00:00:01:02 - 00:00:15:21
Matt Pendola
Evan, I was going to just tell you with the theme. We had some really good videos of Ben with what we did for his feet at the last camp, and I think those videos would be kind of perfect to use with this podcast. I don't think. Bobby.
00:00:16:01 - 00:00:20:11
Bobby McGee
Yeah, no, I think I had a look at them. They look fantastic. Yeah, I think that. Yeah.
00:00:20:16 - 00:00:29:18
Matt Pendola
So I can I'll send you those videos on Slack so you can, you can look them over and just decide on how you're going to maybe put, feed them into the podcast.
00:01:24:10 - 00:01:50:04
Bobby McGee
Hey Matt, good to see you again. I'm excited because we've now finally got a nice structure going with now, you know, with the next part of the series, just going through the whole body in terms of what you're looking for and how that all fits together. And I'm again looking forward to seeing you next week. We get together again and in Tucson and we do some work so, so exciting to be able to get to see you more often than I have been recently.
00:01:50:10 - 00:02:09:02
Matt Pendola
Yeah, then I'm looking forward to it too. I know every time we're around each other, it's just getting one more percent out of that experience and it really adds up. Though. I feel like these camps that we've been teaching have just gotten smoother and smoother and more efficient. And I really feel like serving these athletes, it's been a lot of fun.
00:02:09:02 - 00:02:31:23
Matt Pendola
But also, selfishly, I feel like I just get that much better every time. So looking forward to it, sir. It's going to be a lot of fun. And of course, this camp, for those of you listening, is it's going to center a lot for me around the very subject we're talking about today when we are looking at our athletes there, how they function, if you will.
00:02:31:23 - 00:02:51:00
Matt Pendola
I feel like that subject in itself can be confusing what is functional. So I'll let Bobby talk a little bit more about the foot in the ankle complex, how that works with the greater toe. But that's a lot of times where I am really looking first and foremost how that athlete is moving through that lower limb.
00:02:51:00 - 00:03:06:17
Bobby McGee
Yeah, we had a bit of a debate as to where do you start, right? And there's two two schools of thought, right? So we started off with with our last show just talking about the body as as a global. And now we're going to start down at the bottom there and we're going to work on.
00:03:08:02 - 00:03:29:11
Matt Pendola
You know, a Bobby, I call it an athletic anchor. You know, a lot of times that's where I mean by saying where where we're looking, the whole body, of course. Right. But when an athlete's on their feet and looking at how that foot is actually functioning and a chance to do that, especially if we're looking at that athlete barefoot, that's what I prefer to do.
00:03:29:16 - 00:03:44:00
Matt Pendola
And it tells us a big, big story. And I just feel like a few pointers that we can give today would give people a better understanding about what that really means and what that looks like for good athletic anchoring.
00:03:44:01 - 00:04:07:01
Bobby McGee
Yeah, no, that's a great one. I was just trying to stop some noises there. So let's start off with the great toe. Firstly, you know, people just understand how the foot strike works and then they can start understanding, okay, what is what is required of the muscles, the tendons, the ligaments and the bones in your foot? Right. And we know that the bones have the bones in the foot are multiple.
00:04:07:01 - 00:04:26:13
Bobby McGee
Right? And then each one has as a different function. But if we look at in terms of running, whether that athlete lands on the outside of the heel where they should or they land on the outside of their full foot on that fifth metatarsal, you know, for that for that midfoot strike, the one thing we don't want is that forefoot strike, right?
00:04:26:13 - 00:04:48:13
Bobby McGee
We don't want them landing up on their toes. But there's always going to be that rotation from the outside, whether it's the heel or the midfoot towards that centerline coming off the ground between the first and the second toe. And the interesting thing about the anatomy of the toes are that the great toe or the big toe only has two phalanges, whereas all four, the other toes have three phalanges.
00:04:48:13 - 00:05:33:12
Bobby McGee
So they, they're much more sort of mobile. But the great toe serves as that, that key, that initial, once it flexes, it makes the entire arch and the foot and the ankle rigid. Right. And then forms that base for those tendons to store elasticity and then at that point of toe of to, to release that elasticity. And so if people have locked up ankles or they have, you know, situations on the bottom of their feet where they're sensitive or they tend to stay out on the outside of their foot or they roll too much inwards, that effectiveness of that wind less mechanism, which is the stiffening mechanism, starts to become problematic right then.
00:05:33:12 - 00:05:44:09
Bobby McGee
Then people have to run with their quads and they're not able to use their calves. They're not able to use that wonderful. So first neighbor of the triple springs that we talk about in running.
00:05:44:10 - 00:06:12:20
Matt Pendola
Yeah. And when you say triple springs and when last mechanism when I describe that, I just think about that spring and that function is load to explode. That's, that's the way I think of that. And when that big toe when we first looked at that in our assessment, which again that's something you guys can check out online, it's free on our site, but we look at that big toe and that position as it's flexing.
00:06:12:20 - 00:06:39:10
Matt Pendola
Is it coming up in a more sand treated or central position or is it internally rotating towards your other toes? For most of us, because of all of the years of wearing shoes that are a bit small for our foot bed, getting those in prison toes, working around tracks, working like those kind of functionality throughout the system, we start to compensate.
00:06:39:10 - 00:06:54:01
Matt Pendola
Mainly we start to see it in that big toe function. So a lot of times what I like to look at there is are we even able to get that big toe flexing properly so we can load that spring? That's the first step to me.
00:06:54:01 - 00:07:22:07
Bobby McGee
Yeah. So it was a big breakthrough for me and understood bending foot mechanics and, and you know, the level of understanding that you have of, of how, how that foot functions from a strength perspective. Right. So a lot of people don't see that toe as, you know, the great toe or the foot is particularly muscular. But the big breakthrough for me came with this controversy around the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius.
00:07:22:07 - 00:07:52:15
Bobby McGee
Right. So he he qualified for the Olympics as a 400 meter runner and he had, you know, two legs missing. So had two prosthetics. Right. And he's obviously below the knee amputee. So he's able to flex his knee. But the research that was done there was both used to allow him into the games and then conversely, also used to show why he shouldn't have been allowed in the games because he doesn't have a very big vertical component.
00:07:52:15 - 00:08:26:13
Bobby McGee
So a lot of the release of his last return came without having to overcome gravity. So he's using his body weight to load that prosthetic. And then as he passes over his center of mass with his good posture, he gets that direct horizontal return of power. And all of that goes to show that the foot. So he was more effective than any able bodied sprinter in transferring that power, which just goes to show that the foot is basically very, very rigid and very sprung, as it were.
00:08:26:13 - 00:08:47:18
Bobby McGee
I don't want to say flexible, because highly flexible feet are not a good idea for runners, right? Because they they leak power and they lose power. But so often when you're teaching a form drills or when you're teaching dynamic mobility, right. You talk about stiffening the ankle, turning it into sprung the steel or turning it into a carbon fiber.
00:08:48:02 - 00:09:22:06
Bobby McGee
And then all talks about isometric holding, right? So you are holding that ankle and you stiffening that ankle and you using your muscle power to stabilize, not to propel, especially in distance running. Right. And so when people start to understand, oh, that simple labor of the ankle is basically just a spring that has a medial component. And the last thing that comes up there before I want to hear what you say about that is understanding that that the plan to fasten the arch of the foot is also a loading mechanism.
00:09:22:06 - 00:09:49:14
Bobby McGee
Right. But it loads most difficult effectively if it goes inwards and then it allows it opens outwards. So the force of loading is is internal rotation and the unloading is external rotation. And for people to understand, it's then the job of your hip and your knee, but mostly your hip to turn that external rotating power and lease that that elastic return into forward motion.
00:09:49:23 - 00:10:07:14
Bobby McGee
And so you'll often see good runners then when they coming off the ground, their foot sharp, their feet are quite often in that suit benighted position right where they're coming on, on their outer toes. And that's just a little bit of hip control. Where you trying to get them to come off the ground between their big toe and their second down?
00:10:07:14 - 00:10:30:19
Bobby McGee
That's fascinating to understand that some research is even showing that 50% of our elastic return comes out of that plant fresh and out of that Achilles tendon, meaning that you need this absolutely high integrity ankle joint to be able to transfer all those that, you know, rotating and all plane forces into a linear force where you come off the ground.
00:10:31:00 - 00:11:17:11
Matt Pendola
Yeah. So couple of points that I would bring up here. First, just like this camp, we're going to again, I'm going to probably start the conversation off with joint by joint theory and something I believe that really has helped me to get to the point quicker with an athlete. That's why we do movement improvement and looking at mobility of that big toe joint, that first meta, when we explain this mobility, stability stacking theory, it would be that we have more mobility in or optimal mobility, I should say, in that big toe joint, but then stability in the arch, mobility in the ankle, stability in the knee and up the path.
00:11:17:11 - 00:11:50:04
Matt Pendola
We go up the chain, we go. So it goes from mobility to stability. So if we look at that and we say that we know that that athlete should be working on the mobility through the big toe joint in Central. And what I mean by that is that they may be able to get that big toe up. But again, it's internally rotating and we want to get more central, we want to get more sand tration about that in itself, though, doesn't mean that everything is stacked exactly in the middle.
00:11:50:04 - 00:12:19:18
Matt Pendola
It just means that it's more optimal in that joint position for what's going to be relative for the demands of your skill set. And that is where we want to start, because if that BHO joint is internal rotating, then we know that we're not able to really turn the arch on as well as we should and we're not able to really get that really good windless mechanism triggered, if you will, or loaded to explode.
00:12:19:18 - 00:12:45:15
Matt Pendola
And that's where the system starts. So I just wanted to point out the importance of that to us. And what we normally would see is that we have athletes that will wear their shoes almost for everything. So in the beginning I like to say at least start off with a couple of these drills where we will be barefoot and then we can get our shoes back on after that.
00:12:45:15 - 00:13:14:09
Matt Pendola
But we do want to slowly start to build up the strength of our feet, maybe doing more of our protocol, things that don't have impact with bare feet walking around the house with bare feet, that in itself can really strengthen the system up. And a little story here, but I think would really help for people to understand. I kind of accidentally started to find this out with athletes that would come in and start working with me.
00:13:14:16 - 00:13:44:18
Matt Pendola
In the beginning, maybe they were in an 11 shoe and then over a period of, say, six months or so, they would notice that their foot's getting a lot stronger, that they have better overall function. But interestingly enough, it's time to get those new pair of running shoes and it wasn't surprising to me that the six month period of time or so we would see athletes going back and getting ten and a half years instead of 11.
00:13:44:23 - 00:13:46:22
Matt Pendola
They say, Why? Why have my feet.
00:13:46:22 - 00:13:47:06
Bobby McGee
Getting.
00:13:47:06 - 00:14:12:07
Matt Pendola
Smaller? And I think of it like a bridge and the trestles on the bridge of that suspension system. We've now started to really strengthen that arch. Doesn't mean that if your arch is lower or if it's higher, that's to me, not the standard. It's just how we're getting that foot really strong and capable. And we've increased the capacities of of what that foot can handle now going up the chain.
00:14:12:07 - 00:14:25:16
Matt Pendola
And so, yeah, it's interesting. I just kind of stumbled into that over time. A lot of athletes I'm working with are actually going a half a shoe size down and that's that that was actually fairly frequent. So I thought that was kind of interesting to share.
00:14:25:16 - 00:14:56:13
Bobby McGee
Yeah, and I think the opposite of that is true, right? So when, when a woman is pregnant, she has the prolactin. The prolactin makes all those ligaments relax, right? And so the joints become quite unstable and they go up a shoe size or a half a shoe size, right. In the in the same thing. You brought up so many things, Matt and I and I always thought when we decided we were going to do a podcast together that that we so fond of the minutia that the two of us that we get lost in the weeds sometimes, right?
00:14:56:16 - 00:15:17:10
Bobby McGee
Because it's so exciting to us. So I thought I just review again, just go back so that we can bring all those things that you've just mentioned into context, right? So the foot's coming down. It's trying to land on the outside of the heel and then it's going to rotate. The individual is trying to land on the outside of the of the midfoot and then it's going to roll inwards.
00:15:17:10 - 00:15:36:02
Bobby McGee
Right. And so now a couple of things happened with that great toe at that great toe is too far internally rotated and you starting to get that cosine of bunion effect, right? Because if you look at an African runner, there's this huge gap between they their great toe and their second toe, right. So they they can really balance well.
00:15:36:10 - 00:16:03:00
Bobby McGee
But if you imagine your foot is rolling inwards it needs that big toe to post up again so it can store And then when once that ground contact is over and it's rolling through now, the wind mass effect comes into play. Similarly, if the great toe joint is in flexible right you have flex Alice rigid as or you have flex Alice's limits and that great toe is starting to lose its range of motion right now.
00:16:03:00 - 00:16:27:17
Bobby McGee
You post up against it, but it doesn't flex so it doesn't get the wind ness going. So in the same way that you would over night if your big toe was not giving you something to post up against and you were rolling over that first that first metatarsal. Similarly with a rigid big toe, you're not able to get the wind ness going and your big toe is keeping your foot on the lateral side.
00:16:28:02 - 00:16:46:17
Bobby McGee
And so you losing a hole, not the elastic return. And your hips job is to guide the foot in, but thereafter once to put us on the ground. It takes over. It does the loading, it does the stiffening, and then it does the releasing right then. So you keep talking about going up the chain. And that's why a conversation like this is pretty hard, right?
00:16:46:23 - 00:17:07:04
Bobby McGee
Because a podiatrist is looking at your toes, always looking at your arch or something like that. Right. Whereas we are always saying, you know, what's it causing? Is it causing more injuries that are causing a lack of performance? Is it reducing this athlete's ability to collect mileage? All of those things come into play in that conversation. So that's absolutely fascinating.
00:17:07:04 - 00:17:35:13
Bobby McGee
And that's when Shoe Choice comes into it, right? It's not as simple as do I want cushioning, Do I want width, Do I want length, Do I want support? Right. That those things play into the very specific gate gait of that athlete. And I love the idea of starting sessions off barefoot where people get that relationship because one of the things about the Great tOe I found in all these years of working with athletes is they stick them in a sock, they stick them in the shoe and they forget about them.
00:17:35:23 - 00:17:55:13
Bobby McGee
They never think that they need to be trained. They need to be stretched, they need to be mobilized. They need to be taken care of. Right. So things, you know, simple things like toenails, right. If you Darnell's are too short, you've got problems. If your toenails are too long, you got problems, right? So that to me, the biggest thing about Feet, especially Toes, is TLC.
00:17:55:17 - 00:18:26:05
Bobby McGee
Right. So I'd like you to speak a little bit about, you know, toes separation and giving your ear your shoes, your feet are a much greater opportunity to get out of your feet, out of your shoes often. So that, you know, you can have that that proprioceptive response as well. I mean, just walking on grass with the with the blades of the grass tickling the arch of your foot creates stimulation and strength and stability, you know, and and there's that whole grounding concept as well, which I really buy into, right.
00:18:26:05 - 00:18:39:02
Bobby McGee
That if we never touch the ground, we never get grounded, we never get it right. And I think there's times of the day that you really have to be out there barefoot with your with your feet. Actually touching the ground.
00:18:39:05 - 00:19:04:14
Matt Pendola
Yeah. And there's there's a few things there. I think, again, we talk a lot about things we're passionate about and getting into the weeds with some of these things. So I'll try to keep it as simple as I can. To me, the hierarchy would be to just start with getting your feet used to walking around the house, something that's going to be familiar to you, where you're aware of your surroundings.
00:19:04:14 - 00:19:19:21
Matt Pendola
You're not likely to catch your toe on something and and cause more harm than good, right? So that's the first step to me. I went back when wearing the the the five toed shoes there or the, you know, the.
00:19:19:21 - 00:19:21:03
Bobby McGee
Vibram five fingers.
00:19:21:05 - 00:19:43:01
Matt Pendola
Vibram five feet. Thank you. Five toes. Yeah. There was some athletes I knew that actually broke some toes. They weren't used to walking around in those. And so I think, you know, you graduate now I'll describe and also why I actually still use those. I still have a pair of those, I use them. But the other step to me is there's something called correct toes.
00:19:43:01 - 00:20:01:17
Matt Pendola
And, you know, I tell that a lot. I should have stock in the company. They're not a sponsor, but they should be. For most athletes, I think it can be really beneficial to help. And when I say most, if you do archery, yoga assessment, you will see that if you are having trouble with that function, there you go there.
00:20:01:23 - 00:20:06:04
Matt Pendola
There are great toes. Bobby has them right there. There you go. Good man, Good man.
00:20:06:06 - 00:20:08:05
Bobby McGee
They are. They should be on my feet, though.
00:20:08:13 - 00:20:08:22
Matt Pendola
Yeah.
00:20:11:00 - 00:20:11:14
Bobby McGee
And so and.
00:20:11:14 - 00:20:46:18
Matt Pendola
You know, I in general will wear correct toes every day, anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours a day. I will wear them comfortably. And I just try to make it a habit. Now, for me personally, I'll tell you when I was in high school, running on a track, constantly turning left, that right foot would kind of role in so my right big toe it does internally rotate and I and I'll tell you that the correct toes doesn't completely take that away especially after when I finally figured it out, I was already in my late thirties.
00:20:46:19 - 00:21:09:13
Matt Pendola
All right. So this is kind of form the way it is going to be, but I'm going to basically get just that little bit more out of my foot function with the correct toes keeping me in a better position, walking around so I can testify that it does make a difference. I believe in pre hat and then obviously the ability to increase our performance.
00:21:09:13 - 00:21:31:15
Matt Pendola
But what I mean by that is, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, don't worry about it. Right. I personally think that we have to take more control out of the situation and look at areas like this. So for me, with that right big joke, I'm being preventative here. I'm helping myself to make more progress without getting injured.
00:21:31:15 - 00:21:53:15
Matt Pendola
Right. And that's what I believe is one of the steps I take. Help me do that. I haven't had any injuries there, but I don't want any either. And I also notice a difference in my performance. I feel a difference in my performance when I'm consistent wearing those correct toes. And then as far as the foot function goes itself, I will cover just a couple of areas here.
00:21:53:15 - 00:21:59:18
Matt Pendola
But we have a drill that we like to do. It's I think you call it the g, F and I'll.
00:21:59:18 - 00:22:00:10
Bobby McGee
Yep, yep.
00:22:00:15 - 00:22:14:06
Matt Pendola
So we we came up with this with Ben and I've been, I've been really using it myself in my own protocol. Love it. And yeah, let's just talk about what that drill is. We'll have a video that you can look to for this movement as well.
00:22:14:12 - 00:22:44:02
Bobby McGee
Yep. Yep. So, you know, I just, my whole life I've been looking at my male professional. Clearly I've been looking at the feet of African runners. Right. And old all the great African runners come from along the great Rift Valley. Right. And so I just used the word great rift and added feet to it. So great rift, feet of the drill that you came up with, which I think is fantastic with the bands for the feet to address that, you know that we call them groups.
00:22:44:02 - 00:23:11:18
Bobby McGee
Great rift feet dry. And one thing I just wanted to add to what you said there, Matt, and the whole concept of rehab, maybe this will help people lift that rehab conversation up. So rehabilitation is looking at a chain and we know the whole concept of the weakest link in a chain, right. And so when you when you damage something or you have some sort of an injury, it's the physiotherapist job to get it back to where it was.
00:23:12:02 - 00:23:26:22
Bobby McGee
But when you get it back to where it was, it still remains the weakest link in the chain, right? And so what you want to do is you want to take that weakest link in the chain that you you want to make it not the weakest link. You want to make something else that you might not know about at this stage.
00:23:26:22 - 00:23:48:17
Bobby McGee
Be the next one that fails, right? So when you break a bone, you never break the bone in the same place again, right? Because it's just so much thicker, so much stronger in that spot. You might break it somewhere out. So that's why how I like to watch rehabilitation. I don't want that to happen again. And I don't want this person to be say to me, well, you know, my my fifth metatarsal is always fracturing.
00:23:48:17 - 00:24:07:01
Bobby McGee
Okay. Well, it's fracturing for a reason. That's the weakest link in your chain. Let's make sure next time round something else fractures. If it's the fourth one, fine. At least we've got the fifth to sort it out. Right. It's now no longer the weakest link in the chain. And then just one more thing on the barefoot thing and wearing the correct toes.
00:24:07:04 - 00:24:38:03
Bobby McGee
Remember that people that are a bit chilly and shod normally come from areas where the surface is considerably softer than modern surface. So I can walk around barefoot all day on wooden floors. Right. And I can walk around barefoot all day outside, but I can't walk around all day on a tiled surface. My feet get very sore. So people just a way that you have these fat pads under your shoe, under your feet, and those fat pads, as you get older, those fat pads can diminish.
00:24:38:11 - 00:24:58:04
Bobby McGee
All right. And when you're working on a hard surface, your foot is not allowed to go into the surface. The surface is always winning and pushing up. That's often why triathletes have problems with their feet because of the rigidity of the of the bike shoe, the bike shoes designed to be rigid, to effectively transfer power into the pedal.
00:24:58:10 - 00:25:26:12
Bobby McGee
Right. And it the bike shoe doesn't pay credence to the need for a little bit of softness below the shoes and so so the bike the bike pedal pushes that first method up and it's always in that position. It does not flex during the bicycle stroke, the pedal stroke, it doesn't flex. Right. And so it starts to become locked in there and locked in in a high position, which is really, really counterproductive for running.
00:25:26:20 - 00:25:41:18
Bobby McGee
So, you know, if you're a triathlete and not just a pure runner, especially where a triathlete, you need to give more TLC, more attention, more strengthening, more mobility to to your feet, and especially that great toe because of that situation.
00:25:41:18 - 00:26:16:19
Matt Pendola
Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up to Bobby, because I think that with pure runners, this has become more of a conversation and something we see more often when somebody is in those bike shoes or maybe they're doing a lot of skiing for the winter, There's there's a lot of different variables that happen there. We're starting to look at that function being a little bit more restricted again, and that might be something to have to revisit, but also because more and more runners are choosing to do, say, some easy cycling for cross-training.
00:26:17:03 - 00:26:39:20
Matt Pendola
And these days, a lot of times you might go into a spin class or you what you're doing is you're clipping in to these pedals, though it's not the old days of just wearing your running shoes and putting them in to pedals that that that don't have clips. Right. So you're in these cycling shoes a lot of times, even when you're not like a triathlete or a cyclist.
00:26:39:20 - 00:27:05:12
Matt Pendola
So something that I think has happened more often lately is that runners who are using that as cross-training will start to maybe experience some of those restrictions as well. And with that drill that we were talking about, we did with Ben, we'll have that video linked up. But we take that many bands and we have it so that it's wrapped around the big toe on each right and left foot.
00:27:05:18 - 00:27:27:06
Matt Pendola
And then you're going in just a little bit of a wide walk and as you come up with your foot, that big toe is being pulled more to an optimal position, more saturated. That's the way we teach in the video. We're not trying to get too wide, but we're also making sure it's comfortable and it feels like a good range for your big toe.
00:27:27:13 - 00:27:47:03
Matt Pendola
And then as you go to lift that foot up, now it's triggering that whole wind less system the way that it's meant to be triggered. And that's kind of where we want that to be a more automatic response. So getting the feeling of that movement, that's why I like that drill so much. I think it really transfers really well.
00:27:47:03 - 00:27:49:04
Matt Pendola
Once you you get into your running.
00:27:49:08 - 00:28:12:07
Bobby McGee
Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant. Absolutely essential part of that conversation. I think a good place for us to go now to to to finish up is to just talk about again up the chain. Right. So that people consider let's say, you know, your pelvis is a little bit not where you want it to be or usado it is not where you want it to be or your lumbar spine is not quite, quite in position.
00:28:12:07 - 00:28:36:06
Bobby McGee
Right. That very much out is your foot strike. Right. And so people might get some sort of an injury in their foot and consider it a foot weakness or or a poor function in the foot. But it's cause some way up the chain, right? So if you tend to be internally rotated and where your leg comes through or your knee drops to the inside, right.
00:28:36:06 - 00:28:55:14
Bobby McGee
So now that's introducing a lateral motion. So your foot is coming into the ground, moving more laterally. And now you might pick up some peroneal issues or you might pick up some issues with with some of your foot bones, because the foot is designed to, you know, move, move in that off. Some people also have a wider foot stamp.
00:28:55:14 - 00:29:20:15
Bobby McGee
They their foot strike does not come across. It stays too wide. And when that happens, the foot has to bear more peak power, peak forces. Right. So it's really much harder on your foot because there's the hips not helping it. All right. So all of these things are designed to land the runner safely, to get the runner effectively with a high degree of leg spring stiffness off the ground.
00:29:20:18 - 00:29:58:01
Bobby McGee
All right. And that landing softly is is is about protecting the foot and then the coming off the ground effectively is about stiffening those joints. And so we were right at the beginning. We spoke about the triple springs. So people understand, you know, probably the major spring in running is that ankle flexion extension mechanism. But just to know it's not about pushing off the ground, it's about being able to stiffen against the ground so that when your posture allows you off the ground that most of that elastic energy that you've stored is as able to return you to a forward motion.
00:29:58:09 - 00:30:26:10
Bobby McGee
But part of that softening is also the knee, right? So we know from research that if you're a midfoot strike that the that safety mechanism is mostly your ankle. But if you're a heel strike, that your safety mechanism is mostly your knee. So you, whether you midfoot or a heel strike, it comes down to having those areas that will now receive the peak forces and contain the lateral forces, protect against the peak forces.
00:30:26:10 - 00:30:48:18
Bobby McGee
So you need to be a good heel strike and you need to be a good midfoot strike. A right. Both of those are important. And then of course your hips are responding to how your feet hit the ground, right? So your hips might have caused the placement of your foot on the ground due to its mechanical capabilities. But it also then has to deal with the fallout of having hit the ground.
00:30:48:18 - 00:31:30:02
Bobby McGee
Right. And especially athletes that don't spend a lot of time on their feet. And triathletes obviously spend a lot less time on their feet than runners do. Right. They they have to realize that the conditioning, the you know, the the density of the bone structure, the conditioning of the tendon in the ligaments. And I'm really pleased to see a new one of the leaders in this department are very pleased to see these static holds up on your toes and these static holds with with heavily flexed knees and these static holes with hips flicked and making it more and more functional where people are addressing tendons and ligaments, which are those major force receivers and force
00:31:30:02 - 00:31:42:13
Bobby McGee
stores in the running gait. You know, I think people tend to get stuck on the fact that it's musculature, but it's so much more about ligaments and tendons and connective tissue when it comes to the running.
00:31:42:13 - 00:32:08:14
Matt Pendola
GET Yeah, I think I think a good thing to point out because runners are oftentimes they're leery of say, growing their calves too big. And I get that right We want to get stronger. We don't want to get bigger, especially there, because that adds a whole lot of weight. And we can we look at the lightest shoes that we can get that offer us the most performance and the most protection, those kind of things.
00:32:08:14 - 00:32:31:10
Matt Pendola
But really, when it comes to the powerhouse of where we can get that foot stability, that arch stability and protect ourselves, one of those areas are going to be the soleus that deep calf muscle. And so what you were just describing, perfect. We can do over again what we've done with Ben Canoed, where he's already has calves, very strong calves.
00:32:31:10 - 00:32:57:01
Matt Pendola
We don't want them any bigger. So doing isometrics is a great way to train that function, train those tendons, train that stability. If you just do something like a simple lunge and you're in a stationary lunge, now you're in that bent knee position and now we're lifting that heel up and down slowly. It's going to be really tough on your balance because that's working like crazy to stabilize, right?
00:32:57:01 - 00:33:24:23
Matt Pendola
And so that's just a perfect example about how you can hold that position for, say, five, 10 seconds without losing your balance. That's the goal. That's the challenge. But at the same time, we have a nice isometric exercise that's not really there to grow anything. It's just to get those connections that much stronger. And and I love drills like that.
00:33:25:00 - 00:33:32:16
Matt Pendola
I think that's been a main focus with somebody like Ben, and we've seen his calves have not gotten bigger, but he's certainly gotten a lot stronger.
00:33:32:22 - 00:33:53:01
Bobby McGee
Yeah, I think to treat that often. We'll speak about this in our in our next podcast as well. But just so people understand that that the soleus you know, it's called the second heart, right. That's so important in and in vascular function as well. But it's a very deep, flat, wide muscle. It's actually bigger and stronger than the gas drop.
00:33:53:08 - 00:34:22:21
Bobby McGee
And it's used during need. When your knees flex, it only functions when your knee is flexed, when your knees extended, then we're talking about the gas stroke. Right. And the gas stroke responds very, very quickly to strength training and so on. So, again, just you know, our lesson is just be aware that, you know, when you doing strength training with an extended and you tend to have that kind of muscle morphology that you tend to build muscle, it's that straight knee work, right?
00:34:23:03 - 00:34:46:18
Bobby McGee
So, you know, you'll often see very powerful cyclists have these giant gas drops, right? And as you rightly said, having a weight way down at the end of that Labor is very important. I mean, early research of great Rift Valley Runners is that their calf size is something like 12 to 15% smaller than that. Their European counterparts in in run it right.
00:34:46:18 - 00:35:08:06
Bobby McGee
And so it's also you know how we are designed, how we are built. But again, just looking at animals that are great runners, you know, looking at border collies, looking at cheetahs and gazelles and stuff like that, they have these very big quad glute muscles and they have very, very well then a tendons, but they don't have a lot of muscle in that lower leg.
00:35:08:10 - 00:35:21:07
Bobby McGee
And it's the same with runners. You know, it's about the tendons and the ligaments in that lower leg. But those tendons and ligaments are primarily attached to the soleus through the Achilles, into the foot. So that that's the key component there.
00:35:21:10 - 00:35:47:20
Matt Pendola
Yeah. And I think, you know, we we can talk about other issues that we generally see with lack of mobility through the ankle. And I think that's the final piece, at least in this conversation too, to go over. And I have again, the the standards that I feel like are universal. One of them is that people have pretty equal ankle mobility on each side, right?
00:35:47:23 - 00:36:10:03
Matt Pendola
So that's the first thing is and if I have somebody who is doing our ankle mobility assessment, again, that's in our movement improvement, they let's say they have two inches of that mobility on one side in our assessment. And then the other side they have, let's say, two and a half inches. That's that is within a half an inch.
00:36:10:03 - 00:36:31:10
Matt Pendola
That, to me is about the max that we want to be in that difference. And we still should still really try to do our best to get it close to two and two as we can't. But I'd rather see that standard on somebody than the three inches to five inches of mobility we want to see. And I think everyone should be able to get to three.
00:36:31:10 - 00:37:05:04
Matt Pendola
So I would tell that athlete we want to do the mobility to get to three on each side minimum. But then for some taller athletes, athletes that have a little bit more range, they might go a little bit closer to five, even five and a half inches right, right around there. But my point that I will finish with there is that if you look at an athlete who has, let's say, three inches on one side and four on the other, that to me is even a bigger red flag than the athlete who had two and two and a half.
00:37:05:04 - 00:37:43:12
Matt Pendola
So, you know, looking at those standards, it's important because we want to be able to get good mobility, good range, but good control of that range. And so those are things that it's ongoing. It's things we should always check and recheck back into our programing and making sure that we're keeping up with the demands of our sport. So a lot of times when we are looking at switching up, some of our emphasis will say in our training we now may have some need for more ankle, especially as we're preparing for more speedwork, etc..
00:37:43:13 - 00:38:06:23
Matt Pendola
So, you know, we'll talk more in the other episodes about how this works up the chain and what happens. But I know that if we meet those standards with the big toe, with the foot, they are stability, with the ankle mobility, then right there we're probably solving, I'd say maybe 70% of the problems that we see just by starting there.
00:38:06:23 - 00:38:30:23
Bobby McGee
Yeah, absolutely. Matt. I'll add to that by, you know, making it a little bit more global and finish off with that, too. For me today, athletes must pro night, right? This whole concept of looking at a video on your ankle is going to be dead up straight. Right? It starts on that outside it comes across and there's a little loading moment on that inside that loads the arch.
00:38:31:03 - 00:38:52:04
Bobby McGee
And while the arch is loading, the ankle is flexing further. Right. But it's flexing because of the weight of the body passing over that the center of mass passing over that pivot point. And that's the big load that those tendons in the ankle and in the calf. So that's that's the first thing they must pro night. They just mustn't overnight because then there's power loss again.
00:38:52:04 - 00:39:14:23
Bobby McGee
Right. And then the risk of injury. The other thing is that there's an optimal range. Right. So that's the big challenge that triathletes have because they swim and they run. So swimmers need tremendous blunt deflection, so much so that the top of their foot this is in a line with their shin. I mean, it's it's phenomenal how great swimmers have that complete slipper at the bottom there.
00:39:15:05 - 00:39:32:07
Bobby McGee
But runners need exactly the opposite. Right? They need a lot of dorsiflexion. So I've always used be, you know, before I met you, one of my assessments was and you can obviously tell some stuff from the hips, some stuff from the knees, some stuff with what's going on, if the foot is locked up a little bit and so on.
00:39:32:07 - 00:39:54:17
Bobby McGee
But a very good little soleus test is in a regular pair of running shoes. Can you sit down on your haunches? Can you go into a squat position without lifting your heels off the ground? That's a good start. So I got if you can sit down on your haunches and you're not limited by your knees or your hips, you just limited by your ankles, you probably a good candidate for starting to work on that salvia and that ankle mobility.
00:39:54:17 - 00:40:07:23
Bobby McGee
Right. And then I think the last thing to finish off there is is is just to say, take care of your damn feet because they are where the rubber meets the road. All right, Matt.
00:40:07:23 - 00:40:11:12
Matt Pendola
I would say that taking care of your dogs, we used to call it.
00:40:12:00 - 00:40:12:08
Bobby McGee
Yeah.
00:40:12:12 - 00:40:44:15
Matt Pendola
And fire. Right. And I think is my final thought on this is. Just looking at what most people are dealing with, we've heard a lot about grip, strength and longevity and people with really good grip strength. They tend to have a healthier, longer life. And that really isn't about because just their pure grip strength is is better than everybody else's is because of the training most likely that they had to do for years and years to develop that kind of grip strength.
00:40:44:15 - 00:40:57:09
Matt Pendola
That's really what it comes down to. And what I would say is on our side of things, endurance athletes, I use that same concept, but I say to me, the number one priority is grip strength in the feet.
00:40:57:20 - 00:41:06:18
Bobby McGee
Yep, yep. Fantastic. Matt, once again, fantastic to spend time with you. Looking forward to seeing you next week. Look after yourself, buddy, and we'll speak again soon.
00:41:07:00 - 00:41:08:07
Matt Pendola
I'll see you next week.
