The first work of fiction from Phil Maffetone: Million Dollar Marathon. It’s a novella (aka short story) that is now available on Amazon Kindle. When Xi, a shepherd from one of the most remote parts of Tibet, flees across the Himalayas to India, he doesn’t know what awaits. But his very act of fleeing—alone and…
Category: Blog
Warm-up, Cool-down and Injury Treatment
By Dr. Steve Gangemi In the final part of SockDoc Stop Mindless Stretching series, we focus now on Stretching as Warm-Up and Injury Prevention. Stretching should not be the sole activity performed during a warm-up before or cool-down after your movement (or exercise) program. Should it be a part of your routine at all? Most of us…
Yoga Flexibility, Yoga Stretching, & Mobility
By Dr. Steve Gangemi Continuing our 4 part SockDoc Stop Mindless Stretching series, we focus now on Flexibility, Fascia, and Your Nervous System. Contrary to popular belief, yoga is not Sanskrit for stretching. It actually means to join or unite, and it is a combined spiritual, mental, and physical practice. Assuredly, most yoga poses do focus on flexibility…
Flexibility, Fascia, and Your Nervous System
By Dr. Steve Gangemi Continuing our 4 part SockDoc Stop Mindless Stretching series, we focus now on Flexibility, Fascia, and Your Nervous System. Flexibility might be the ability of a joint to bend through its full range of motion, but in actuality, it’s the reflection of your nervous system and not simply the more you can…
Top 5 gifts for endurance athletes
By Jay Dicharry Jinge bells are out, mistletoe is up, and you are freaking out because you missed out on useless sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday…..uh oh. What do you do now? How about dig deep, and find a present for your fellow endurance athlete that’s actually worth its weight. This week, I’ll…
Stop Mindless Stretching and Move With a Purpose:
By Dr. Steve Gangemi In this 4 part SockDoc series, you’ll learn the advantages of movement, the myths of flexibility, the confusion over stretching, and the perils of being misinformed about such a controversial topic. What truly makes you flexible? Should you ever stretch? PART I: Move With a Purpose: Stop Mindless Stretching – Stretching…
Wanted: American Marathoners to Compete with East Africans
By Dr. Philip Maffetone What will U.S. Olympic Marathon Team look like? We’ll know for sure in a few short weeks, but one thing for certain is America’s fastest marathoner Ryan Hall won’t be on this team. At 33, Hall, who ran 2:04:58 at Boston in 2011, announced his retirement recently, citing extreme fatigue and chronically low testosterone…
2015 Dietary Guidelines for America- Sailing for Safe Harbors or keeping course toward the Full Catastrophe
In my opinion and those of others who treat patients the new 2015 Dietary Guidelines for America (DGA) will not stall the Diabetes Epidemic and we continue Full Steam to the Full Catastrophe. But there are more runners now than ever before and exercise was going to fix all this stuff? You may not pay much…
Get moving for a better body and brain
By Dr. Phil Maffetone Most runners intuitively know movement is necessary for a healthy body — nearly as necessary as air. But did you know it’s important for developing and maintaining a healthy brain, too? That’s because attached to our wiggling toes, bending knees, rotating spine and all moving muscles are nerve endings sending up to…
How to Work on your Running Form
by Jae Gruenke, GCFP When a runner comes to me for help with their form, one of the questions I ask before looking at how they run is, “Is there anything you’re trying to do with your form when you run?” Honestly, even though as a running technique teacher I’m of course very vigorously in…
Put Your Right Foot Forward for 2016- 10 Simple Things
10 Simple Things for 2016 Happy New Year from the Natural Running Center. We hope you have achieved a goal and learned something new about how your mind and body works in 2015. Here are 10 simple and safe things to try in 2016 with the goal not to be more “fit” in the terms…
Take Off Your Shoes and Walk
In 1961 Simon J. Wikler, D.S.C. (Doctor of Surgical Chiropody) published Take Off Your Shoes and Walk, a successful attempt to explain how modern shoes gradually acquired the characteristics that now prevent the foot from functioning naturally. Despite the persuasiveness of his argument, he is realistic about the difficulty of convincing his opponents that being…
Low Carb Revolution Comes to West Virginia
Why were nearly 100 citizens including the wives of two NFL Hall of Famers gathered at Sam Michael’s Rec Center on a weeknight in October? Over 150 showed up at meeting #2 in November where we shared a low carb dinner at the Clarion. My friend Melanie Miller was igniting the social media world and…
The Running Trifecta
By Dr. Phil Maffetone Train better, race more and get faster — it’s all about energy, and it comes with a big bonus. Most competitive runners have at least three goals that include better training, more racing and getting faster. This trifecta may be the dream of most runners. But training harder and farther won’t…
And now, for your reading pleasure:
Shoes as they are usually worn, not only deform but interfere with the functions of the foot by restricting the movement of its many small joints. Their action is more or less that of a splint.
Getting Back to Basics
Runners who are attempting to remain healthy and run more efficiently should learn the basics of good running tedchnique.
Bill Katovsky 1957-2015 Long May You Run
We are deeply saddened at the recent passing of our friend and co-founder of the Natural Running Center Bill Katovsky. Yes, life can be short when you cannot get good help. Together with Minimalist Shoe aficionado and hi tech wizard Nicholas Pang we created the Natural Running Center site and FB pages http://naturalrunningcenter.com/ https://www.facebook.com/naturalrunningcenter Our…
Cushionism is a Faulty Belief System
by Jim Hixson and Bill Katovsky As most readers who are already familiar with the Natural Running Center know, we have run several articles critical of running with “more shoe,” which in recent years has meant maximalist or hyper-cushioned shoes. We certainly don’t profit from our stance, especially since it’s difficult to find other sites…
Cushionism: A Definition for Runners
by Bill Katovsky Cush·ion-ism ˈko͝o SHən izəm: Belief system by runners who prefer running in shoes with built-up footbed support, yet health claims and injury prevention remain unsupported due to the absence of scientific evidence. Cushionism first entered the vocabulary of runners in late 2010, when two Frenchmen, Nicolas Mermoud and Jean-Luc Diard, both…
No Pain, More Fun!
I like to share this letter/email I recently received from my friend Alex Speed.– Dr. Mark Thanks again for your visit here to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, and for the clear voice you have raised on training and footwear for so many years. In the spring of this year I did a…
Dietary Guidelines for America Under Review
Dear Medical Colleagues, The current version of the Dietary Guidelines for America now being proposed is being challenged in Congress. There is still much room for improvement to be consistent with the evidence and clinical experience. This is a call to action sparked by Nina Teicholz’s recent British Medical Journal Article “The scientific report guiding…
Shoe vs. Shoe: Minimalist and Conventional Running Shoes
You think the running shoe debate is over? That minimalist and barefoot running had its feet crushed by “fee-fi-fo-fum” footwear giants? Just wait, and the pendulum will some day swing back to less shoe. How long the wait? Five, ten years? Which isn’t that long considering that the modern running shoe is a half-century old….
Celebrating Small Business at Two Rivers Treads in Shepherdstown, WV
It’s with great honor to alert NRC readers that Two Rivers Treads has been selected as a top 100 small business by the Small Business Revolution (SBR), which is a year-long documentary project that showcases the stories of 100 small businesses across the country. Powered by the Deluxe Corporation of Minnesota, SBR tells 12 mini-documentaries…
Kids Don’t Need to Sit All Day in School: It’s Bad for Their Health
Bernadine Somers and Morgan Academy will be the first school of our region in West Virginia, maybe even the entire East Coast, to experiment with stand-up desks for kids. Most adults and children spend their days engaged in a damaging and unhealthful activity: sitting. Parking ourselves in chairs for long periods results in a chronic…
Run On Sentencing: New Column
by Bill Katovsky Thoughts on the Just-Completed World Track and Field Championships in Beijing…American track sprinters don’t just have a doping problem; they have a dropping problem. Well, the botched baton hand-off in the men’s 4×100 was actually due to illegal passing outside the restricted zone. But in years past, especially in the Olympics and…