Optimizing Running Mechanics And Endurance For Recreational Runners with Scott Kaylor || WBWL Ep 94

I just dropped a new episode here, and you won't want to miss this one! I had an awesome chat with Dr. Scott Kaylor, a sports-certified physical therapist who knows his stuff when it comes to running. 🏃‍♂️💥

In this episode, we cover: ✅ How to optimize your running mechanics ✅ Why strength training is a game-changer for injury prevention ✅ Tips to keep running fun and enjoyable, no matter your level!

Whether you're a seasoned pro or just thinking about lacing up your shoes, this episode is packed with insights to help you crush your running goals.

🎧 Check it out now and let’s elevate your running game together!

Scott Kaylor is a highly skilled Doctor of Physical Therapy and a board-certified Clinical Specialist in Sports Physical Therapy. Residency and fellowship-trained, Scott brings advanced expertise to his work, specializing in the treatment of endurance athletes and runners. A multi-time Ironman finisher himself, Scott combines personal experience with professional excellence to help athletes achieve their goals and recover stronger.

website: zonept.com
IG: @Zonephysicaltherapy
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@zonephysicaltherapy
Virtual consultations: https://calendly.com/christinawalshdpt

Transcript

0:02

All right, so welcome to the Won Body Won Life Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Jason Won, Lifestyle Physical Therapist. I'd love to talk to you today. Be insightful and provide you guys knowledge on how to optimize your health, optimize your fitness. And I also like to bring in amazing guests as well. And so what we have, what we have today is how to improve and optimize running mechanics and endurance for recreational runners. I have a very special guest. His name is Dr. Scott Kaler. He is a he has a sports certification. He also treats a ton of runners. Not just how to rehab from injuries, but also how to optimize their running for the long run. So I think we have very similar philosophies and that's why I only bring in people that are, I wouldn't say similar to me, but just have a similar philosophy, but Scott, how are you doing today? I'm doing great, Jason. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm looking forward to this conversation and just talking to all things running, cause I absolutely love it. Absolutely. Yeah. So I, I'm definitely a person that I, I do a good amount of strength training, but I still do some two to three weeks of recreational running. I've, you know, I've, I used to run a lot in high school and I know that you generally treat a lot of runners. So let's start off with this. Like why don't you first kind of just introduce yourself, get it, let us know a little bit about your background and like, you know, who you serve. Sure. Yeah. So, I've been a physical therapist for a little while now. So I'm in my 15th plus year of doing this residency trained. I've been a fellowship trained as well. So I've worked in college and professional sports and that just, it wasn't really the lifestyle my wife and I wanted. And so we started a practice here in the upstate of South Carolina. Where we get to serve my fellow endurance athletes. And so one of my goals was to create the best running lab in South Carolina. And I think we've done a really good job of pursuing that and getting that going. And so my background, I ran a track in high school, played all the other sports as well. And that just catapulted me into wanting to run. So ran recreationally through college and then in grad school, got into triathlon. And so for me, I've just been pursuing all, all things endurance over the last 15 plus years. And so we've done Ironman, I've done 50 mile trail runs, you name it. I usually will want to try it. Perfect. That sounds amazing. And I feel like you have a lot to bring to the table. And so over the next 25, 30 minutes, I hope that you guys can definitely tune in, especially if you're somebody that is thinking about running, like pondering running as like a good mode of. exercise or cardiovascular activity or whether you're overcoming an injury. I think you guys would be very excited to hear some of the things that we have to say today. So let's start off with something, a more generalized question. Is running a good form of exercise in general. And if so, why is that? Yeah, I think it's a great form of exercise. I think it checks a lot of boxes. So when we are building our cardiovascular system, that is one of the primary ways that we can live a long and healthy lifestyle. So when we can. promote a cardiovascular system with healthy cells and we can take in oxygen and utilize that oxygen to help provide energy and burn fat. All that stuff is amazing. I really think it's a good exercise because that's how I get a lot of my community. So I think there's a big mental health aspect to it. So whether I'm out running with my friends, Or I want to go solo. I think that's helpful as well, just to clear my mind and just try to be present with the run that I'm doing. I don't listen to any music or podcasts while I'm running. I just try to be in the moment of what I'm doing. So running just checks a whole lot of boxes. And I think that we're. Designed to run. And so it can be a good way to, to get out and strengthen and build a cardiovascular system. Yeah. The runner's eye is real. I definitely do a mixture of both. So sometimes if I just need to clear my mind, it is one of the absolute best things to mentally, you know, like if I need, honestly, I wouldn't say that like, you know, when it comes like kid stress, like, you know, we were kind of lacking sleep and like the kids are going through their own phases. I have like really young kids. It's amazing. Just like get outside my house in Daly city, the weather's relatively cold. It's not super hot. So I can just run for days and just clear my mind. There are times where I want to kill two birds with one stone and listen to a podcast at the same time. So whatever kind of like check the boxes for you and how you want to use running. But I, I strongly agree. If you have the capacity to run, you should run. You know, disuse, right? If you stop running, you will lose the ability to sprint, to run, then walking becomes harder for you. So overall cardiovascularly, that's a clear indicator and correlation with longevity. But also just mental and physical health and like putting the right stresses through the skeleton to. Keep your hips, knees, and health and ankles healthy, if you will. That's right. And I don't know, we'll get into it more on the injury side, but I just think like through the lifespan. And we'll talk about strategies to do this, but being able to move quickly is really important as we age so that we can age well. And so, you know, a lot of my clients that want to get into running, haven't had to run since they were in high school and how it's been 20 or 30 years. And, you know, one of the, Things that can lead to falls is just not being able to move your legs fast. Yes. And so if we can help people kind of sprint through the lifespan, and that doesn't necessarily mean a hundred percent effort, but you know, 70, 80 percent effort, as long as we've built up to it, I think that's a fantastic forum through the whole, whole lifespan. Yeah, there, there are some stats I don't kind of want to throw out just so I, I smell and smart. Cause I know that you're going to deliver a whole lot of value, but I heard, I heard, I heard that the grapevine, this is not by research, but like, I think people were the age of 35, like 90 percent of them stopped sprinting, something like that. And then I know for sure there is a stat that says like it, the average time to cross the street is like 2. 2 miles per hour. So like, that's. That's why they actually time out the, the green light so that you have enough time to get across the street. But if you walk slower than 2. 2 miles an hour, meaning that you become slower, less balanced overall you increase the chances of falling and fracturing your hip by four folds. So, anybody that's considering like, okay, well running is at least, Four miles an hour on a, on a, on a, at least an average jog, you should continue to run as long as you can, because otherwise you are going to slow down. You're going to increase your likelihood for falls. And then generally quality of life goes down from there. Yeah, that's, that's one of the things that we measure in our lab. We have some walking software that, that we'll do with folks to be able to look at their. Gatesby and their mechanics, but yeah, 2. 2 is even on the slow side for walking. No, I agree with that. Yeah. Especially if it's like a lot, especially if it's like a Las Vegas block or something, those walks are ridiculous, right? That's for sure. Yeah. Well, let's talk about this. Cause I was going to segment into this. Obviously we, we now know, and we conclude that running is in a great form of exercise for most people. However, there are a lot of people that make training errors. Some people don't know the right running mechanics. They don't have the right running shoes. They have no running experience. So why is it often, why is sometimes it's running is often deemed like bad for your knees and hips. What would you say to like, you know, other possibly like doctors and other people that say like running is bad for your hips, running is bad for your knees. And what would you say about that? How would you go about that? Yeah, so thankfully in my area, I get invited to speak to community events and doctorate groups pretty regularly, and so I get to share this message. The short answer is I don't know where that came from, other than there is There, there's a high number of injuries in runners, but we'll, we'll talk about why I think that's the case, but inherently running is not bad for you. When we look in the literature, we actually see that runners have a lower incidence of arthritis compared to non runners when they do imaging Or of marathoners after an event, they'll take, they'll put the runners through the MRI tube and look at their cartilage thickness before and after the run. And we actually see their cartilage thickness increases after they do a marathon. Right. And so. When we do movement, we have, you know, those little cells inside of our cartilage, their job is to just absorb and soak in nutrients. So when we are moving and running, we are helping to move healthy fluid through our cartilage. So. There, I think there is a bell curve and the data is pretty clear on some correlative data to say, if you're going over 70 miles a week, which is incredibly high volume, it's, it's really hard to get 70 miles a week, unless you're a professional or you're a high level, like college runner those folks, you will actually see some like arthritic changes if they do that through the course of their life. But I mean, under 70 miles a week, I've done multiple Ironman, multiple 50k, 50 mile type races, and I've, I've never gone over 70 miles in a week, except for a competition week, if so in general. Running actually shows to be a healthy choice for our joints on well, and we'll talk about some of the things to help supplement that so that it goes really well for us. But I think where it gets deemed as an unsafe exercise is just because we do see so many injuries. And I think most of that's due to training error rather than actually the activity itself. I totally agree with you. I was going to say that when I got my like running certification and I don't treat half as many runners as you, but I've always, you know, you kind of just always, always see it as like when you have like a running injury, it's generally not, I mean like, yeah, granted, if you step on a rock and sprain your ankle, that's just by pure luck, but 90 percent of the time, it's just purely an over training error. You, you change out your shoes too fast to like a more minimalistic shoe. And then all of a sudden your feet start to hurt. or you increase the mileage or you try a terrain that your body is not accustomed to, and therefore that's when the injuries occur. I mean, if you can learn how to just train around pain. Provide the right strength exercises to supplement, you know, a proper running program. There's no doubt that like running is actually a very beneficial exercise for the aforementioned things that you said, but it just has to be done in the right way in a calculated manner. Yeah. Just reading a book by Jay Johnson, who's one of the elite high school coaches in the country and has a, he had a pretty good college career at the university of Colorado. And in his book, where he's addressing parents and high school runners, he just talks about like, there's zero reason why a high school runner should ever get hurt. Unless it's like what you were talking about, like where they tripped on a rock on a training run in physics, just one, but we, we really shouldn't see. Overuse injuries. If you're a pro or an Olympian in that vein, you probably will see some overuse stuff just because you're walking that tightrope of trying to push for max performance. But outside of that, I'm, I don't think that we really should have injuries for the most part with, with running, you might get to make some pains here and there, but we'll talk about how to minimize the risk of those as well. Absolutely. So let's talk about that. Like, let's talk about injured runners, right? We're talking about recreational runners, not high level elite people, but People that just want to run recreationally or pondering, you know, using running as a means of good cardiovascular activity. So why do you, why do some runners get injured specifically when they start a running program and what factors are kind of at play and what do you see in your clinic? Yeah. So when we, we take a really detailed history for folks that come in and their past injury history, and we want to know a lot about their training, like where they come from, what have they been doing and. And almost inevitably when someone is coming in with a running related injury, it's Hey, I got the running bug, whether it's someone bought me a new pair of shoes or my friend was running and they almost always just do too much too soon, too fast. And so we really try to advise our runners, especially newbies, really all runners, if they're coming off an injury, but anyone that's new to the sport. I always say let's do do less than you think that you should, and you should finish every run going. I could have gone farther and I could have gone harder. And so we really want to spend a good amount of time, whether that's 6 or 8 weeks, sometimes more, sometimes a little less, just trying to build time on your feet. So we're not really worried about speed. Initially, we just want to gradually build it up. I'm a huge fan of a walk, walk, run or run, walk progressions. So if someone's brand new to the sport, Hey, Jason, why don't we have you run for two minutes? You're going to walk for one minute and I want you to repeat that six or seven times. You're going to end up getting about 20 to, you know, 20 something minutes, depending how many reps we do. And we're, we're just really big on saying, just listen to your body. If something doesn't feel right, just acknowledge it. And we don't, we, if we assign seven rounds and you get five, That's awesome. That's five more rounds of running than you had before you started the day. And so we just, we really like slow, slow and smooth. And, and we use the cheap, the analogy, it should be like an airplane taking off, not a helicopter. You know, if you're trying to do like a couch to 5k programming, probably get away with it. If you're trying to do a couch to marathon program, I can almost guarantee it's not going to go well for you. But. Yeah. So if, if, if running a marathon, something that you really want to do. I would really recommend getting, you know, a year or two of running underneath your belt before you just go and tackle it, because we always say running is supposed to be fun. It shouldn't be a grind. I mean, there's some, I mean, there should be some points where you're working through some new barriers and boundaries and finding your new. end of your comfort zone. But for the most part, running should be enjoyable and, and most of it should be pretty easy as well. You should be able to have a conversation while you're running with someone for most of it. I really liked the, so no pun intended, but I liked the airplane. Like you have a runway analogy. That's the right way. You have a runway versus just. Going from a helicopter and trying to go from like zero on the ground. So like just straight up to the atmosphere. It's such a good analogy. I really love that. And I also really incorporate a lot of the run walk intervals, whether it's a beginner runner or somebody returning from injury. It's just honestly, it's the safest way to go. Something that I really like to incorporate in my clients is like. Okay. It's like, well, strength training, right? Strength training in general is like more metabolically taxing per unit of time. So you wouldn't just get a barbell squat and be like, I'm going to do this for six minutes straight, right? Or like eight minutes straight. You wouldn't do that. Like your body actually physically tells you take the rest period and actually do that. And it's the same thing goes for these, for anybody that's considering running, like We don't perceive it as like, sometimes we have to find that balance between cardiovascular capacity versus like actual muscular capacity and joint capacity. Some people might have the cardio, but their joints can't tolerate it yet. So I love that. Like, obviously have a conversation cardiovascularly. It might be, it might be taxing to you, but you're still getting your joints and muscles. Yeah, I mean, just the, the loading of running, most of it is what we would call eccentric loading. So that's the muscle is under load while it's lengthening which is a pretty big force, right? So when we run, it's, you know, six to eight times our body weight going through the ground through our tendons. And so we need to have that muscular capacity to be able to tolerate that. And in addition to that eccentric loading, what we're really trying to do is to train our tendons to be elastic. And so if we can capitalize on these awesome springs that God gave us for, for Achilles tendons and our glutes and all of these other big, long tendinous structures that we have in our body. When we build up that system and we can run with good form, essentially, we're just trying to harness elastic energy and then release it so that we can move in a forward direction. And so that comes with strength training and we'll get into some plyometric stuff as well and what that means. But yeah, you know, for me, even like to go back to your question on, on getting someone into running and building them up. I'll, I'll have them do that walk or that run walk and then say, Hey, why don't we, I'd rather you cut your run five to 10 minutes short and then go straight into some strength work. Even if it's just body weight work, because that can almost be like supplemental miles without doing the strain of the repetitive movement. And so we can do some different strength and mobility circuits within that. session without adding a lot of extra time to their day. So that might be step ups on a curb or core work on a yoga mat next to the car, if they're at the park all kinds of different ways that you can supplement building that muscular capacity so that running can go well for you. Yeah. Do you, do you feel, I mean, this is actually, everyone has different trends of thought. I've always been somebody that says like, well, if you want to be a good runner, you also want to incorporate some strength training on the background in a closed environment. So one to two days of strength training and specifically working on triple extensions, step ups, deadlift squats, certain mechanics around there. Do you agree with that? Like every good runner should have a strength training in the background. It is the lowest hanging fruit that we joke about in our clinic all the time. Like if a runner comes in and they tell me, Hey, I want to run a great 5k or I want to run a great marathon. We will ask them about their strength training work because if they're not doing that, they are leaving performance on the table every time. I don't care how strong your running program is. If you're not. Incorporate industry training, you're leaving performance on the table and I wish I could remember the references off the top of my head, like, some of my colleagues that can just like spit out medical journals. But there was an article about 10 years ago. When I find it, I'll send it to you because you'll love it. It's a group of runners like me that we, we like to run. We're pretty like, we're fairly competitive for our age group, but no one's paying us to run. Right. Like we run regularly. But we, we really enjoy it. And so they took a team of like 20 and 30 somethings. And they said, Hey, half of you guys, you're just going to do your normal training. You're going to just run, do what coach has for you for the other half. The only thing that we're going to do is barbell back squats twice a week, four sets of four. Like the most basic, simple strength training exercise, they tested them on, I think it was either a two mile or a 5k time trial before they started the study. And then after six or eight weeks, they retested them. And so they, both groups are following the exact same running program, but the groups that only did 32 squats a week, significantly improved their time and their running economy. Like every measure that they tracked, they improved in. Like that's the world's most basic strength training program and got a benefit. So yes, I completely agree that the strength training is a must for any runner. That's crazy. I, I actually, I was trying to like, while you were saying, I was like, I kind of know the result, but then you said four, just four reps, like four by four, four by four, like 32 reps roughly per week. That, that's insane. I think anybody that's listening right now. Yeah. If you're somebody that like, you love the runner's high, you love to run, but maybe you're consistently getting injured. I mean, yeah, you're, you're literally 32 reps and it's not even like a custom program. It's not like it involves like a ton of coronal plane work and sagittal plane work. It's like your basic squat. I find that insane and I'm, I'm, I'm glad I'm doing barbell squats, right? But yeah, it's crazy. So, so in regards to going into the strength training, like. If you were to program something for A recreational runner. What are some of those like go to exercises that you generally go for, for runners? Yeah. So if someone's new, just like new to fitness in general, we just want to try to keep it as simple and basic as possible. It's doable. So we want to get buy in from them. So, We might go, is there a type of exercise that you enjoy doing the most? And we're going to probably tailor it around, not probably, we'll tailor it around that. Yeah, but we, I love kind of programming it thinking we're going to warm up. We're going to do some kind of compound movement, meaning that we're going to move multiple joints at the same time. So that example would be like a squat or a step up. And so for running, I, I like doing split stance kind of work. So lunges and step ups, I think are a great place to be certainly squats. I mean, my favorite exercise is a hex bar deadlift. I love it. It's my, it's my favorite thing. And when I'm consistent with those, my running just feels good because I'm getting that triple extension. Like you're talking about, I'm working my My backside and so if I were to program someone, I would probably say we're going to warm up five to 10 minutes. We're going to do some supplemental kind of work. If they haven't, if they're, if they're brand new, I'm not, I'm not going to introduce plyometrics yet. So we'll go right into it. Compound exercise, probably just pick one and we'll do a one or two ramp sets at a comfortable weight for them. So then they can work into their working sets where it's going to be a little bit heavier. And if they're brand new at it, I'm going to say we're going to do somewhere between one and three sets. And I want you to do eight to 12 repetitions. Let's just get comfortable with the movement. You should be able to at least get eight. If you get to 12 and you're like, ah, I could probably do like five to 10 more. It wasn't heavy enough. If you're struggling to get to eight, it was probably too much. And so we'll adjust the weight. Yeah, and then from there we'll do some supplemental work to work different planes like you were talking about so I might Do like a side step up or I might do a lateral lunge. Yeah and then I might pick one Maybe two supplemental exercises. So like some hamstrings or a calf raise and then I'll probably go pick A core exercise that kind of checks some of those boxes as well. So I might do a modified side plank for them, plus or minus where they lift their top leg with it. And that should take 15 to 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes if they're getting into it and the weight's heavy enough, they're having to rest a little bit. Yeah, that all sounds solid. I mean, I think I'm in agreement with every single one of those triplanar stability, eventually starting people off on like the most basic squat, but then transitioning to more single leg work, considering that There's a lot of single leg movement and running, right? That's right. People don't realize it is a single leg sport in itself. And the, I think one of the best bang for your buck exercises that I probably never leave off the table. And it's like the simplest thing you've probably done in PE class. It's just like calf raises, right? Cause your calves and your foot complex is like the first thing to hit the floor. So if you're absorbing shock eccentrically very well through your calves, then it diminishes the stresses to the knee, the hip. The entire skeleton, the whole pelvis. And I know a lot of people get chronic back pain as a result of that. So cab raises, super simple. Anybody like even at the age of almost 80, 90 can still do that, but just if you have to do so progressive with obviously like barbells and yeah, and anybody that's, that's new to running or new to strength training, you know, a good goal for a runner is they should be able to do single. 25 single leg calf raises. And when we say that, I mean, I really want people to feel all five toes on the ground. So you'll see someone that is either weak in one part of their calf, or just not, doesn't have a good strong foot. Their foot will start to roll to the outside towards that pinky toe. So we'll really encourage clients to keep their big toe down. You should feel like you're pushing up through the ball of your big toe. And so we'll, we'll play around with that and have them do those for, for their calf raises. And we might start with 12 reps or whatever the case may be. But the goal is you should get, 25 consecutively at a nice smooth tempo. And we're not, not using that elastic component of the Achilles. Yeah. And so, yeah, there's, there's all kinds of tests that you can do for that, but setting a metronome for 60 beats a minute and trying to get 30 reps in is a great test. Nice. I think that segments me to potentially the next question. And I think we might get a little bit more granular and focused with like optimal running mechanics, but yeah, let's talk about like potentially if you were to have somebody like on video, right? Like I actually do a good amount of run analysis. Sorry. Track people from like the front view, back view, side view. Things that I kind of look for are like cadence, foot strike, over striding, all that. So even shoe wear as well. So let's talk about that. Like what is kind of like optimal cadence, foot strike? Is there optimal cadence, foot strike? I'm sure there's some debate amongst. Running clinics and instructors. So yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah. And I love to hear that you're using video because once someone can see how they look, then they can internalize that and go, Oh, okay, I see what you're telling me. And so in our lab where we're fortunate, we use 3d gate analysis. So we've got the 3d markers on our runners and we're watching them. I use another. Product called the run easy so we can do some work outside of the lab as well because it's some some metrics but yeah I think the cadence is one of the best places to start so we can get as granular in our lab as we want down to Single joint angles. Yeah, but most of the data actually shows us that Looking at just one joint angle probably doesn't matter that much but our three things that we can look at are cadence. Are we looking at our vertical oscillation? So like how much is that runner going up and down? And then in our lab, we can measure vertical leg stiffness. And so just how well are we using those elastic levers? And so when we're looking. Either 2d or like you're able to do with your video analysis or 3d. I think the joint angles matter when we're starting to look left and right. Are we noticing some asymmetries because of injury history or whatever? But cadence is a, is a fun one because. You know, for whatever reason, I don't know if it was an article in runner's world or where it came from, but there's this like myth that myth that 180 steps per minute is the perfect running cadence. And we should all be at 180. And I don't know. I don't know how tall you are, but we laugh in my clinic all the time because I'm 6 1 and I'm mostly legs with a really short torso. And my, my other running PT in the clinic is like five foot three and ran collegiately. And I was like, there's zero chance you and I are going to have the same cadence. And I've worked really hard to boost my cadence. So kind of going on a tangent. So let me answer it first. There is no magic number. Yep. Anything below 165 steps per minute is considered a low cadence. And so if someone's below that, we probably are going to try to encourage them to get above that number because you're going to start having a much more improved running economy. If we go back to that example, like my, my teammate who runs at 180 steps per minute, because she's the perfect build for that. If I try to be at one 80, I'm just going to be burning so much energy. Like I can't do that unless I'm sprinting. Or if I'm doing like 400 repeats, my cadence, I start to sneak up closer to that, but if I'm just going out for a long run. I can tell now I've been doing it long enough. If I start dipping below 162, 164, I just feel a little more achy. And so then I know like, okay, I got to make sure my form is on point. And so posture becomes a big deal. So I think. For any runner that comes in, we are looking at their cadence and we're going, is there an opportunity to help this runner be more efficient and utilize those elastic springs and their tendons? So that's, that's a big one that, that we'll look at. And then shoes, I think matter a lot. And so we can look on the video and, and see, does the shoe match with this person? So, you know, I, I've had runners that have, you know, really rigid feet come in and they have a stability shoe on. And so they already have a rigid foot. Now they've got a rigid shoe and they wonder why their IT band hurts. And you're like, man, you just. You aren't utilizing any kind of natural or shoe shock absorption. And so that, that'd be an example. But we'll look, we'll film them in different pairs of shoes and whatever they feel best and look best in is usually the right pair for them. I don't know how much you want to dive in into shoes. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm, I'm big on this. I actually, I wrote my own like really short running ebook when I did a bunch of running seminars in the San Francisco area. So like this, this tickles my fancy in every way. I think that every single thing that you said, as far as like. The three primary things you see is exactly what I look at. And I, I look at sometimes things as like rocks, pebbles, and sand, because like when you're doing a run analysis, what are the biggest rocks that you actually have to solve now? If you want to get a little more granular and try to like get like the exact like The exact like hip symmetry and like exact angles you can, but telling somebody that change your angle of their shin from like seven to 15 or 15. It doesn't matter as much as actually optimizing their cadence, which is like the bigger rock, which automatically fixes like an over strider, getting their shins to be more vertical upon. Foot strike and then also like once you increase the cadence, they're going to have less of that vertical translation anyways. Right. I kind of say, I say the ponytail sign with the females, like, you know, really jumping up and down that point feels like really going up, but you fix cadence and you fix certain things around like shoe wear. Then a lot of that starts to unfold and you don't really have to fix some of the more granular. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, when we're in the lab, if, if we gave someone a cue, whether it was cadence or, you know, we'll, we can film them and we have a big TV monitor in front of them. We don't have the mirror, but they can see what their run looks like. And so we can tell them to change the shape, like, of the teardrop of their foot. The. The software draws the lines for them. So we can play around with it, or I can have the iPad up and tell them to make that, make it look more symmetrical side to side. And if they're struggling with that, normally what that tells us is that there's a motor control issue or a strength issue. And so that's somebody, the training's probably going to take a little bit longer and they have some, just. Some work to do on the strength side. So they need to be in the gym, working on glute strength, hamstring strength, calf strength, whatever it may be. If it's somebody that I can give them that cue and they can change it. It was more of just They have the foundation probably in a pretty good spot and now we can we can tweak in more real time For them, so it just kind of lets us know what what are our biggest? Things that we need to go after so if someone can make a change in session and they feel better in that form Change sticks, like, okay, they, that's what we need to spend our time on is running drills and doing some of this form stuff. If they're really not getting it to stick, Hey, we need to spend a little more time building up your base in the gym and building a foundation so that then we can address these, the running mechanic side. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when it comes down to like the people that you can, you can kind of tell like when they get them on a treadmill, Yeah. That and they, they can tell you by the subjective that like, okay, I haven't really done much strength. And you see like huge Trendelenburg issues. You see like they're a huge overstriker, their hip flexors and everything can't even keep up with the, with the, with the belt itself. So they're running at, you're telling them to run at one, one 70 cadence. And they're like, I still can't keep up. Right. So they can't keep up with like the bare minimum. So I definitely would say that strength training, obviously, like I to reiterate. The simplest thing you can do a squat and transition to single leg activity. But I think other levers to pull besides volume and intensity is also speed, right? So at some point you can get them into more speed work. You can get them into high knees at a quick level, but then also transition to plyo because plyo is going to. So there I might, I might've cut out for a bit, but when it comes to the shoe wear and I do want to talk about that too, the thing that I've done, and I don't know if you kind of like have seen this before, but I've kind of been trained to be like, Hey, like I see somebody running with a specific shoe and then just for the kick of it, I'll be like, Hey, why don't we see how you run without shoots? Like just get on the treadmill, run barefoot for 15 to 20 seconds. I'll obviously get it. A good, good understanding of like their baseline to not hurt them for like, but it's just 15 to 20 seconds just to make them aware of like what they feel like striking the floor without shoes. I'm curious what your thoughts on that and like, whether that's. You know, whether it's optimal, whether you can kind of see like significant changes that as a result of having that one little 15 to 20 second sprints of barefoot running. Yeah. I think when you can have someone experience that running without a shoe on, it is really, it's really powerful, especially for our either slower cadence folks, or folks that are over striding and their foot's landing way out in front of their body. That's what we mean when we say over striding. It's really, it's fascinating. So Irene Davis, who's the head of the Spalding Running Institute up in Boston did a lecture and she showed some native runners who typically run barefoot over dirt and rocks and just like all the stuff. And I'm not, I'm not saying I'm advocating for that for American runners that are in shoes most of the time yet, but she videoed them and saw where their foot landed under night underneath them in a perfect position. And then she had to put socks on, so like, not even a big Shoe with a big stack on it, just a sock. So anything on the bottom of our foot will, we will automatically start to stride out in front of our center of mass a little bit, isn't that crazy? So like as little, as little as a sock. So then you start putting a standard running shoe on there that has a high stack and you can just imagine, like we start running with our foot landing way out in front of us and it's, it's a little bit counterproductive because we think Well, now we have this big cushion on our shoe. And so, well, of course, I'm gonna get good shock absorption. But when we look in the research, we actually are getting greater ground reaction forces and greater joint reaction forces because when that squishy shoe is hitting the ground, Our brain is getting an imperfect input. And so it's kind of like when you walk on ice, your muscles just want to tense up. And so that same thing can happen with, with our shoe, if it's too squishy and we're not landing with our foot underneath us. And so I think it's fascinating that. Letting someone run without their shoe on now, they can start to feel what it's like to let their natural springs and levers do the work. And so, yeah, we use it all the time just to help them feel what it's like to get a little bit better forward lean, let them feel their foot land underneath them. Yeah. So. So, yeah, I, I agree completely. And we might do some drills that way for anyone that hears this, like, if you're considering doing any kind of barefoot training, be extremely slow with it, when born to run came out in 2010 or whenever that was, I got way, way into it with the barefoot shoes and like ramped my mileage up real fast and I should know better because it's what I do for a living and my foot, foot and Achilles just, you know, it's. I hated it. It took me a long time to, to overcome that. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, I, I, I love that if people can incorporate a little bit more barefoot training, I mean, it's going to strengthen the intrinsic muscles of your foot. But I do agree that like, again, we're talking about too much, too soon. These people are like, Oh my God, these devos and these zeros, you know, it's the fad and all of a sudden they go from like a Hoka, you know, or, or something that's like super supportive and doing that a hundred percent to zero, it's like, it's not going to work in your favor. So my general rule of thumb could be like, I actually have like a website that has like a shoe database of like how minimalistic it is based on The weight, the capacity, they they healed a toe drop, for example. And usually I recommend like a 10 to 20 percent increase in minimalistic percentage over like every single month. And for some it's even slower, just depending on like where the baseline strength and mobility is. Yeah. I, I think, you know, you can get really good shoes in some cases. Patients might even need an orthotic. I'm kind of rare, but we do do some of those, but I always say it doesn't matter what any of those things are. We, we need to work on the machine that we're putting inside of the shoe called our foot. And so, typically, before we even change shoes, if the shoe looks okay for them, and they like it. Let's do some footwork and then start making some of those changes. Like you're talking about of, then we can go from a 10 mil heel to toe drop. Let's try, let's find a six to seven. And then if we need to go down to like a four, we can. And, you know, for instance, like I run in the ultra forward, if I'm running on the road, I just, I can't run in a zero drop. I've tried to do all the footwork. I'm a great patient. I try real hard. And my, my Achilles just. Doesn't like it. And I've been at it for, you know, 15 years of running and, and I, I do my footwork and four mils about where I feel really good from trail running. I can do well in a zero drop, but on the road, I just, I'm at four, but you know, I started back in a Brooks launch way back when it was probably like a nine to 11, depending on which model it was at the time. And so I've worked my way down to a four. And that's probably just where I'm going to be forever. Hey so I mean in regards to I think we cut out for a bit, but with regards to the minimalistic where it's something that people can strive towards for sure, is it right for everyone? I think that, sure. I mean, you can always talk about optimizing certain ones, running mechanics. I think they used to say like Usain Bolt had like the worst, like start off the, off the line. But if you're talking about, you know, wanting to optimize, like, whether it's like, it's, it's something that's out of the norm. I mean, would, I don't, when, when it comes to that, like Usain Bolt, for example, would you want to opt, would you want to try to optimize the running mechanics or changes running mechanics, especially when it's like, when it's, When he's one of the fastest runners in the world, there, there is some sort of I guess, intricacies with that. Right. You know, cause some people that live in a certain area they've learned to adapt to a certain type of running stance and by no means does everybody have to transition to like minimalistic wear, but it's always good to have, To try what's going to be the right shoe for you based on your goals, your needs, your preferences, the type of mileage that you're going to run. And so, yeah, I, I currently, I can run roughly three to four miles and like bare minimalistic shoes. But you know, after a certain point You know, I started to develop the same type of issues in my Achilles as well. Yeah. Yeah. I think for anyone that's listening, if you're been injury free, if you're running career, don't make any big changes. If you have, if you have an event coming up, don't make any big changes. These are your changes to either do coming off of an injury or you're in the off season, or you might be thinking about. Some changes based off of past performances in the previous season. So we want to be very strategic while we're making changes to somebody. And that's where someone like Jason or myself can come in and help you decide on, on what that needs to look like and how we can sprinkle some different types of exercises into your training regimen as well. And we just want to make sure that we're doing it. Intelligently. Yeah, for sure. Well anyways, yeah, I mean, I feel like we covered a lot of ground and obviously for anybody like this is catered to those recreational runners, but also, I mean, even if you're a very experienced runner is you can get a lot of value from like understanding the little nitty gritty details of like biomechanics and cadence, the foot strike, pulling certain levers around strength training. But I guess. Couple side questions here. It's like, what are your thoughts on, for example, like zone two cardio, you know, versus sprint training, what is most optimal for even just cardiovascular capacity? What are your, kind of your thoughts on that? Yeah. So I think build like zone two has been shown to be. Excellent for developing our mitochondrial health. And it's a great way to help build our cardiovascular capacity. I think it is a way that we can train and train longer and build up a more robust base because we don't want a base. We don't want too big of a percentage of our runs to be coming from only high intensity. So it helps to buffer against our harder workouts. So I think it's important to have those in there. But when we do those high intensity workouts, whether it's running at a race pace or doing track intervals, It is a good way to boost your VO2 max so it can kind of superimpose on that base training that you're doing to help push you into a new stratosphere for training. So I think both are important, but I think having a really systematic approach to throwing those workouts into your week or your month or training block is, is, is critical. And so you want to make sure you have plenty of time to recover after a really hard workout. So if you're hurt. Doing those zone four or five workouts where you're going towards that max effort that you can sustain for a short amount of time. You really need a week to 10 days to recover before you do that again. If you're doing them within a week of each other, you probably need an off week of that. So then you can jump back into it again. So there's only so much capacity to work at your upper end register. So that I love training that hard intensity stuff. I was doing 400 repeats this morning on the track. I think it's important to be able to do, but we always say that if you can hang out in your zone to, to build a big base to work from, you're going to really buffer against that risk of injury and fatigue and just overall burnout. Yeah. And like we said, it's the. The vast majority of people that are getting hurt nowadays with running and then that they have this negative perception of what running is, is those people that again, do too much too soon. So you don't go from. Zero or like even just like a low level running, like you just jog in and you decide to do hill repeats or like sprints. It's just not the smartest thing to do. And then again, finding optimal shoe where indoctrinating some form of strength training on the backend so that you can continue to have those runner high and be a good recreational runner throughout the year. The decades of your life. I think all of those are super important to think about. Yeah. And just one other rule that I would throw in there for people listening is you don't want your long run to be more than 50 percent of your weekly volume. So that, that can be a, where a lot of folks can get in trouble as the week got crazy for them and maybe they missed a run or they cut another run short. They had that long run on the schedule for Saturday or Sunday, and they still go forward with it at that planned distance or time. And so just be careful if your long run is starting to make up more than the majority of your, your weekly mileage. Yeah, that's a great point. I actually didn't know about that. And I, I think I might steal that from you. That's okay with you. So, yeah, please do. I'm sure I didn't come up with it. Yeah. Well, I mean, generally Scott, like I, I definitely appreciate your time. You've amongst various podcasts that people that I've interviewed I know that you've clearly have some of the most advanced knowledge from a running perspective, and I'd love to continue these conversations with you and keep in touch to continue to help people educate the masses. I, you know, I, I take on a certain percentage of runners. I obviously treat. I treat a little bit more like larger spectrum of people from nine year old kids to, you know, 80 year old lacrosse players. But, you know, I get my small percentage of runners and I still do run analysis. So it's just great to speak to somebody that you, that like you have like a specific, like audience and clients that you specifically serve. And like, I can tell that you definitely know. A time. And so like for those that, I mean, two questions, one is like, is there anything else that you think the recreational runner should know and like to, to kind of lead them off and where can people find you specifically? Yeah. So I always, anytime I get invited to be in these four formats, I would say running supposed to be fun. So for the recreational runner, make sure you're keeping it fun because it's supposed to be part of our recreation. And, and just take it slow. It's a process, you know, if you used to run an 18 minute 5k in high school and don't let that be your expectation 20 years later, if you haven't run, like just, you Be okay with the journey because it's just part of the process and it's a whole lot of fun and don't rush it. And then, as far as finding us, we're at Zone Physical Therapy, so it's zonept. com, we're on Instagram, YouTube Facebook, all of the, all of the platforms. We, we try to post a ton of running content, you'll see it on there. We do virtual consults similar to how you do as well, so if anyone has any running related questions, we, we can train you no matter where, where you live. Well, I definitely will post all of that into the description. So definitely give Scott Koehler and his team a follow. And then if you are interested in any virtual consultations, I think that if you are somebody, again, you're a couch to 5k guy, you never ran in your life or whether you consistently keep hitting the, the injury bug, right? Cause too much, too soon. And you want somebody that's going to optimize. Your running mechanics will also give you the right strength and the right guidelines. I think there's not a lot of people better than Scott to to handle this situation. So, but that means it says, God thanks so much for your time. I'll post all of that into the description and that's it for the one by one live podcast. So if you have any questions for us, or if you'd like. The content that we're putting out, definitely give us a five star review and also leave you know, any feedback for us. We'd love to learn more about what you guys want to hear on this podcast. And I guess I'll leave you guys with always the message I always do, which is we only have one body, one life, make every action you make be one that makes you a better version of you. So take care. And thanks so much for being here, Scott. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.