LAWSUIT ON VIBRAM FIVE FINGERS?

Is this the fall of minimalistic/barefoot running?

Vibram have been found that their claims to the benefits of wearing their minimalistic shoes are not scientifically backed.  Another company jumping on the ‘band wagon’ of promoting their product without any scientific research and in the process getting their feet scorched!

Again the whole issue is more business than sense!  However it is important that wild accusations are not allowed to be promoted as, for example, you wouldn’t want companies like a certain vitamin drink packed with sugar claiming it is healthy!  On the other hand we have all been lead to believe that heel striking when running is a viable biomechanical function we can do (if wearing shoes).  Science proves it?!

So what does this all mean for the confused general public?  I say confused because a society built on scientific research based off a shoe wearing population, the whole notion of barefoot is against the academic grain but the story held true for the romantics dreaming of our earlier ancestors running around barefoot makes complete sense.  Shoes were an invention – we are not born with shoes on our feet.

So to explain this clearly for everyone I must start with a holistic view of the human species and why we are what we are.  We are built of four systems  -biochemical, biomechanical, psychological and spiritual.  The reason for our dominance on this planet is our ability of adaptation.  We have been able to adapt to many varying environments and survive.  We are the only animal that if we break the circle of life we can still prosper where others would perish.

Biochemically we are set up to survive on a diverse and varied diet.  Biomechanically we are set up to be the most efficient movers on land whilst being able to adapt to many forms of movement.  Psychologically we are set up to make conscious decisions separate to our subconscious (instinctual) process.  Spiritually we are set up to connect to the universe’s energy and my belief here is that our alignment (standing on two bare feet) allows us to be a highly efficient tuning fork to connect us with life’s energy forces.

Now with every system there is a breaking point or in our case, a symptom threshold.  We might be masters at our ability in adapting to many environments however we have our limit and modern society is seeing this threshold a lot more than any other generation before.  Why?  Well you have heard it all before.  Dehydration, lack of nutritious food, lack of movement, chemical over load, EMF overload, ego and fatigue I would say are the main culprits in our society today.  Fatigue being the number one – none of us recover properly anymore and are so out of touch with our body’s rhythm.  So the outcome leaves us with either an acute or chronic injury or disease symptom. 

In other words in today’s modern society there are very few that aren’t walking around affected by injury or disease.  The amazing thing is that the majority will hardly know and this is how good the body is at adapting and compensating.  However, as I call it, if you do not know how to get back to your true centre of balance then you are a walking time bomb.

Although the Vibram claims are benefits that can be achieved, it cannot on a body that does not know its true centre of balance.  This is what barefoot running demands (to run on your true centre of balance) and the majority of us have not only lost the skill to enable us a transition to minimalistic/barefoot running but also the posture and strength.  Minimalistic shoes will put added stress on the un-centred/off-balanced body and try to fire up a system that is not adapted to the forces associated in that style of running.  This is associated with acute injury.  Most people will suffer lower limb injuries.

I ask you when swooping over from one computer software to another say like Apple to PC does it not take time to adapt?  And how many of us still don’t know how to use the software effectively?  Running is no different and I am still finding ways to be more efficient on my computer 8 years later and if it meant more to me than just typing I would get educated in how to use it properly!

Therefore education is needed for the skill it takes to run and all the abilities the body utilises to be involved in such an activity.  If not you will end up hurt and will want to blame someone for the false hopes.  However do remember your body has been running around for millions of years uninjured without heel striking technology (the modern shoe).  So lets start a new strap line - don’t blame the shoe!!! 

To learn more about the total picture read on.

Our system is equipped to deal with bacteria, viruses, minerals, chemicals, gases and forces, at an everyday level, by efficiently obtaining and discarding (detoxifying) through our lunges, intestines, skin, liver and kidneys and musculoskeletal system. Everything has to be sorted, it always has and it is now that our bodies are taking on so much more (modern living) that our alignment is getting so distorted and we are losing the ability to be an efficient functioning body. 

Specifically, the Vibram claim on the benefits of their minimalistic shoes didn’t work because the majority of us have lost the skill of our tissue reacting correctly to the forces associated to running due to our sedentary lives.  The body skilfully changes its posture (lever system) and speed of coordination to either increase joint torque or decrease it from the information it receives from the ground reaction force and the way the body is aligned. 

If your alignment is chronically distorted (modern shoes, the seat, constant faulty repetition - change alignment) then asking the body to re-align with a quick fix of just wearing a pair of minimalistic shoes wont work for the majority.  The body wont have the skill to action the most efficient response for the new forces demanded with the minimalistic shoe.  And claims such as Vibram’s will be all out on a whim.  However there are companies that have understood this and have got behind the education of the alignment needed to run in minimalistic shoes.

I can say hand on heart that the modern human race, as a whole, has lost its ability to walk, run and sprint efficiently.

My concern for everybody is to have an efficient foundation to move from in the first place.  Barefoot mechanics is the very system my multidisciplinary methodology stands on and once you get educated in it everything starts to fall in to place.  Sustainability (not getting injured) comes from allowing the new skill/alignment to adapt (this applies to any style of running).  This takes time, which the majority of people don’t give.  They want the quick fix!

Injury sits so close with inefficiency and re-educating yourself in barefoot mechanics will see that you start to journey away from the symptom thresholds and this will allow you a much bigger buffer ground to play in.  Foot strength will be gained, posture will change, reaction times will get quicker as claims suggest, however to maintain efficiency and skill you will have to work at keeping mobility in all the joints and constantly train the skill of action it takes to be efficient in all types of movement.  Consistency is the name of the game.

Efficiency is a survival built mechanism, to work well it has to be in tune with its design.  Most people sit in a Ferrari (their body) but drive it like a Robin Reliant.

But it doesn’t just stop there!  If you are been drained else where in the other systems you will still be at risk of injury.  In the modern world all four systems are at a constant dance with the symptom threshold. 

Lack of energy, bad skin, frequent colds/flues, obesity at a biochemical level.  Stiffness, aches and pains, inefficient movement, common injuries, lack of energy and just damn hard work at a biomechanical level.  Fatigue, hesitation, fear, anxiety, frustrated, unloved, constantly unhappy, depression at a psychological level and spiritually well that has truly been kicked into touch through ego, materialism and quick fixes.

We are wandering in the lost lands, we know deep down something is not right because we still have the hardware and software for amazing abilities but we have lost our way to learning and finding how to set ourselves free.  Getting connected back with bare feet (ancient practises such as material arts all practise bare feet) and re-visiting the skill to obtain and action efficient walking, running and sprinting is fundamental to our spirit.  To me it is the foundation to it all.  To walk, run and sprint well all four systems have to be in alignment to find that Zen.  Everybody can obtain it or at least be consistently close to it.  They are our primary movement patterns and functions.  Consistently work on getting them to function to be in tune with their environment and everything you love to do will be enhanced even more. 

BECOMING A VETERAN RUNNER

Having just stepped into the veteran category myself.  Yikes where did that come from!  My training has definitely changed but I run faster, better and the key word here is more efficiently than ever before.

Life is full; wife, kids, family life and a work life that fuels my passion definitely have all taken time away from my training time of a younger freer past life. 

So the question is how do I end up at a start line fit, fast and still in love with the motion of running.

Cross training plays a huge part to it.  But it is not the cross training you are thinking of (see below in the Tips).  But first you must understand it is fatigue that is the number one killer that leads to injury, especially at an older age.

Fatigue attacks your form!  This loss of form puts excess torque/load on joints and it is this that leads to injury.  Running is one of the highest loading patterns our body deals with.  Obviously sprinting deals with bigger loads however sprinting can only be maintained over short distances.  Therefore it is the distance that starts to multiply the forces dealt with in running.  In other words it takes longer to recover from a marathon run than from a 100m sprint.

As a veteran there is no point of running when you are tired.  Turn your energy to recovering for a better run the next day.

I specialise in teaching running technique. I have been running all my life and I never knew what an art running was until I got taught how to run properly.  It changes everything you do.  Running skill affects every area of your life.  Why?  It is what we are primarily designed for!  Done skillfully it is highly efficient.

Understand it's alignment and it will change your posture.  Understand its rhythm it will change your strength.  Understand the mindset it takes and it will change the depth of your knowledge.  Understand it all and practice it and you will run fit, fast, efficiently, injury free and be able to apply it to so many different areas of your life.

Here are some tips on how I play the game of energy (life) to sustain running to a high level at a ripe old age!

Management of schedule

1.  Active recovery is my highest priority in my training schedule. Includes myofascial release techniques and rehab exercises.

2.  Any other spare time I have I train the skill of running which involves lots of different methodologies to accomplish this skill. Plyometric plays a big role in short intense sessions.

3.  I walk or run a lot more as part of my travel to my destinations for work and social meetings. 

4. I keep running interesting.  Slogging it out by yourself can get tiring after awhile.  Join a running group.  I have just started orienteering running.  It is a blast and this joy carries over to all my other training.

Cross training

5. Playing with my kids helps me stay mobile, agile and multidirectional.  This is where I make sure I am deep squatting, crawling, chasing, climbing, falling and jumping with them.

6. Other cross training techniques I use are standing at work at an adjustable desk, applying water training exercises when entertaining the kids at the local pool.  (It is based on a hydro session I would prescribe for an injured athlete) and cycling the kids to school and then onto work.

(Cycling can have a detrimental effect on running posture.  Be sure you know how to actively transform from one active posture to another.)

Belief

6.  Belief comes from learning and feeling the skill of action.  Skill is built upon adapting your body to efficiently act for the task you set it.  Learning to run with skill is game changing.  It holds our deepest and founding beliefs.

Bruce Lee had a great out look on life, he also understood in this modern world you had to sneak in training wherever you can.  It only gets tiring if you lose your posture, your rhythm and above all your imagination. 

My last tip has the biggest effect on energy - going to bed on time!  It is an absolute necessity to live life to its fullest.

Love running.

THE PHYSICS BEHIND RUNNING FORM

Kaisa came to see me because she is gearing up for marathon running and triathlon sporting events.  She is serious in her pursuit and her eyes are turning towards Ironmans.  In response to the time we had the most important motor ability to these skills she is embarking on is running.  Running imposes the most force on the body and this is where a tri-athlete must gain the appropriate skill that will govern all the other abilities.  Learn the skill of running using efficient mechanics and you will see how some of the same principles apply to cycling and swimming, improving efficiency.  Running is our benchmark to rehab and performance for all athletes.  At the BFPA running is our speciality however our knowledge in cycling and swimming biomechanics our closely followed for the pursuit of the tri-athlete.

General over view:  Kaisa is a confident runner and brings strength and good posture to her heel striking running style.  Good posture will limit injury in any running style, however below you will get to understand how Kaisa can truly improve her game by understanding how nature designed us to run.

By looking at running with physics in mind (not coaching) we can see where athletes are or are not utilising potential energy.  Potential energy comes from taking the vertical force, what gravity gives us and utilising this force into horizontal force; running forwards.  When you capture an athlete like this in the air there are several key points we can look at where energy is being wasted.  The first place I would look is the huge v-shape of the legs.  This shape creates excessive torque in rotation where the upper body excessively counter rotates to help balance the force of the two limbs which are at their furthest point away from the general centre of mass (GCM) of the body whilst in motion. As a rule of thumb, when forces go up due to momentum the body is designed to lesson the joint torques not increase them. Secondly this miss balance in the air sets up Kaisa for an aggressive heel strike.

With good strength Kaisa has brought herself back to good posture on loading.  Chest facing forwards, alignment through spinal column and luckily for her knee it is soft on loading.  However her GCM is behind her ball of foot (BOF) as she heel strikes. What goes down must come up and the red line emphasis a breaking force experienced in heel striking.  The skill of running is about minimising this breaking force by getting the foot strike under the GCM.

Everyone goes through running POSE which is the last picture in this sequence where the GCM is directly above the BOF.  It is the only way to move forward.  An important skill of running is about how you arrive to this point.  Kaisa takes in running terms a long time to get to what is termed POSE (form at support phase).  She loses valuable height and increases her exposure to her time on the ground which is associated with injury.  Look how her blue line around her waist drops below the hedge line in the background.  With good form there would be some degree of drop to gain elastic energy (triphasic system of muscles) but not this much.

Back to the Physics of running and this picture represents a term we call gravitational torque.  The red line represents the angle of fall.  This is how the GCM has accelerated beyond its starting point which was directly above the BOF.  This allows the GCM to effectively fall forwards from it’s pivot point from the base of support (BOF) through the dynamic lever system in the body.  If we are able to hold our height (running strength) then all this energy would be levered into horizontal force.  However in Kaisa case she has lost lots of height and now has to regain it by excessively pushing off through her leg.

You can see her blue band around her waist is now higher than the hedge line behind her.  She continues to fall forwards yes but at a high cost of imbalance which creates the v shape in the first sequence, which has the effect on the braking forces experienced which then determines how long you can sustain this abuse, which turns into injury that 85% of runners frequently suffer from year to year as researched by the ACSM in 2005.  In all it is a very inefficient way to run.  Where in a session you can look like this….

After coaching Kaisa what it takes to get closer to good form running we re-assessed her running mechanics.

The v-shape has gone.  The leg is still trailing quite far behind which opens that chest up to rotation however it is not as excessive and therefore much better.  Only adaptation (6 week periods) of practising good form will you find her body smarten up to allow a faster pull through of her back leg, lessening the weight of the limb left behind.  By quickening this action the limb’s centre of mass gets back to the GCM allowing better balance and effectively less drag on the body.

In one session and back into shoes Kaisa has become a midfoot striker.  Her GCM loading a lot closer to being over the BOF.  Therefore the breaking force is reduced, shown by the more vertical angle of the red line compared to her first analysis.

It now takes Kaisa less time to get her GCM over BOF.  Notice how her leg is a lot stiffer, not so bent.  Therefore not losing so much height.

Interestingly she gets more angle of fall before she breaks POSE (form at support phase) compared to her first style of running.

So less height loss due to lessening the breaking force = in more distance covered in the horizontal plane.  If you are a runner this must be the efficiency you are looking for.

Luckily for me as a coach this style is how the body was designed to run and to top it all, it is kid like, light, agile, fast and super fun.

Kaisa has done really well to transform to this skill in one session.  However it must be pointed out that she still lacks lower limb strength which in my experience is an exact representation of her hip strength too.  From the picture you can see her heel is quite high off the ground (especially when you take the heel lift of the shoe into account).  This represents a sprinters mechanic although she is only at running speed.  (How can we tell that from a still photo is her angle of fall)

Finally the excessive push off is not going to change over night for the more athletic student.  It must be said it is easier to coach a none runner who has not embedded years of compensatory strength to get a job done.  Kaisa still excessively pushes off producing too much vertical force still.  However her pull through is quicker hence her shape in the air (no v-shape) improves and if she does not go out side the boundary of what her lower limb can take with this new training she will gain the necessary strength which will adapt her skill.

If she experiences painful delayed on set of muscle soreness (DOMS for more than 2 days) then skill will be compromised both in the session causing the DOMS and future sessions.  Therefore running form will suffer through compensation.  It is the runners who still get injury that haven’t quite got on top of their form.  Good form eliminates common injury.  If you are doing performance activities which inevitably take you slightly away from good form be sure you keep on practising good form to bring you back in balance.  

Gaining the right strength in her ankle (lower limb) will unable her more free momentum and as her muscle tone acquires the right coordination, stiffness and ability to relax.  

If Kaisa follows what felt right on the day and practises the new balance point which is a big challenge for anyone who hasn’t this skill already and she will transform into a very good runner.

However to obtain good form is a whole different psychological matter which takes time practising the skill of movement.  The best in the world call it a life time of practise.

Change comes from learning new skills.  For Kaisa in her first session it was based around the Barefoot Deep Squat and learning the skill of barefoot running.  This required changing posture from foot mechanics to head alignment and everything in between, whilst teaching the body a new kind of coordination.  The one the body was already wired for..

One of the most valid questions is why this shape then?  If this is all wrong why does the body choose it?

Everything we do comes down to metabolic cost.  As an organism it is concerned about how much energy it is using.

Elastic energy is a kind of free energy we have designed to utilise through the arches in our body and its links to ligaments, tendons and muscles.  The all important one (which we have all lost considerable strength in because of being a shod population, especially when we look at shock absorption technology shoes) is in our foot which gives the plantar fascia potential energy when the arch is flattened.  Our leg uses the same principle with a soft knee (be aware of perception of soft knee, not bent like Kaisa’s), and our curves in our spine all utilise potential energy.

Through lack of conditioning (losing the skill for running) we lose the effectiveness of elastic energy.  This creates the first issue in the lack of speed in our coordination and this then falls prey to what the body knows as the most efficient mode of transport – walking. 

Walking utilises more rotational torque (a longer stride (v-shape)) to provide enough torque to enable motion.  Enter the shape you see above a mix of running and walking.  Jogging is actually quite a spot on term for slow running, because it is neither hear nor there and it is only made consistently possible by shoe cushioning taking away the pain of what the heel would feel landing first without cushioning.   Walking is a heel to toe action but only deals with one body weight where in running there is twice as much force.   Hear enters the main role of elastic energy utilising twice as much force whilst protecting the body from injury by lessening the joint torques.

About the author

Rollo Mahon has an academic background in Sports Therapy.  His academic journey has led him through various athlete performance accreditations where he has specialised in the science and biomechanics of barefoot running.  His search has been to find the solution to injury free biomechanics and therefore better performance, which has been cemented by the science of Barefoot Science. 

CHILDREN'S MOVEMENT SKILL AFFECTED BY MOTION CONTROL SHOES

Our movement is our signature to who we are.  It determines how we meet people, how we make friendships, what we will enjoy and it will determine later in life the contracts we make.  I believe running skill is at the very foundation to our body’s language, it is one of very first instinctual survival skills we learn in our first 18 – 22 months of learning to walk and run.  It is among others our very first big milestone to achieve.

Below is a story of two sisters who are very athletic and have been subjected to approximately the same stimulation in their growing up.   The only difference being that one sister has been subjected to more time in her motion control shoes.

The younger sister’s form is as you would expect from an athletic 11 year old.  Her form is beautifully composed through her posture and has a keen sense of balance whilst retaining an agility, lightness and springiness.  (Subconsciously she is using the first law of motion - inertia efficiently) However you can see that there is a slight difference in skill when she takes off her shoes and runs barefoot.

This would suggest that the shoes have changed natural mechanics.  With her shoes off she is displaying a better foot strike, which makes her running form look lighter.

The older sister a 14 year old, 3 years older, is showing signs of further loss of skill.  And I believe this is mainly down to the extra three years she has been exposed to the effects of the motion control shoes.  Shoulders are now elevated, her arm action is too high (almost trying to hold her self up) and she is a much more aggressive heal striker than her sister.  She still shows signs of good running mechanics with a nice pull through of her trailing leg and this is due to the fact that she still has some skill left in her running from earlier years. (Springiness)

You could say this is a perfect description of adolescences however you might want to consider that the brick walls a lot of us parents deal with at this age is due to the fact that children too quickly lose their movement skill.  The 13 year old and beyond is a time of exploration and the impending fall into weight with the remnant of light, agile, child-like springiness to allow them (and us adults) to interplay between the inner and outer worlds.  From my view dealing with patients on biomechanical issues this loss of springiness rings true to all common injuries. 

It is when you see the older sister run unshod that you notice a huge difference.  To me this just highlights how much skill she has lost through wearing thick cushioned shoes.

She is not like an adult where a sports curriculum is involuntary and where the majority of us are tied to a desk all day.  Therefore it is the information she is getting from what is on her feet that determines her skill not the added disadvantage of the seated posture as with us adults.  

At the BPA we do not train the kids like we do the adults.  We utilise appropriate games to subconsciously increase their spatial awareness to increase their skill of balance.

Good running form is about a balance that controls an unbalancing action.  (First law of motion – the law of inertia)  If we are stable we do not move, like a rock on the floor, but perch that rock on a cliff edge then we can all visualise this rock is about to go somewhere.  That is the balance point we want to perfect landing at with every step so not to waste energy in pushing ourselves to this point.  Because at every step, if we are at this pivot point, by shifting our weight we fall forwards (off the cliff) to move before the other foot hits the next balance (pivot) point to remind our body of stability before becoming unstable again, falling forwards.

It does not take long to re-balance a body if the coaching skill is right.  Children tap into it far quicker as their instinct to move is far keener than with the adult who has lost skill and compensated for much longer.

The worry with these children and their age group is as the running becomes excessively heavier through growing bigger and through losing running skill, injury prevails and worst still enjoyment is lost.  This then leads to another modern day dilemma where in today’s world stimulation can easily be found elsewhere, mainly in front of a screen in a virtual world, which will speed the process of losing more movement skill.

Coaching must be fun, reactive, stimulating on all levels and that lightness, agility and springiness in running skill must never be lost.  When you take a look at anyone of the elite athletes in any sport, the ones that stick in your mind.  These are the people who have not forgotten what they first learnt as children.  But more importantly we all have it and can easily tap into it at any age.

AN INTRO TO BPA 6 WEEK EBOOK MOVEMENT SKILL FOUNDATION COURSE

Movement skill is the instinctual drive we have to adapt to the environment we live in.  In our case, the homo sapiens, planet earth and the region we live in.  Inwardly what we do is instinctively build a relationship with gravity and utilise its force to adapt us to move.  Outwardly it is our relationships we depend upon.  What controls all these actions are our senses and millions of years of being that will us to evolve and prosper.

To survive we have adopted a lot of very unique strategies, like any other mammal, to progress our own evolution (Ontogeny).  I have recently learnt from Steve Biddulph (author of Raising Girls) that a female baby is much more focused on the parent’s movement especially their facial features as a nursing baby.  This develops their eye sight much quicker than a boy’s.  Developing an eyesight in turn develops the neck muscles which then develops the spine and nervous system, which then gets them to crawling and so on a lot sooner (a few months) before boys.  It is interesting that the importance of the female in reproduction is paramount and therefore it is in our species survival that in a girls early years their survival skills (being able to walk/run and overall senses) are more quickly adapted.  Frank Forencich (Exuberant Animal) applies a similar approach providing material on ‘building attachment/relationship’ being our foremost foundation skill.

Getting back to physical development, a lot of our natural adaptive skill to be agile and in tune with nature, is a world apart from us now in today’s modern world and we are evolving with less skill.  This present a problem to a body that is designed to be in tune with its environment and health is what is at risk.

By taping back into this instinctive subconscious awareness we have already in us, by focusing on skill development, is the truest way to gain sustainable results. 

For runners (athletic population) it is away to eliminate common injuries, really connect with something special in movement and enjoy being healthy in your goals because we were born to run.  This training we do at the Barefoot Performance Academy encompasses physical development.  (Biomechanical, Biochemical and Psychological development – Movement, Nutrition and subconscious confidence)

For the symptom based population (unhealthy) who have biomechanical issues, biochemical issues and psychological difficulties which have all added up and pushed them over the symptom threshold; movement skill is the first base of support.  Body language is everything.

About the author

Rollo Mahon has an academic background in Sports Therapy.  His academic journey has led him through various athlete performance accreditations where he has specialised in the science and biomechanics of barefoot running.  His search has been to find the solution to injury free biomechanics and therefore better performance, which has been cemented by the 

THE COMMON LUNGE RUN TRAINING MYTH

There is a common theme involved with running skill.  The further away you load from the line of action the increase in joint torque is associated with it, which is associated with decelerating (force muscles) playing a bigger part of the support.

Running skill is all about lessoning the joint torques as the myofascial tissue has to deal with more force directed from the increasing ground reaction and momentum forces as the speed increases.

As a performance coach you can utilise skills in lessoning joint torques or increasing them depending on the outcome you want to train.  Body building techniques has utilised this concept to benefit the over loading of tissue to break it down to gain hypotrophy gains.  By increasing the joint torque, more stress can be achieved to get a specific desired effect.

There is a reason you don’t get a lot of body builders playing sport.  However you do see a lot of body building techniques smothering athletic form in today’s professional sportsmen and training routines advertised.

The common lunge is such an exercise that I believe is one exercise that kills movement skill, although it is a premier exercise selection for pretty much every sport out there.

The common lunge is associated with huge joint torques, hence why it such a good burning (hard) exercise.

The common lunge below fuels so many bad habits.  Just a few for example

1.Aggressive heel strike

2.General centre of mass way behind front foot

3.Back foot learning excessive push off

4.The hip is in excessive rotation for mimicking real life game events

5.Quad dominance

6.Achilles not utilised as it should be

7.Ankle range of motion under utilised by heel lift in motion control shoes

8.Time on ground has no real correlation with the majority of sports movement

The common lunge is really training massive breaking forces associated in deceleration.

Only would you want to lunge like this in very specific circumstances, the main one being

that you are being pushed to your boundary by a more skilled opponent.

Tennis players are a good example of this, however surely your whole game plan is to stay

away from this through bettering your skill in your own movement patterns to get to the ball

(or target) in better form to action better skill (shot).  By mastering this skill to never allow your

opponent to get you in that position in the first place would be far superior, actually it would

produce the worlds greatest players.  Or vice versa to beat you opponent that is exactly

where you want to put them, in a bad position.

For further and more in depth reading on how the hamstring is effected by constantly training
the lunge go to The Number One Role of the Hamstring

Our advice at the Barefoot Performance Academy is learn how to evolve your single leg strength by keeping the general centre of mass over the ball of foot. 

This entry level single leg squat sequence allows the back leg to drive backwards to provide support.  Progression would see the back knee drop to the ground directly next to the support foot. (The arms are driving in the frontal plane in one and transverse in the other which is a technique to put more load through the hip).

The important thing to take from these photos is where theemphasis of the body weight is in

the front (support) leg. 

About the author

Rollo Mahon has an academic background in Sports Therapy.  His academic journey has led him through various athlete performance accreditations where he has specialised in the science and biomechanics of barefoot running.  His search has been to find the solution to injury free biomechanics and therefore better performance which has been cemented by the science of barefoot running.