From the age of 45 Keith Bateman’s running times improved dramatically, culminating in a host of State, National and World age-group records. The records that he set in the 55-age-group were faster than the records he set in the 45-age-group! At the time of writing, he has broken, and still holds, 38 age-group State Records, 15 Australian age-group records and five 55-age-group World Records: 1500m (4:12.35), 1 mile (4:35.04), 3000m (8:56.80), 5000m (15:29.7) and 10000m (31:51.86).
Keith’s technique-change lessons combine with Heidi’s Strengthening and Rehabilitation programs to form the core of this book. Keith also provides a chapter for coaches who want to introduce technique change for their runners.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Keith Bateman about how to grow older, not slower.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How balanced landing aligned vertically can utilize the body’s spring effect for more efficient running.
– Why body movement and muscle development are crucial for efficient running and injury prevention.
– How foot pressure and body position play a significant role in achieving a balanced landing while running.
– Why technique change can lead to substantial improvement in running times and overall performance.
– How community-building is essential to challenge conventional footwear practies and promote natural movement.
Connect with Keith:
Guest Contact Info
Instagram
@batemankeith
Links Mentioned:
olderyetfaster.com
Connect with Steven:
Website
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
When you get older, you get slower, or do you? That’s what we’re going to find out on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about how to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting with the feet first because feet are your foundation. Where we get rid of the mythology, the propaganda, and sometimes the lies about what it takes to walk, to run, to hike, to do yoga, to CrossFit, whatever it is you like to do, enjoyably. I’m Stephen Sashen the host for The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast.
And you may already know how to find us, just go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, that’s where you can find all the places that you can interact with us, and that’s where you can find out where you can of course share, and subscribe, and like, and review, and all those things that you know how to do. I’m not going to tell you all about that. We like to get started… Actually, before we get started, I’m going to introduce our guest, and then we’re going to do something that I’m going to have him participate in. So our guest is Keith Bateman. And Keith, I’m not going to give an intro about who you are and what you do, because I will never do it as well or as interestingly as you. So why don’t you tell human beings, who the hell are you? What are you doing here?
Keith Bateman:
Okay, well, I’m a technique coach these days, I transform people’s technique. Usually people who…
Steven Sashen:
Certain things that they’re doing that you’re coaching technique on, as in running.
Keith Bateman:
No, basically a complete change, a complete rebuild for most people.
Steven Sashen:
They change their technique.
Keith Bateman:
That’s right, yes, I’m trying to change it to what it should be for any human with two legs on the planet. If you notice that all the top runners in the past all look the same, Steve Ovett, Zola Budd, Mo Farah, they all basically have the same running action. And that’s what we’re heading for, the most efficient running action for each individual.
Steven Sashen:
Beautiful. And so for those of you listening or watching, you might notice that Keith has a distinctive accent. Clearly from New Jersey or New York, I’m guessing, correct?
Keith Bateman:
Okay, so I’m a bit of a mongrel. I was born in Watford, which is near London, obviously in England. I was there for 21 years, then I was in Scotland for 20 years, and now I’ve been in Australia for 19, but I’m not moving from here.
Steven Sashen:
Well, I have a friend who is Brit, who when he got to Australia for the first time was going through customs, and they ask the standard questions. They say, “Why are you here?” He says, “I’m here on business.” “Where are you going?” He says where they’re going. And one of the questions is, “Do you have a criminal record?” And he says, “Ah, shit, do you still need one to get in?”
Keith Bateman:
Exactly, yes.
Steven Sashen:
Exactly. So before we jump into just our conversation, one of the things that I like to do at the beginning of the podcast is a movement, since this is The MOVEMENT movement. And this is going to be a really simple one, for those of you who are listening and watching. One of the most important things that you can do is have arch strength, and one of the easiest ways of building arch strength is just by using them with a little isometric contraction that you can do anywhere. I do this when I’m cooking, or doing the dishes, or when I’m sitting at a desk, usually I’m standing at a desk. Actually I do it pretty often when I’m standing at a desk too. And it couldn’t be easier, just take your feet, and just trying to relax every toe you have as much as you can except your big toe, and press your big toe into the ground.
And if you do this really strong, you’ll probably get a cramp in your arch. So don’t do that, back off a little bit. But just get that big toe pressed in, and see if you can relax the other toes. So you’re really just engaging the arch isometric thing, do it for like three to four seconds, and then relax, and then do it again. Just kind of a little press with your big toe into the ground to engage that arch. And really it’s the other way around, if you engage your arch, you are pressing your toe into the ground. So you want to think about it from that angle. And again, just relax, and do this once or twice more. One more, just press that big toe into the ground, and relax. Great way just to do a little isometric thing that you can do anywhere you go, everywhere you are, to build some strength in your foot. So back to Keith for the win.
Keith Bateman:
I have to say I haven’t done that one before, it’s very good.
Steven Sashen:
Thanks. Yeah, it’s really easy, and literally you can do it pretty much everywhere.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah. Very, very simple, yes. We may adopt that one, we’ll have to… Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
So at the top of the podcast I said, “When you get older, you get slower.” And I said, “Maybe not.” And that is because Keith, you are the author of a book called Older Yet Faster. And this is now the second version, second edition?
Keith Bateman:
Second edition, yes. I have to say it’s Heidi Jones, my wife as well. So we must…
Steven Sashen:
I was just about to say that. And sadly, Heidi is not joining us because she’s not feeling well today, otherwise we’d have her in on this as well. So Heidi and Keith are responsible for this book, which it’s not just for older athletes and not just about getting faster… Or not getting… Tell more about how you frame the book.
Keith Bateman:
It’s for people who are a year older this year than they were last year.
Steven Sashen:
Fascinating. There are some people, my mother for a while never got older year after year. It was fascinating, she kind of hovered right around 39 for a while, then she got 10 years older, and she hovered at 49 for a while. Now she has Alzheimer’s, so she thinks she’s 30 again, it’s awesome.
Keith Bateman:
Well, I think I’m still 26, but still. So the subtitle of the book, obviously I have a copy here, is The Secret to Running Fast and Injury-Free, which obviously you’ve got to be injury-free first. And so Heidi has a big input here. Most people have weakened feet, as you’ll know, because they’ve had chunky shoes on and they’re just not using them. So the first thing we try to do is spend six weeks if possible on doing a foot program that Heidi used in her podiatry business. And that’s all on video as well. So you really want to get your feet strong first if you haven’t been walking around bare feet.
And then we have a very simple set of lessons that I’ve put together over the last 10 or 12 years to basically really re-educate the brain, make you think differently about how you run so that you can perform a different action. And once you start performing that different action, you build up the muscles to support it, which generally tend to be new muscles like calf muscles, glutes, the lower back and the core muscles. And it’s a very quick change to change your action basically, and then it takes time for the muscles, tendons and ligaments to catch up.
Steven Sashen:
So you started with something that has been an argument that I’ve had with Irene Davis. Not really an argument, but Irene Davis is a researcher at Harvard and she’s really one of the biggest promoters of research about natural movement. And Irene similarly, when you work with her, you start with a foot strengthening program for a number of weeks, and then a bunch of walking before you get into running. And I say argument with big air quotes. I mean, we just get along swimmingly, and this is just a fun debate we have. I say that in lieu of doing foot strengthening, which is fine, but there’s no amount of strengthening or walking that you can do that is actually the same as running. It’s always helpful…
Keith Bateman:
No, it’s very specific, that’s right.
Steven Sashen:
Which is why I say take a really, really short run, like 20 seconds, and then when that feels comfortable, you can add it to there. And I think fundamentally it’s really the same idea just from a different angle. And if you can do both so much the better.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, we work exactly the same. My clients really start off with maybe two kilometers at the most. They might have been running 20 or 30, but now they go down to two, and then they wait and see what it’s like the day after. If it’s sore, they stop, they stop for two days maybe. It’s very slow at the beginning, but then it rapidly increases after they get to about five or six kilometers.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, for some of these people, I literally… 2K would be way too far. I mean, I’m talking like 200 meters. I want to see people… Because there’s some people who they’ve been over striding and heel striking for so long that frankly at the end of 200 meters they know that something is awry, and they’re going to have to wait until the next day to figure that one out or a day after to figure that one out, which is not uncommon.
I’ve also seen one, this one amazed me, and I’m curious what your thought is. I’ve been on tracks where I see someone training or warming up. This happened a couple of years ago, a guy in a pair of five fingers, and I’m watching him warm up really slowly. And his form looked great, was nice and quiet on the track, everything was nice. And then he started going up to speed, and I could tell he was going up to speed because I could hear him just like slam, slap, slam, slap. I’m just curious what you’ve seen when you’ve got people who are coming to what you’re doing in that same regard, or if you’ve seen something similar.
Keith Bateman:
Well, it’s basically the same for everybody whether they’re a runner, I’ve had some customers who are running 30 minutes to 10K already. And I do exactly the same thing with them all, because the movements are the same it’s just a matter of refinement. So that slapping noise, I’ve never known it not to be somebody just touching with the heel first and then the foot slapping down, that’s really… So they are lifting or trying to place their foot, or somehow they are advancing their foot, lifting the knee or lifting the foot and trying to place it. If you lift your foot, you’re not lifting your body, the two work against each other.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, say more about that, describe what you mean when you say lifting the foot.
Keith Bateman:
If you lift your foot… Basically a good runner wants to lift the body, they want the whole body to come off the ground. Two ways of doing that. One is to push off your toes, which would be an acceleration. The other way is to try to land as near as possible to vertically aligned, and then your body becomes a spring, and it springs you off the ground, so you get free energy almost off the ground. So a good runner will have a lot of the spring effect and very little of the push effect.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. You and I have actually gotten into also not arguments as well, where I described something like that, where you want to initiate your foot coming off the ground from your hip rather than your calf. In other words, you’re not pushing off the ground with your foot. But think about the image that I like to give, I say, “Imagine that you stepped on a bee, you wouldn’t want to get off the bee by pushing down harder with your foot because that would drive the stinger further in. You want to lift your foot off the ground, it’s almost a reflexive thing for getting off the ground.” Which if you’re a good spring, that actually has an effect.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah. That’s the only place where we don’t totally agree, because we deliberately say to people, “Do not lift your feet at all.” Because a good runner doesn’t lift their feet, in the same way as they don’t engage their core or engage their glutes, they’re not actually thinking about it. What’s happening is they’re getting a natural bounce off the ground, and the hips go off the ground and the feet follow. But if you try and lift the foot behind you, then if you stand there and lift… Oh, sorry. Okay, but if you lift your foot behind you, your head goes forward, so you lose that springy position and become more bent. If you lift your foot in front of you, then you sit back and you lose that beautiful upright position. So we find with thousands of clients that we actually… Just something simple like, “Leave your foot on the ground a bit longer and go past it, and it’ll come off the ground on its own, do its own thing.”
Steven Sashen:
Well, I don’t think we’re actually saying… I think if we looked at people who were doing what each of us is describing, it would not only look the same, but an EMG would show that the muscle activation is the same.
Keith Bateman:
Yes, it’s very difficult to be totally precise and let everybody interpret what you’re saying in the same way.
Steven Sashen:
Somebody asked me, they said, “Can you make an app where it just gives us the right cue?” I went, “No, because sometimes you give the same cue to someone, on day one it has no meaning, and on day two it’s the perfect cue.”
Keith Bateman:
Yeah. So what we’ve done actually, in the book, we’ve got lessons one, two, and three, which start you moving. Lesson four is a separate drill, I’ll come to that in a minute, that’s get everything moving. Lesson five is how to start a run. So it’s actually lessons one, two, and three together, and you start moving. And then there are a couple of cues in there that you can try. One of them is just a 360 degree spin, and if you do that successfully and you come out of it running, you’re near vertical when you land and you’re aligned when you take off. So that’s a good one.
Steven Sashen:
So you mean just jump up and rotate 360?
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, don’t even jump up, just run along and keep… Don’t slow down, just keep your momentum going. It’s obviously a slow speed, and you just do a spin. And then four or five paces after that, and then a spin the other way. Now, if you can’t do it smoothly, it means you’re throwing your leg or something like an ice skater out in front of you, so it’s a very simple self-check.
Steven Sashen:
And do you have videos of this one?
Keith Bateman:
Yes, all on video. Everything’s on video, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Because people are definitely going to want to see that. And I’m sure that you discover that even people who can do it, they’ll spin better one way than the other.
Keith Bateman:
Everybody does, yes, that’s right. So you have to alternate, if you’re doing a series of them, you alternate it so you don’t get dizzy.
Steven Sashen:
Well, there’s the dizzy thing, but I always find it really funny watching just the difference between doing something one way versus the other. I did something I think maybe on the podcast last week, I can’t remember, where it was just cross your arms and then cross the other way.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, it’s hard, isn’t it?
Steven Sashen:
Well, I’ve gotten the point where I can’t remember which one is the way that I normally do it, but it took quite a while for that.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah. On that note, we say in the book, “Asymmetry is normal.” So everybody has different length legs, different size hands, feet, so let’s not try to make it perfect, let’s just go with what we’ve got.
Steven Sashen:
I have a sign that I wrote, that I kept that I’ve kept on my bulletin board now for probably 35 years, says, “Distrust symmetry.”
Keith Bateman:
Yes, very good, see we do think very much alike. Just one thing I missed out there, then we’d go on to… We’ve got a strengthening program, we’ve actually got a rehab program as well for people who come injured or do get injured. You can if you do too much get calf muscle problems or even tendon problems. But as far as the technique is concerned, and going back to your point about different things work for different people, we’ve got about 10 different tricks on the run tricks. And you only need one of them, but we get people to try them all and see which one works best. So it’s a matter of give it a go, if that one works, great, stick with it, that’s all you need. So yeah, on your point about different things work for different people.
Steven Sashen:
At different times.
Keith Bateman:
At different times, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Or the same person different… Yeah. And can you give a couple examples of what those are?
Keith Bateman:
Okay. Well, the first one we called the pendulum. And it’s basically hopefully done barefoot, while you are running along you deliberately lean back. So you start to land maybe on your… You feel the pressure on the heel, then you deliberately tilt… You want to maintain some speed when you do that. Then you deliberately tilt the body forward so that you feel the pressure on the forefoot, and you will accelerate. And then you very gradually, only gradually, come to find the middle balance position. Then you repeat it, and this time you lean back a little bit less than before, and a little bit less forwards than before and upright. And you keep repeating it until the person running next to you can hardly see you moving, and all you are feeling is the pressure towards the heel, towards ball of foot, and then on both.
So the focus of the book is to get a balanced landing. That sounds a bit vague, but if your foot is pressing on the ground behind you, you are accelerating. Or you could possibly be falling over, but you’ll be accelerating. If your foot’s pressing on the ground in front of you, which it has to at some degree, then you are breaking. And what you’re looking for at constant speed running is as near as possible in the middle. We’re not being prescriptive exactly what angle it is, it’s feel not formula.
Steven Sashen:
There’s a guy, Chris Powers, I think he’s at USC or UCLA, I can’t remember, somewhere in southern California. He’s got a whole idea about the body leaning forward just a little bit so you’re getting a little bit of a hip angle, which engages the glutes a little bit more. But that’s sort of independent, it makes a small difference. Sometimes I see people who are running very… It’s interesting what you’re saying because… Actually I’ll give a better example, or one that I think is more relevant.
There’s times where I’m working with people where they’re way overstriding, their just putting on the brakes with every step, and they just can’t feel that. And one thing I’ll do with them is I’ll have them stand upright and I put my hands on their shoulders, lean into my hands, and then I’ll run backwards as they’re running forwards where their feet can’t catch up with them, and then at some point I just get out of the way. And they stumble for a bit, but then they… Because what you’re describing, it’s something I love of just exaggerating a little bit, so you get the feedback so you know what you’re doing.
Keith Bateman:
Exactly, it’s all about feel, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Because we’re so used to what we’re doing, it feels normal, and a little change will feel like you’re making a big change when you’re probably not even getting where you need to go yet.
Keith Bateman:
That’s right. Heidi states in her section for podiatrists about… I think she’s got a podiatry section at the back of the book, which is controversial of course. But she says about your perception of upright is different if you wear shoes, if people wear shoes.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, absolutely. I don’t know if I’ve told you about this. So I did undergraduate research on cognitive aspects of motor skill acquisition. In part from that, I developed this idea. I like to say the simplest instructions for running barefoot is find a nice smooth hard surface, take off your shoes, go for a very short run, and if it hurts, do something different till your having a good time. Some people, their brain map is so de-differentiated, their brain just literally doesn’t know they have feet at the end of their legs for all practical purposes, because they haven’t been giving the brain stimulation for so long, they can’t tell if it hurts. Some people they can tell if it hurts, but they have, like you were describing, bad proprioceptive skills, they think vertical is something different than it is. And they need video feedback, because they just won’t believe you until you show them what reality is versus the way they think it is, because they’re so used to it.
And then the next group of people, they have good proprioceptive skills, they just need a good cue to shorten the learning cycle. And then the last group, they’re naturals, and the problem they have is they have so much fun that they get tired because they do too much and revert to one of those previous levels. So you made me think of a question that I’m really curious about. I’m going to Europe next week, and there’s a really interesting difference between Europe and America. In America people will walk up to me and go, “Oh, is this about barefoot or minimalist?” With a kind of scowl on their face, because they have the idea that there’s something inherently wrong with it. In Europe, they walk up the other way around, it’s like, “Oh, my God, are your shoes minimalist or barefoot?” Because they believe in this idea of natural movement. Where does Australia fit into that spectrum?
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, probably somewhere between the two I suggest. When I walk around here, we live by the beach, but when I walk around here with shoes on, people stop me in the street and say, “Oh, you’ve got shoes on today.”
Steven Sashen:
I have the same.
Keith Bateman:
Every time, every time. And I’m only 800 meters, 800 yards from the shops.
Steven Sashen:
I had that in a Costco, where they stopped me and said, “Is everything okay?” And I said, “Why?” They said, “You’re wearing shoes.” I’m normally in restaurants, and gas stations, and everywhere barefoot.
Keith Bateman:
But yeah, certainly it makes people think. I mean, if I go and do one of the local… We have park runs here. I know you have a few now in America, but the 5K a week ones. And a lot of people out running, but you turn up and you don’t put your shoes on. I did that when I was in Swansea in Wales with Heidi last year, the year before. And Heidi was sitting somewhere back in the field in the middle there, and I was out the front, and I was doing some strides. And somebody said, “You see that white haired guy out the front with no shoes on? Crazy, crazy.” Well, I ran that one in 17:12 and… So that’s a redeeming factor.
Steven Sashen:
It’s one of the lines I have in the video I made, it was a shit runner say to barefoot runners. And so it’s the guy saying, “Hey, you can’t really run like that. Hey, wait, hey, wait, wait, wait up.”
Keith Bateman:
Yes, that’s exactly right. Yes, that’s the way to do it.
Steven Sashen:
I even get it just warming up on the track. I mean, I do. So I’m a sprinter, so all my warm-ups are barefoot, and pretty much anything up to… Well, if I’m on the infield, I can go full speed barefoot. On a Mondotrack surface, I can go anything up to about 60% of full speed. And people look at me like I’m crazy, and I’m going, “But I’m doing it.” I mean, you can’t argue with reality that’s right in front of your face. But you would say that the general perception just among normal human beings is not either necessarily very pro or very anti, they don’t come in with some big preconception?
Keith Bateman:
Oh, some people do, some people do. We’ve got a friend who was in orthotics for 35 years, and now we’ve rebuilt him because he was injured for decades. And we’ve rebuilt him, and Heidi’s been really good at that too. It’s taken three years, but he is running like a professional 800 meter, 1500 meter runner, he is looking superb. He’s being very cautious at the moment, but once he gets back racing, he’s going to be round about 32 for 10K maybe, he’s really good. But his coach or his previous coach phoned him up and said, “Oh, don’t start that bloody stupid barefoot running, that won’t help you at all.” Which fortunately he ignored that.
Steven Sashen:
What’s so ironic about this, is I know Australia and New Zealand are two different countries. But of course Arthur Lydiard, one of the most famous running coaches of all time, most successful coaches of all time, he had people running mostly barefoot or in shoes that he made that were super thin-soled shoes. They were actually a lot like ours, which is why we have a lot of Lydiard runners who like what we’re doing. But I mean, it’s incredible that there was that influence, and people just, it’s seemingly gone from their minds, they just have no memory of what he did, what the impact was.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, that’s right. I do all mine barefoot or in the thinnest of thin shoes.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. So you alluded to something a minute ago that I’d love for you to say more about, which is just how Heidi, who’s a podiatrist, how what you guys are doing is received by the podiatry community. I’d love for you to say more.
Keith Bateman:
Well, we don’t really know because they tend to ignore. I think Heidi did send a book to somebody at one of the local universities who lectures there, and then she met her later on, and she said, “Oh, I gave that to my daughter to read, and she said it was quite controversial.” And that was it. So Heidi’s just keeping out of it basically. She does quite a lot, she has to have professional development points. And she does a lot now on video sessions, podcasts type things. And some of them are just absolute rubbish. There’s the occasional one from a surgeon or somebody who it’s really interesting, but as far as running concerns, it’s just ridiculous what’s being taught.
Steven Sashen:
Well, all the people that I’ve ever heard that are medical professionals who come down against natural movement have never tried it.
Keith Bateman:
Yes, absolutely.
Steven Sashen:
It’s as simple as that. I was at a conference very early on, this is nine years ago, and there was a bunch of medical people saying, “Well, if you’re going to make the transition, it’s going to take you years till you could possibly do anything. And you definitely want to stay on grass, you don’t want to get on concrete.” I said, “How many people other than me have run at least a mile barefoot on concrete?” And no other hands went up. I know yours would. But it was incredible, they were all just making up these theories based on zero experience whatsoever. In fact, the whole thing of it’s going to take you years till you can do it, that cracked me up because they literally didn’t know anyone who had spent years trying. The whole idea was so brand new that they had a data set of zero for that idea. Which occurs to me, I never thought to ask this screamingly obvious question, how did you get into the whole natural barefoot thing?
Keith Bateman:
I was training with a very good squad in 2003 with my coach Sean Williams, and it was his elite squad. And actually three of the members have been in the Olympics since, it was a really good running squad. And a lot of them, probably 50% or maybe even more, didn’t have their shoes on on the grass training. So I tried that, and I’ve just carried on from there. And now if I go out for a run around town now, I don’t have shoes on, I’ll do 10K. The first 10K of my Sunday run, I’ll go out barefoot, and then I’ll join some others for maybe 8 or 10K on the grass at the end.
Steven Sashen:
How many times have you met someone who says they’re a barefoot runner, and when you ask, it turns out they’ve never had their bare feet on the ground?
Keith Bateman:
No, I don’t actually. Well, you mean wearing minimalist shoes? That happens. Yes, that happens a lot, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And look, obviously I’m not against minimalist footwear, but I always say to people, “It’s not the same. I mean, get your feet on the ground, it’s a wonderful experience.” And footwear is for when that’s just not the appropriate thing to do for whatever reason that may be.
Keith Bateman:
Exactly right. I coach for a local school here, I’m technically the head coach for the cross-country team and also for the middle distance. I wish I could get them to have their shoes off, it’s a nightmare, I just can’t do it.
Steven Sashen:
How come?
Keith Bateman:
Safety issue.
Steven Sashen:
What safety issues?
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, I know, I know. But the interesting thing though is I’m trying to get the boys to actually wear some spikeless cross-country or something like that. All before the season starts, I try to get this information out to get them… And they go to the local Athlete’s Foot and buy something that’s about 15 millimeters thick, and this thick, and that’s the thinnest they had. But this last week actually, I’ve had three parents speak to me and say, “Oh, those flat shoes you’ve got James or whatever into, it’s fixed all his problems.” I said, “Well, there you go.” One of the fathers, he said, “I was really skeptical about what you were saying, but I’ve got a pair of Xeros now, and they’re great.” So actually through the boys I’m getting through. But the big problem is I’ll say something to the boys, and they’ll relay it to the parents, and the parents will just dismiss it and go to their podiatrist who gives them orthotics or whatever.
Steven Sashen:
It’s amazing. You just reminded me, Lena’s niece was a cross-country runner in high school and was just wearing our sandals, and she had to sign all this paperwork that she was absolving them of any responsibility if she got injured. And of course she had no problems and everyone else was getting injured.
Keith Bateman:
Yes.
Steven Sashen:
Well, hey, I want to back up to…
Keith Bateman:
That’s right. Yes, I’ve had officials stop me at the start of cross-country, “Mind out, there are tree roots there on the course.” And I think, yeah, that’s all right.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Well, I was in a Whole Foods barefoot, and they said, “You can’t be in here barefoot.” I said, “Why?” They said, “It’s dangerous.” I said, “How?” They said, “Well, you could step on something.” I said, “I could actually look before I step on things.” And they said, “Oh.” I said, “Well, you let dogs in here, why can the dogs be in here? Aren’t you worried about them stepping on something?” That was very confusing to them. So I want to back up to Older Yet Faster, because your implication was that it’s not just for old people. So I’d love for you to talk about just the differences in what you’re seeing with let’s call them younger people versus older people, and just what you notice.
And actually if you want to say just something about what your experience has been as an older athlete. And I’m kind of thinking about… How do I want to put this? When I go to Master’s track meets, there is a demonstrable difference in terms of speed between the older distance… Or how do I say this? There’s a demonstrable difference between how much less the distance runners have gotten slower versus the sprinters. I’m at a Master’s track meet, or actually the Senior Games, and a bunch of the 60-year-old guys are saying to me, “Man, when you become 60 it just falls off a cliff.” And the 80-year-old guys who walk up to them went, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, just wait.” So sprinting is a whole different thing than running. But I’d love for you to talk about just what you’re doing obviously is not just applicable to people who are over some particular age, but I’m curious about what you see for people who do get older, whatever that age is, or older than whatever that age is.
Keith Bateman:
Right. Well, it’s obviously all about progress, the individual’s progress. But we get results from everybody, basically if you’re more efficient, you’re going to go faster with the same effort. It takes longer for the muscles, tendons and ligaments to adapt with older people, that’s the main thing. But the increases in speed can be phenomenal. Well, in my case, when I was 47, 48, my best 10K time was 36 and a half, and that was from when I was 40 I think. But by the time 55, it was 31:50, and that was basically technique change. And all my times, all except for the marathon, which I didn’t really run, were massively improved. And it’s just the technique change, and then being able to train more because you’re not getting injured, and building up the strength in the right places.
Steven Sashen:
How do you respond to…
Keith Bateman:
You don’t have to have a target time, all you have to know is that if you get your technique right, your body will build strong with that technique in the right places and you will go faster. How much faster you go, well, that depends on a number of factors.
Steven Sashen:
It’s funny, you’re reminding me of all these things. When I was at the World Masters Track and Field Championships, this was about 10 years ago or so in Finland, I hung out with all the guys who were 85 plus. And actually just 80 plus, because there was very few that were 85 plus, they were very entertaining. But all the 80 plus guys, I said, “How much of what you’re doing is nature versus nurture?” And they all had the exact same answer, they said, “The fact that I’m here is all genetic, but the fact that I’m winning is all training.” So how do you respond to people when they ask you, “How long is it going to take for me to adapt, or learn, or make this transition?”
Keith Bateman:
Well, number one, it will take as long as it takes. But the change in your running action is almost immediate, quite a big change immediate. Then it’s impossible to refine it immediately, it’ll be a gradual process while your muscles, tendons and ligaments build up. So if you take the gluteus medius, which is usually weak in most people, you are not going to be able to hold yourself up for long if you are weak there and hold the form. So you have to get as near as possible to good form, wait till your muscles build up, then you’ll be able to do it longer so that you get better at it, so you get stronger. That becomes a vicious circle, and that’s why towards the end of transition you are making more rapid progress. A vicious circle, yes, of benefits.
Steven Sashen:
A virtuous circle. It’s funny, Irene Davis does an event with Brian Heiderscheit and the guy that I mentioned earlier whose name just fell completely out of my head. God, that’s a good one. Powers, Chris Powers, wow. And what was interesting, they each have different ideas about what causes running injuries, and what you want to do to address them, but they all notice that one of the biggest, most common things is weakness in the glute medius.
Keith Bateman:
Yes. We don’t think that weak glutes or weak cores are the cause of the injury, I think the cause of the injury is the action you’re making. And the glutes and the core don’t get strong because you’re not landing in the right position. And we’ve got one little… We were probably on the same wavelength there, are we?
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, I think they would ultimately agree. I think the slight difference is sort of the difference in opinion about whether you should do strengthening first or just make the running change first and let the strengthening happen. It was a sort of similar thing from them. So some of them were really suggesting aggressively, or not aggressively actively, working on glute medius and glute maximus strengthening while you’re making these form changes. Some were doing the form changes first, which would activate the glutes, and then let that just kind of take over.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, Heidi is very much into… Somebody who’s had a big heel strike, overstride for instance, is going to have big quads and very weak glutes, the gluteus medius anyway. So she has an exercise in the book for building up the glute strength, because if you can’t hold yourself up and your femur’s rotating inwards, then you’re going to get injured. So there has to be a certain strength. Yeah, I’m on the same wavelength with both of those. You have to have a certain strength to start, but then if you’re not doing too much, you’re going to build it up as you go. There’s nothing like the running action to be strong for the running action.
Steven Sashen:
Agreed. What’s the exercise that she recommends?
Keith Bateman:
She calls it quarter knee squat.
Steven Sashen:
A what?
Keith Bateman:
So you are actually just dropping down your hips about seven centimeters, about this much. I don’t know what that is in inches. So it’s basically you’re standing on one leg, your torso is upright, and you are just putting your knee over your middle toe down and up again. And if you don’t feel your gluteus medius working, you’re probably bending over too much, so you just let your body tilt backwards a bit until you feel it working. And she does sets of 30 of those I think. So that’s the nearest that we can get to the running action. That’s why we don’t squat all the way down to, it’s just the sort of distance you’ll get when you’re getting a rebound when you’re running.
Steven Sashen:
I’ve been reading a lot lately about strength training for running, and how much does or doesn’t transfer to actual running. So like you were saying, squats or deadlifts and how that transfers, and how much general strength conditioning can apply. It’s tricky, because like you were saying, there’s no substitute for running, or if you’re walking or hiking, whatever it is. The actual action that you’re doing is going to be the thing that’s going to be the best for you. And general strength and conditioning can be useful if you really need that, but by and large just doing it and doing it injury-free and safely is going to be your best bang for the buck.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, I would definitely agree on that. I feel that all this strength work that people do is for people who aren’t running technically well, and they’re preventing injury because they’re stronger and supporting the parts of their body with strength, the parts that are getting overused. So I think yes, it does prevent injury, but you don’t need it if you’re running well.
Steven Sashen:
So I’m going to see how you respond to some of these other things that I hear on a daily basis. When people say, “I need arch support.” What do you say?
Keith Bateman:
That’ll make your feet weak.
Steven Sashen:
I wish this wasn’t just like talking to a mirror, but it is. And when people say, “I have high arches or flat feet.” What do you say?
Keith Bateman:
It doesn’t matter. A lot of Africans, Asians have flat feet, it’s not a problem. Flat feet are fine, weak feet are bad, that’s from…
Steven Sashen:
Okay, but that’s for flat feet, what do you say when people say, “I have high arches.”
Keith Bateman:
High arches, I don’t think that’s generally a problem. Is it a problem with anyone?
Steven Sashen:
Well, the thing that I hear from people when they talk about high arches, is usually the arch is just a little stiff. Or they think they need support, because I don’t know why. My answer is the same for flat feet, I used to have flat feet until I started doing this, it’s about strength. And for people with high arches, I’ll often say, “You might need to work on a little flexibility, just kind of a little mobility because you haven’t been using them or they’re hypertonic.” So they’re just a little continually flexing in ways they don’t have to. But the same thing, it’s let them move naturally, let them get stronger.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, that’s probably a question for Heidi
Steven Sashen:
Oh, yeah. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. So let me do this fun thing. Tell people where they can get a copy of the book obviously, and how they can find out more about how they can do what you’re doing. And even more I guess the better question is, what recommendations you have or how would you talk to people who obviously aren’t going to come in contact with you personally, or they don’t happen to live in Australia for some strange reason?
Keith Bateman:
Well, most of our sales are the UK and America, the book. But if you go to our website, which is olderyetfaster.com, then you’ll see all the places where you can buy the book. Most people get it through Amazon. We’ve got a color edition, we’ve got one which is the standard black and white internal pages, and we have the electronic versions as well. But if you go to amazon.com if you’re in America or wherever you are, that’s fine. If you can’t get a copy, then you’ll see on the website we’ve got some printed in India and they post them, and they’re actually a bit cheaper in India, and so with the postage it’s probably about the same price. And next week we’ll have Booktopia, it’ll be on Booktopia as well worldwide. So we’re getting out there.
Steven Sashen:
For people who think that if they’re going to make these changes and adapt a natural form that they need a coach, they need someone local, what do you say about the best way for someone to learn how to do this when they’re dealing with books and videos etc, and not seeing you or someone personal?
Keith Bateman:
Well, we have started a very active Facebook group, of which you’re a member I believe.
Steven Sashen:
And it is very active.
Keith Bateman:
So if you just go to Facebook and look up Older Yet Faster, you’ll find the group, come and join. There are many, many people there who have been or going through the system, I think we’re 550 members at the moment. Two of the contributors, James in the UK has actually started coaching some friends and doing a fantastic job, so we’ve been communicating on that. And Sam who works at Google, has been putting on some sessions for Google employees. And we’ve been talking about those before. So that’s sort of unofficial coaching. But people on the forum put up videos of where they’re at, and Heidi and I really have to do nothing because the people on the forum have learned so well they come up with all the right answers, and we help people that way. It’s fantastic, really.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, that’s a very satisfying thing, when you go to answer the question and you see that someone beat you to it.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, brilliant. And the other thing I did last week was I asked people if they wanted their icons and their name placed on a map where they live. So we’ve just done that. So far about 70 members… Poor Pragresh in India is 1,770 kilometers from the nearest person who’s on another continent. But there are some people around New York who’ve met up because of that, and we’re trying to get little groups going of people so they can work together, which is good. We do have a little group here that we run in Sydney in Australia, but not many people can come across for that. We are going to have a gathering next year though, we are putting…
Steven Sashen:
I was just going to ask that.
Keith Bateman:
Yes, we decided, we just set aside two weeks next March I think it is, and said, “Anybody who wants to come, come.” And we’ll just run together and talk, and coffee, and swim in the ocean, and things like that.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s great. Is there anything that we didn’t chat about that you want to chat about? This is just sort of rambling and off we went.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah. Well, the difficulty is, we’re in agreement on just about everything.
Steven Sashen:
I think that’s a fine thing, I think it’s important. I mean, I don’t have a problem with that. Look, if somebody wants to come in and totally disagree with me, I have no problem with that as well. But I think it’s important for people to hear the same or similar messages from different people in different angles, because to a certain extent we are fighting… Actually, right before we started this, I made a little video, just to remind myself of something that I wanted to say. And it goes like this, I say, “Do your feet feel better at the end of the day than they did at the beginning of the day? And if not, you’re not alone. And it’s probably because big shoe has been lying to you about what makes comfortable footwear and healthy, strong, happy feet.” And I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory, but when you hear things like this, you find yourself going, “Yeah, that makes sense, using your feet is better than not using your feet.” Which flies in the face of what people have been telling you for decades.
And so I think hearing it from different angles and with slightly different even accents is important, because otherwise it seems like I’m the only crazy person out there. And it takes a certain critical mass until what we’re talking about really takes hold. And we thought it was going to happen after things got popular in 2009, 2010, but there was a lot of deliberate efforts on the part of big shoe companies to make that not happen. So having this conversation is important, whether it’s people agreeing with each other or disagreeing with each other. Because frankly when I’m talking to someone who disagrees with me, the other person sounds insane because I say things like, “Using your feet is better than not using your feet.” And they say, “Everybody needs arch support.” It’s like, “What did people do prior to arch support coming about in the late sixties?” “Oh, well, what happens in Third World countries where they don’t have arch support? How come they don’t have problems?” So I think all of that’s really important.
Keith Bateman:
Yeah, definitely. I think you’d make a good barrister.
Steven Sashen:
I’m really glad that I’m not, I think it would probably bring out the worst aspects of my personality.
Keith Bateman:
On that note, Heidi’s patients come in very skeptical. They’ve spent thousands on orthotics, and they come in and they’re uncomfortable. And then Heidi suggests, “Let’s get rid of those and just do one session. And do my foot program, you can have it on video, and you just do that, and keep in touch. And that’s all you’re going to have to do.” But they say, “Oh, that sounds really sensible, that’s logical, yes.” Once she explains it to them, and she does it very well, “Yeah, that’s very sensible.” Because…
Steven Sashen:
This is the thing that amazes me, and I say this with a genuine kind of admiration as a marketer, that when I see what shoe companies have done in the last 50 years by convincing people of things that are just frankly complete bullshit, it’s utterly amazing. And what we’re doing now is trying to just wake people up to what they already knew. I mean, Irene Davis, again, points it out really well, she says, “We know that humans have been making footwear for 10,000 years, because that’s the oldest piece of footwear we found. In the first 9,950 of those years, it was just as little as you could get away with to give you some protection and something to hold that on your foot, and then it changed.” And when people hear that, it’s like, “Hey, wait a minute.” So everything we’re saying is logical, it does make sense.
One of the things I like to point out is when you put padding under your heel, you end up landing on your heel, not because you necessarily want to use the padding, but because you end up hitting it. It just lands on the ground first before you have a chance, because it gets in the way. And your heel is a ball, and so a ball is unstable, so then they added motion control. And when you do that slapping thing that we talked about at the beginning of the call, when you land your heel and your foot slaps down, your arch is in a place where it’s weak when it needs to be strong. So then the arch support so you don’t need to use it. I mean, everything that we know about modern footwear was developed after the problem that it created. And now we just think it’s normal because everyone does it that way because the footwear industry is just a bunch of copycats, whatever’s selling best they do.
Keith Bateman:
And generations.
Steven Sashen:
Yes, and that’s the other part, now that we’re two generations in, it’s parents teaching their children instead of the companies have to do it, they’re doing the work for the shoe companies. So I’m hoping that this doesn’t take longer than another generation until it changes, because I’d like to live to see it, But I don’t think it needs to take that long with what’s happening with social media, what we’re all doing, I think that it can change much faster. Because again, we’re not trying to convince people of something that’s bullshit, we’re just reminding them of what they already knew. So I’m hoping that this whole idea of making natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice, the way natural food is, happens way, way faster. And frankly, what we’re trying to do as a company is first of all support other companies and people that are doing this, and secondly, get the resources that we need to tell this story on a much bigger scale, because that’s what it’s going to take. And I’m looking forward to it, it gets me very excited, and antsy.
Keith Bateman:
If you see Irene Davis, by the way, she has a copy of our book. I don’t know if she’s read it yet, but Heidi sent her a copy because she admires what she does. I don’t know if she’s read it, but if you see her say, “Have you read it?”
Steven Sashen:
We don’t have plans in the immediate future, but there are a couple of events that we’re doing coming up, where we’ll definitely bump into each other. And so I will definitely mention that. And by the way, it is a wonderful book. I have a stack of books about this high that I’m perusing. It’s been really fun actually, so you and Mark Cucuzzella has his book Run for Your Life, and there are a couple of others that have come out recently that people have sent me. And actually on sprinting training there’s a great book, it’s a very expensive book from Joel Smith. And so there’s all these… And there’s one or two that I’m forgetting right now, it’s making me crazy again. I can’t do names any longer, I don’t know what’s wrong with that.
And I find it very disturbing when the name pops into my head when I’m not paying attention, everyone says, “That’s just your subconscious working on it.” It’s like, “Yeah, let’s just parse that. There’s a part of me that’s working behind the scenes, and I should just be okay with that? That’s freaky but harmless.” Oh, John Beverly, his book as well. So there’s a lot of people who are starting to have these conversations, and unfortunately I can’t get through all the books as quickly as I want to. So I just go to the parts that I like, and all the parts that I’ve gotten through on yours I’ve just adored, which is why we’re having this conversation.
Keith Bateman:
Oh, great. Well, it took us four years of very, very hard work to get it into the form it is. And we used a number of editors. Well, I had somebody who worked with me who’s extremely pedantic. I was editing in a cafe one day, and he lived in the same block as me. And he walked in and said, “Oh, what are you doing?” And I said, “I’m doing a book.” And he pointed to an A4 sheet of paper and said, “Oh, there are two Us in that word.” I said, “What?” “Vastus medialis obliquus.” And he spotted that from a distance. And so I said, “Come and help.”
So for the next three years, we spent two or three days a week sitting three or four hours at a time getting the detail of it right. And then we put it to an editor who rearranged it for us, and we did the same again. And then we put it to another editor, first one was a runner, and the second one was government type scientific editor. So it’s gone through I think $20,000 worth of editing as well as their own work. So yes, and also after the first edition, we kept in touch with readers, and we saw the problems and the misinterpretations that they made, things they did wrong. And each time we made a note of that, and we built it in so that hopefully people wouldn’t make the same thing again.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, there’s nothing more fun than putting out something like a book or a video, and then a couple of years later hearing someone claiming to be quoting you and saying the exact opposite of what you believe.
Keith Bateman:
That’s exactly right, and we tried to get that message out in the book. And we still have to… Now even people say things, and we say, “Be careful, that’s not really what we meant. Don’t focus on this.” But we’ve got I think 15 or 16 Amazon reviews, and they’re all five star except for one three star. But we’re going to ignore that one, because it’s very vague. So we know we’re doing the right thing.
Steven Sashen:
No, it’s great. I mean, I’m a huge fan, obviously. The other one that I love is that you’ll have multiple professional editors go through something, and there will still be a typo or something that happens. And people act like you’re an idiot when that happens, like, “No, I don’t think you get it, man. We had a lot of smart people look at this, this just happens. You don’t…”
Keith Bateman:
I’m going to put my head on a block and say there are no errors in the book now.
Steven Sashen:
Wow, that is ballsy.
Keith Bateman:
No typos, no typos at all.
Steven Sashen:
What gets me is on our website, when someone emails me and says, “Hey, I found a typo.” And it’s a page that’s eight years old, it’s like, “How did no one tell me this before?” Either they didn’t notice or they just didn’t tell me. And they’re all apologetic, it’s like, “No, I’m thrilled. I don’t have a problem being wrong, I just want to correct it.” So I always appreciate that. And I also know that my personality, I try to get things out of my head quickly, and while we have multiple people in the office who will proofread things…
Keith Bateman:
I know, we went through all this process, thought it was 100%. And then Heidi’s mother picked the book up, on page 72 she said, “There’s a word missing there.” And then even she didn’t spot. And then it was about six months later that there’s one little spelling mistake on the back cover with an I missing out of availability or something. But we’ve corrected those two now, and that’s the joy of print on demand, you can actually update.
Steven Sashen:
Brilliant, brilliant. Well, Keith, two things. First of all, thank you very much. For human beings, I hope you go check out olderyetfaster.com, and check out the book, and check out all the videos. And we are of course dying to hear what you experience. Please say hello to Heidi for me, and let her know…
Keith Bateman:
I will do.
Steven Sashen:
That we will have this probably exact same conversation, but with her. Because she has her own perspective from the podiatry standpoint, which I’m really looking forward to sharing with people because…
Keith Bateman:
Yes, well, we’ll arrange that.
Steven Sashen:
Well, and it’s another thing, people will say to me, “Well, where’s the science behind what you’re doing?” It’s like, “Whoa, back up. We’re not the intervention, the intervention is footwear companies, ask them for the science for what they’re doing, it doesn’t exist.” And that’s the one where they should… I had a guy in fact, it occurs to me, when I was on this panel discussion with the American College of Sports Medicine. The guy from Adidas at one point says, “We want to prove that we’re reducing injury and improving performance, but to do a study that demonstrates that would take a long time, and be very expensive, and have a lot of confounding factors.” And all I could think was, dude, if you could make a shoe that scientifically demonstrably better than the guy sitting next to you, that’s worth billions of dollars a year, and you’re telling me you’re not doing it because it’s difficult. Okay, good answer. So anyway, so yes, we will continue all of this. And for people listening and watching, do let us know what you experience, and we love to hear your feedback.
On that note, make sure you go to jointhemovementmovement.com and find out all the places you can experience and interact with what we’re doing on Facebook, on YouTube, on Twitter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you have any questions, please send them to [email protected], or of course you can post them in comments to everything we’re doing here. If there’s anyone that you want to be on this show or you want to be on, then let us know about that as well. I know there’s other things that I like to say other than…
Oh, obviously the simple thing, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe because this is a movement. When we say the MOVEMENT Movement, it’s because it’s obviously about natural movement, but it’s about building this community of people who understand this and share this with other people. So we can create that groundswell, that critical mass where this just becomes the obvious thing, and what people have been doing for 50 years looks completely absurd, and just we are all delusional for some short period of time. And on that note, Keith, once again, thank you and everybody else, live life feet first.
Keith Bateman:
Thank you.