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The Shoetiful Disaster pt. 2

Today I went looking for some shoes again, since I figured that this gait analysis I would have all the possible shoes that Ryan would ask for. Another $400 later and I am going in with 6 pairs of brand new shoes. Half of them are mild motion control and the other half are neutral.

Either way I am happy having tons of shoes:

Holding All Shoes

(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life, Running 3 Comments » October 2007

The Shoetiful Disaster

I am still working on getting my shin problems behind me, but I must say that I am continually more impressed with Solefit Orthotics. I went back to the office yesterday at 5PM to review the shoes I had purchased. Ryan didn’t like the look of any of them. The Saucony Trigon Rides looked best but he still didn’t like the look of them, so he told me to return the two other pairs and to pick up the Saucony Trigon Guides and the Asics 1120. Both of those shoes fall into the Mild Motion Control side of things, which should help with any pronation.

What makes me very impressed with Solefit -and Ryan- is his insistence on getting the right shoe. He was apologetic -for no reason- for my having to come back one more time. Both of these sessions are at no charge, which I still find incredible. So I will be going back on Monday early in the AM to hopefully finally determine which will be my shoes going forward. As well Ryan indicated that he didn’t think that there was anything in my gait that would indicate that it would be causing injury, so hopefully this will be a big step forward.

(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Running No Comments » October 2007

Call Me Captain Fatty

Is anyone else ever shocked by their BMI? I know I am continually shocked by my BMI and I do realize that there is a margin of error, but still I find the results very suspicious. The main reason why I am suspicious of the recommended BMI ranges is that I am continually told that I am ‘over-weight’, which I would say that I am, yet the recommended healthy weight ranges I find very strange.

A quick Google search for BMI produces lists of hundreds of calculators -here is one from the National Institute of Health. They are quite simply your weight divided by the square of your height. The results do not distinguish between male and female; which is again curious. The results then can be extrapolated very simply using the following:

Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

Now I am 6′3″ and my weight fluctuates between 205lbs and 220lbs. That puts me solidly into the overweight category. Now I am carrying a bit of excess weight, and ideally I would like to be in the range of 190-200 (195 would be perfect), this would still put me at the very upper limits of ‘Normal Weight’. According to the BMI calculator the ‘Normal Weight’ range for someone 6′3″ is 148lbs to 199lbs. I am not a doctor but when I was this height and running 5-10 KMs per day I weighed in the 165-175 range. I was very thin, and at my strongest and most fit I was closer to 185. I was still only in my early 20s at this point. Now I could not imagine being the height I am now and weighing 148lbs.

Based on my own interpretations of the results I have decided to list some well known athletes and their results:

Roger Federer - BMI: 23.3 Normal Weight -Upper end of range

Andy Roddick - BMI: 25.0 Overweight -Lowest end of range

Justin Henin - BMI: 21.0 Normal Weight -Middle of Range

Maria Sharapova - BMI: 16.7 Under weight -Middle of Range

Svetlana Kuznetsova - BMI: 24.5 Normal Weight -Upper end of range

Lance Armstrong - BMI: 23.7 Normal Weight- Upper end of range

Cadel Evans - BMI: 22.8 Normal Weight - Middle of range

Vincent Lecavalier - BMI: 27.1 Overweight- Middle of range

Joe Thornton - BMI: 27.1 Overweight- Middle of range

Sidney Crosby - BMI: 26.9 Overweight- Middle of range

Martin Brodeur - BMI: 27.0 Overweight- Middle of range

Derek Jeter - BMI: 24.4 Normal Weight- Upper end of range

Alex Rodriguez - BMI: 28.1 Overweight- Middle of range

Ronaldo - BMI: 24.5 Normal Weight- Upper end of range

David Beckham - BMI: 22.4 Normal Weight- Middle of range

I don’t really think that I need to go on. Even cyclists such as Lance Armstrong and Cadel Evans are in the middle of the healthy range. It is much easier for women to be in the healthy range as it does not differentiate between the sexes, yet I would not expect a 5′7″ woman to weigh the same as a 5′7″ man.

I did not bother to do any football (American) players as one could guess that it would be difficult to find any players in the normal range. I think it is pretty clear that any male athlete who is not in an endurance sport will fall in the upper end of normal or into the overweight category.

I think this will just prove that BMI alone does not do much to determine ones health. I am not going to judge my weight based on BMI, but rather on how comfortably I can run/ski/walk etc… Because these numbers just don’t make me believe that it is a valid way to determine weight ranges.

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life, Running 3 Comments » October 2007

Running On Uneven Surfaces - Shin Splints

Some things never cease to amaze me. During my seemingly ever lasting battle with shin splints I have read many an interweb mind wandering on the subject. There seems to be a nary a solid cause from them. Causes that I have found include: poor running form, too much too soon, running on hard ground, running on uneven ground, the boogey man, under pronation, over pronation, poor diet, wrong shoes, the tooth fairy, running on hills -up and down-, muscle imbalances, and just general bad luck.

I have done my best to eliminate all of those. I have worked tirelessly on my running form, slowed down, shortened the distances, ate better food, avoided hills, checked for muscle imbalances, avoided to the best of my ability the tooth fairy and the boogey man, but when it came to running on soft surfaces but not uneven surfaces… well my search led me to never never land. Truth be told it actually lead me to a proper track to travel in circles like those jackasses in NASCAR.

Yesterday while at my gait analysis-to rule out footwear- I was quite surprised when Ryan -the podiatrist- told me to run on uneven ground. I mean right here in position number 2 under overload it states ‘Exercising on uneven ground’ as a cause of shin splints. Ryan went on to say that you aren’t even running on grass and trails for the lower impact surface but rather because it changes the muscle’s job from step to step helping to build stabilizer muscles and reduce repetitive stress -which is exactly what shin splints are.

With my personality this kind of bizarre contradictory information has led me back to the dangerous place that is the interweb. This lead me to an article by Paul Ingraham, a registered massage therapist in Vancouver who suggests that we should run as much as possible on uneven terrain. He says:

We [humans] have evolved miraculously complex reflexes and musculature that can keep us upright on virtually any surface, even shifting surfaces like the deck of a ship. To develop and maintain a well-rounded fitness, all of those reflexes and musculature need to be constantly stimulated and challenged!

Ideally, everyone should run “cross-country.” Your run should be on soft, constantly changing and unstable surfaces. If you live near the beach in Vancouver, you’re in runner’s Heaven: just stay off the seawall. Run on the sand and the grass. Hop over logs and benches, go up and down hills, scramble over rocks. This is perfect!

This is essentially what Ryan had told me, and honestly information that I actually knew myself. I feel kind of stupid for not putting two and two together, because in my ten or so years as ski coach I have spent a good deal of time helping athletes develop their stabilizer muscles. -Stabilizer muscles are the muscles responsible for balance, and not just vertical balance but the balance required while lifting free weights, or delicately placing a breakable object. It is fair to say that stabilizer muscles are the muscles responsible for making people athletic rather than just strong.- While training athletes stabilizer muscles we would do such activities as running complex courses at full speed on wet grass, sand, hills etc… while changing pace and doing various other drills with the arms or hand eye coordination.

Since I had been doing exactly the training that was recommended to me by Ryan then why wouldn’t I have the smarts to know that I should do it myself? Well the answer is probably that I either thought that sort of training would aggravate my shin condition or I just wasn’t thinking. Either way it is an interesting concept and certainly one that should be investigated over the next three weeks as I begin to ease back into running.

(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Running 1 Comment » October 2007

Buying Out Running Room

I thought that I had a problem with owning too many shoes -in excess of 40 pairs. Well today takes the cake, yet today for once is a bit of a positive. For the past few months -lets be honest, the whole damn summer- I have been battling a nasty case of shin splints, with the possibility that its become a stress fracture. I have tried ART, and all of the online recommendations that there are to find. Well today was a day to rule out footwear.

I had been running in a pair of Saucony Triumph 4s. Prior to that I had been running in a pair of New Balance 752s and before that Saucony Grid Webs. The grid webs were the best shoes I have ever had, and the NBs were somewhat of a blistery disaster. I got the Triumphs mainly because my online reading led me to believe that they were the closest thing to the Grid Webs. I can’t say that they aren’t.

Well after meeting with Ryan Grant at Solefit Orthotics I was led to believe that the Triumphs were not the best shoes for me. It was a very cool experience; what was actually done was a video gait analysis. There were two cameras positioned fore and aft of a treadmill filming the action of the foot at its various positions throughout the gait cycle. I had both the Triumphs and 752s with me and it was incredible to see the difference between the two. They are both neutral shoes but the Triumphs are a considerably softer soled shoe. It appears that the Triumphs just weren’t providing the the support necessary as there was a great deal more pronation with the Triumphs than the 752 -actually none with the 752s.

Ryan suggested several other shoes for me to try. And he wants me to try new shoes and Superfeet before orthotics. He gave me a list of 6 shoes:

Saucony Trigon Ride
Adidas Cushion
New Balance 1061
Mizuno Rider
Brooks Glycerine
Asics Nimbus

He also wants me to come in after purchasing a few of the pairs to have them evaluated with the video to ensure that I don’t end up with another ‘lemon’. So tonight I went out and bought $500 worth of shoes. I ended up with the Trigons, Cushions, and Nimbii. So here is what my current stable looks like: