad you have that.
Cody Koontz:
… and they don’t have that.
Steven Sashen:
So yes, for most people in traditional shoes, do you know why?
Cody Koontz:
Oh, because the shoe doesn’t move and your foot does.
Steven Sashen:
It’s a little… It’s even better than that because that’s part of it. When you have a shoe with a big thick midsole, if it bends at all, it’s like bending a phone book for people who remember what a phone book is, the inside will bend faster than the outside. So as you’re going through the gait cycle, the inside of the shoe gets shorter.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. And then you end up not being able to engage your foot in display. And whenever there’s not movement where it’s supposed to be, it has to happen where it’s not supposed to happen.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s great. No. So hold on. I don’t want to pause on that because that’s a brilliant line. So whenever there’s not movement where there’s supposed to be, it’s going to try to create movement where there’s not supposed to be. Can you dive into that a little bit and tell me what you’ve seen and discovered, etc.?
Cody Koontz:
It would be my pleasure.
Steven Sashen:
Well, I thank you, sir.
Cody Koontz:
This is a huge thing with knees. Often, we try to support the foot because it is supposed to help the knee and it’s the exact opposite. When you block the foot from moving, you require the knee to move differently. And I’m speaking anecdotally, I haven’t done research on this, but we see it all the time.
And so most people, for whatever reason, have poor ability to dynamically control the knee through their glutes. And so if you block the foot, then you create a situation where the knee is required to move in ways or position itself in ways that are not healthy. And then it’s just this vicious cycle of like, “Whoa, we need more support at the foot. We need more support at the foot,” when it’s actually less and more strength at the foot would be able to let the knee do its job which is really working in primarily one plane.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, I love that. I’m going to steal that phrase from you because it’s a really good one.
It’s funny that the whole idea of posting your foot, of trying to keep it in some particular shape, which is totally arbitrary, just has that exact effect of if your foot can’t move, everything else above it is trying to compensate and they’re just not wired for that.
And to your point, this is the part that blows me away and I guess it shouldn’t is that people just keep coming back looking for some variation of the same thing that caused the problem to begin with.
Cody Koontz:
Right. Yeah. So many people come in and they’re like…
Oh, I had someone a couple weeks ago, she came in wearing insoles in two pairs of shoes and she was like, “Can you watch me run in these?” And we did. And she’s like, “I’m having pain.” We had her take the insoles out and she ran without pain. And then she said, “So do you have a better insole?”
Steven Sashen:
Oh my God.
Cody Koontz:
And I was just like, “No, actually here’s why you probably don’t need one.”
And I’ve stolen something from you which is the best way to support an arch is from the top down. If you support an arch from the bottom up, you break it.
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
But that’s a brilliant example of people are so indoctrinated that you show them explicitly that the thing they think is a solution is causing a problem and they just look for another version of the same thing.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, it’s tough. One more example of being unable to fully engage with reality I think is taking that idea of movement not happening where it should but also feeling not happening where it should. And there’s this disorder, Charcot foot, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.
Steven Sashen:
No.
Cody Koontz:
C-H-A-R-C-O-T. It happens with-
Steven Sashen:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Keep going.
Cody Koontz:
Well, you probably know where I’m going with this but it happens with people who have some sort of neuropathy or inability to sense through their feet and so what they do is end up applying more impact than they need. And their foot goes from being arched this way, totally reversing, which is similar to the way shoes are made. And if we’re mimicking a disease state, that’s probably not good and that’s not… People who are experiencing that are… It’s part of a disease process. It’s not like a specific choice. But, anyways, that’s interesting.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, I know about it but I haven’t really looked into it very much. Given the neurological component, I wonder how much of that can be addressed by first getting actual feedback from the sole of your foot to your brain and then what that’s going to do to the musculature or what it can do to muscle firing patterns and whether that, I haven’t heard people talk about this, I wonder if it is addressable in some way with natural movement and just starting with getting some sensation back, etc.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, I know. And it’s definitely an allegory but maybe there is a way to do that for people.
Steven Sashen:
I’m always blown away when you watch people… HOKA has become the footwear for old people and it’s amazing watching people in those shoes shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, slow, slow, slow. And then-
Cody Koontz:
Amazing is one word.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. I’m being euphemistic in a weird way.
It’s stunning to me that it’s become so popular. And now when we were at the running event, every shoe other than ours was at least an inch and a half thick.
Cody Koontz:
Oh, yeah. It’s just getting more.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, I’m just really… It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens over the next couple years.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Especially now that everybody’s doing it, that’s never a good sign when everyone’s doing one thing that usually means that’s about to break.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, it is. We do get a lot of people come in from their, usually, podiatrist saying, “I need the carbon fiber shoe.” And, “Oh, are you doing a race soon?” “No, I have plantar fasciitis and I’m in my eighties.” And it’s like, “Ooh, there’s a lot between barefoot and carbon fiber shoe that wouldn’t be better for you but…”
Steven Sashen:
Well, the carbon fiber thing is fascinating because again, back to the running event, every shoe there was talking about their carbon fiber. And so it’s become a thing that everything in footwear, the companies use some technology or some misrepresentation to physics in a way that no one thinks about. And then it becomes the thing.
So carbon fiber, the joke there is it’s not doing anything functionally. It’s there for structure because with that much foam and that kind of foam, if you didn’t have a carbon fiber layer, the foam would just shear almost instantly because it’s so unstable.
But it’s become like, “Ooh, carbon fiber, that must be good because there’s carbon fiber in there.” Well, it’s good for the companies who are sucking more money out of your wallet because those things are more expensive but it’s literally only there for structural reasons, does not do anything to help you move in any way.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. And I think it’s worth noting or bringing back what Dr. Davis said about how so many people try to outrun their feet and should humans be able to run sub 2 marathon. Who knows?
Steven Sashen:
Well, let’s say there should be some humans who can.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Because there’s always going to be a big bell curve with people on one end or the other. My favorite… I wish I could remember who it was and which race it was, it was that some marathon, whoever won ran out like a 2:05 or something like that and the last person took them nine hours and the person who ran… I’m making up that number, but it’s something like that. And the guy who ran the 2:05 stayed to the end and congratulated that person saying, “I can’t run for nine hours straight.”
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. True.
Steven Sashen:
“I would never do that.” It was so heartwarming.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Steven Sashen:
But Phil Maffetone wrote a book called 1:59 which is his idea about what it would take to run a sub 2 marathon on a regular marathon course not some perfect course with pacers, etc. And one of the big parts is it would be barefoot because-
Cody Koontz:
That’s incredible.
Steven Sashen:
… and the whole reason lighter shoes. You’re not going to find anything lighter.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
The problem is we just can’t find someone who’s already a 2:5, 2:10 person who’d be willing to sacrifice the remainder of their career to discover that they’d be fine because they’d be terrified
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Because the shoes can’t create energy. Only your muscles can do that.
Steven Sashen:
Eliud Kipchoge said that exact thing about a year ago in an article where he said, “It wasn’t the shoes that made me run sub 2 hour. It was my legs.” And that article vanished as fast as it showed up.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. I never even heard about that.
Steven Sashen:
See? I’ll have to see if I can find it. Literally, I think the headline was quote, “It was my legs.” I don’t know if he got a nastygram from Nike. I have a friend who was quoted when Nike did their self-lacing shoe, the Back to the Future shoe.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
He was quoted basically saying, “It’s just a gimmick.” And he got a letter from their lawyers saying, “I know you haven’t worked here for decades but if you say anything like that again, we will sue you to oblivion.”
Cody Koontz:
Oh. Yikes.
Steven Sashen:
They know when they’re doing the wrong thing and not surprisingly, they don’t want anyone to make them have to admit it.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. And it is tough to… Going back to working in where sometimes I feel like I’m doing the opposite of what I think is right for someone, it’s hard to distance the people who know better from the people who suffer the consequences because they don’t know better and that’s where I want to be careful I don’t come across saying, “Running stores are bad and shoes are ethically bad,” even though they’re biomechanically not right because it does get people running.
Steven Sashen:
You can leave it to me. Actually, to your point, I don’t think running shoe stores are bad and I don’t think-
Cody Koontz:
Oh, yeah, you’ve never said that.
Steven Sashen:
No, no, no.
Cody Koontz:
That I know of.
Steven Sashen:
The interesting thing… Look, the average running shoe store is 500 square feet and makes less money than the average graduate from a decent university who goes to Wall Street. It’s ridiculous how little a lot of these stores make. So these are people who are doing it out of love and concern and wanting to do the best they can.
And what I’ve seen is that we’ve got 50 years of people learning and believing something that’s patently false but they didn’t know that. Or even if they find that out, to change would be so catastrophic to their sense of self and to their business model potentially. That’s what they think, that things just don’t change.
And my theory is we’re going to hit a critical mass point where there’s enough people walking around, running around in minimalist shoes that everyone finally goes, “Ah, let me give it a shot.” And then that’s when everyone’s going to go, “Oh. Oh, that’s what you’re talking about.”
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Lost my thought again. I see how this happens to people.
Steven Sashen:
Well, you’re too young for it to be happening.
Cody Koontz:
I know.
Steven Sashen:
I can’t do names anymore. It’s really annoying how either someone that I know or some Hollywood person that I’ve seen a million times and then I can’t think of it. I just have to wait and just cross my fingers that it comes up.
Cody Koontz:
Oh my goodness. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Well, so let’s go back to the very beginning of our conversation then. So thinking about this whole idea about reality and is there anything more that we want to add in about how reality is affected or you are affected by your ability or lack thereof to experience it?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. So I think to avoid getting way into what reality is as far as-
Steven Sashen:
Oh, no. Oh, no. Knock yourself out.
Cody Koontz:
I’ll leave that to you too.
Steven Sashen:
No, no, no, no, no. Come on. Come on. We can do it.
Cody Koontz:
As far as in any sort of health education, we talk about anatomical position. So there’s a certain essence of reality about that this is what the body is and how it lines up. There’s never an arch support or footwear on those models.
And so what we don’t consider is that that changes things. Everyone who knows anything at all about The Barefoot Movement knows when you put something under the foot that’s lifted in the heel, it affects your knee, it affects your hips, your pelvis is shifted or rotated forward, and you have to accommodate for that with other things.
So I guess just one thing I always tried to get through to my patients in physical therapy was there’s a reason you can’t get the right muscles to work when you’re doing this exercise because you’re wearing shoes and things aren’t in the right physics-based positioning to fire and a myriad of other downstream issues with that.
Steven Sashen:
How does that relate to something that I’ve heard a bajillion times which is basically people think that they’re special little snowflakes, that everyone’s different from everyone? The way people say it is there’s a different thing for each person. Everyone needs something different. And my response… Well, here, I won’t tell you my response. What’s your response to that?
Cody Koontz:
Ugh. The last thing people want to hear is that they’re not. But I know at the end of a long busy day with customers, my first instinct is just to say, “Oh, that’s normal what you’re experiencing.” But what I try to do is just ask more questions and then guide them to a point where they’re like saying, “Oh, I’m really not that different.”
Steven Sashen:
I think unless you do have some anatomical issue we’re all built basically the same. Running form is running form.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Nick Romanov talks about it. He says, “The better you get, the more form converges to an ideal.” And there’ll always be something that’s a little different. There’ll be some idiosyncratic thing but the fundamentals have become identical at that point.
If anyone searches for a video of Usain Bolt running in slow motion, you watch his form and it’s amazing. And then you look at the other seven people in the race exactly the same except for the last few strides where there’s a couple people who are in the sixth to eighth position where they are overstriding and just trying to do something.
Cody Koontz:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
But by and large, everyone else looks just like he does.
And I think this has been a big thing in footwear is just catering to this idea that we all have, we want to be special. We want to be treated as individuals despite the fact that we’re fundamentally the same.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. And we see… I wonder if it’s tied into this but I know in physical therapy you see a lot of people not just vie for this individuality but more so identify with their deficiency or with their pain and so it becomes something that they almost rely on for.
Steven Sashen:
It’s their identity.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, exactly. And so yeah, man, it’s tough to shake someone’s identity. But when it comes to shoes, it’s a little bit easier.
Steven Sashen:
Here, I’ll have some fun. We’ll dive into this thing of what is reality since you brought it up that way.
This whole idea that people will identify with their problem, it becomes part of their identity, this is Psychology 101 too, is people for whatever reason, we evolved to bond over our problems. And I think probably because being hypersensitive to our problems is what kept us alive or those of us who survived it kept them alive and they had children and they had children and here we are, the offspring of a bunch of whiners or hypersensitive people mostly.
But this idea that the way you move, I’m always fascinated by how people move the way their parents did. There’s no reason for that. But they learned that and I think unconsciously did that to fit in from day one. And then you see it and literally, it’s part of their identity.
You give them a new way of moving, they don’t know who they are. It can be very literally psychologically disturbing if you show someone they can move differently. And especially if they have invested literally so much money in keeping this idea alive.
Sorry, wait.
I think it was Fritz Perls, psychologist, who had a student whose mother was dying. She’s in the hospital and this student says, “Can you just come see if you can give my mother any help before she dies?” And pardon me if it was not Fritz Perls. Might have been Milton Erickson, one of those wacky guys. Doesn’t matter.
So he comes in to her hospital room and notices there’s a box of wooden matches on her nightstand with a pile of burned out ones next to the box. Caught his attention and he says, “What’s with the matches?” And she says, “Oh, I just light out one of those every time my daughter brings in another one of these quacks to try to help me.”
And so whoever it was, Ericson or Perls opens the box, takes out a match, lights it, blows it out, adds to the pile and says, “That’ll be $200.”
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Oh, no.
Steven Sashen:
Anyway, it’s academically, intellectually fascinating. But in terms of people’s wellbeing, it could not be more frustrating to watch people hold onto an identity, a movement pattern. And those things are very closely related that-
Cody Koontz:
And I think it’s… Oh.
Steven Sashen:
Please.
Cody Koontz:
Oh, I was going to just toss in there that I often wonder if we’re more afraid of uncertainty than pain. And if pain-
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s true.
Cody Koontz:
… is certain, we’re a lot more comfortable with that situation.
Steven Sashen:
I think that relates to the fact that whenever, if you say to someone, or they’ll walk into your store and say, “I want to run a 5K in nine days. What do I do?” Or they’ll look for a paint by numbers, fill in the blank way of getting from here to there, this is so ironic, ignoring that they are individuals when they come into this store looking for something where you treat them like an individual.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. There’s no-
Steven Sashen:
Anyway.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. And that is-
Steven Sashen:
Here. I’ll sum it up this way. Ugh, humans.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, yeah. So complex and so the same.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, exactly. I would argue so not complex. And the differences are typically not meaningful except in the extreme circumstances, don’t get me wrong. But fundamentally, we’re all just hoping that our next thought helps us figure out how to be happy by the end of that thought or at some point soon thereafter and yet we bond over…
I just listened to a… There’s a NPR show called Hidden Brain and I just listened to an episode about why and how we complain and it does create a bonding experience between people. But if you’re complaining about a third thing or something that’s intractable, it sets you up to have a miserable experience with that other thing. So we get the benefit of bonding but then we’re creating an outsider that we then can no longer relate to properly which goes back to our reality thing and I’m in the back of my mind trying to find a way to bring that back to footwear but I’m not there yet.
But suffice to say, I literally do think… Look, the internet has catered to our desire to complain, be acknowledged for it, and have people agree with us so we can feel that we’re not alone and feel better about it. And it has literally monetized that to the extent that certain platforms more than others, all people do is complain and more they will complain in public rather than getting their problem solved directly.
The number of times where I’ve responded to a comment on Facebook where I’ve said, “Rather than asking the random people here, use the phone app on your phone and give us a call.”
Cody Koontz:
On WhatsApp.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, exactly.
“Give us a call because our 20 people in our customer happiness team, they actually know the answer. And it’s not the one that you’ve heard from random people.”
And people won’t do it. Some do. But it’s just this now there’s a place to vent first and maybe never get your problem solved.
And some people have vented and then called us prompted or not but then they never go back and do anything to that original post even if we solve the problem entirely because they don’t get any credit for that.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, yeah. Attention maybe but…
Steven Sashen:
So on that note, here’s the way I’m going to bring that back to footwear.
Cody Koontz:
Okay.
Steven Sashen:
It’s an ironic thing that, again, people have this desire to be unique and special and acknowledged for that. And in your store, if you broke down the different types of shoes, how many do you get? Three categories? Two categories?
Cody Koontz:
Oh, let me think.
Steven Sashen:
It’s under five, I bet.
Cody Koontz:
Well, I’m trying… There’s two ways I could approach this because what I say to customers when they come in. So I’m like, “Look at the wall. There are so many shoes on here. You need to be picky.” And sometimes, that goes where I want it to. Sometimes, it doesn’t.
Steven Sashen:
But again, if we… I’m trying to think of how to categorize them. Ignoring… You could categorize it if… This would give you two categories, foot shape versus non-foot shape, that’s two. Zero drop versus non, that’s two. After that, the whole thing about motion control or neutral or stability, that’s all hand waving. So that’s all one. So we’ve now identified a Venn diagram with three circles and in most stores, two of them aren’t even in the store, let alone overlapping.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
So we’re down to-
Cody Koontz:
And that’s good.
Steven Sashen:
So in most stores, we’re down to one.
Cody Koontz:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Sashen:
And then all you’re doing is you’re being special because this is the one that so-and-so wears. I’m a 250-pound white guy who runs two miles on a weekend and I’m going to wear that shoe that the 105 pound Kenyan wears.
Cody Koontz:
And that’s where it is helpful to get people to focus inward a little bit because so many people say, “So-and-so told me about these HOKAs, this HOKA One Ones, and I got to try them on.” And right off the bat, you have to say, “That shoe might be… They might run in that.”
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Cody Koontz:
But that doesn’t mean you have to or even should.
Steven Sashen:
My joke about that shoe is it’s actually pronounced… Well, here’s the joke, it’s actually pronounced oh-ne oh-ne which in Hawaiian means one one, which is not true but I like the joke.
Cody Koontz:
That’s good.
Steven Sashen:
So Cody, if people, especially anyone who’s near you in Tulsa, Oklahoma, if anybody wants to get in touch with you just to find out more about how you’re working with people or just want to come visit you or just say hi or thank you for anything that they got from you including if you don’t let something move that’s supposed to, then something that’s not supposed to move is trying to, it shouldn’t, however you said but way better than what I just butchered. How can they do that?
Cody Koontz:
Yeah. So I have a website, codykfitness.com. Probably the best way is to come in Runners World Tulsa. We have an awesome running group. It’s just an incredible community, is really supportive. Everyone from beginner, 5ks to ultra marathoners.
Steven Sashen:
Love it. Yeah. Someday, someone will say, including sprinters, but they never do. It’s all right.
Cody Koontz:
I’m sorry.
Steven Sashen:
I’m a special little snowflake.
Cody Koontz:
You’re a special little snowflake too.
Steven Sashen:
Well, for all you other special little snowflakes out there, thanks for listening to this episode. If you want to hear others of which there are many now, more than enough to keep you busy on a long walk or a run, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. Again, if you want to help spread the word, please do just share, like, thumbs up. You know the drill.
And also if you have any requests, any comments, any questions, any complaints, if you think I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, whatever it is, you can drop me an email. I’m at move, M-O-V-E, @jointhemovementmovement.com. But most importantly, just go out and have fun and live life feet first.