TheBoltBlog

This video is beautiful; the human body moving as it should. A simplistic beauty, recognizable to all regardless of your knowledge of running mechanics, biomechanics, or physics.

Forefoot running is a more efficient, less destructive method of long distance running, that more importantly is how humans have probably always ran (and some still do today in Kenya where children grow up shoeless) prior to the development of the running shoe.

Heel strike running is lazy running. And like most other things in modern American society we always want a quick fix or the lazy way out (fast food, 8 min Abs, steriods, pre-cooked processed food, 99% of ‘diet’ products, get rich quick schemes, etc), so it only seems natural that the shoe industry would create shoes that would allow us to run lazily, skip the development of foot/lower leg musculature, flexibility, and stability, and provide you a super puffy, air-chambered heel for landing.

Problem is, this teaches us to run incorrectly, inefficiently, and is more destructive on our joints. Don’t believe me? Go try running heel to toe barefoot, or try jumping and landing on your heels….not a nice landing (even in your running shoes). Remember Newton’s third law of motion? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. By heel striking and landing forward of our center of mass we are creating a significant deceleration force with each foot strike. Not only is this slowing us down with every step we take, but every time we land on our heel and push into the ground, breaking our momentum the equal opposite force is transferred from our heel up to our ankle, knees, hips and low back.

For more info, Images and video courtesy of
www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu

Great work this week by everyone!   Stay consistent and continue to pursue virtuous movement and a mastery of the fundamentals and results will quickly follow.  We are starting to see dividends from all the hard work you ladies and fellas are investing at BOLT.   Notable achievements of the week

• Cassidy owned the barbell in the Games Open Workout #3 – 31 rounds in 5 minutes
• Hut decreased his time by 20% (8:29 to 6:46) while improving his mobility and range of motion on the re-test of his first CrossFit BOLT workout. (5 weeks after his initial test)
• All of you that faced the wrath of Karen this week and pushed through that mountain of Wall Balls.

Check out the video below.  Some days we come into the gym and crush it, other days we just don’t have it and we suck.  And its not just at the gym, sometimes we fall, fail, choke, mess up, what have you (I speak from personal experience); but that is life and that is who we are, no one is perfect.  When we own our failure and respond with dignity and vigor we empower ourselves and others.  Fall down, no more taking the time to dust yourself off, get up with a VENGEANCE and get back in the race!!

Would love to see what Olympian, Kendrick Farris aka The King of the Platform could do with this workout. This guy is most def BOLT watch how quick he gets around the bar. For those of you struggling with the conversion 211kg=465lbs and change