Testimonials
Chris McDougall
Author of Born to Run
“The first time I saw Lee Saxby was the last time I ever had a running injury.”
About three years ago, I was in the midst of researching my book, Born to Run, when I developed a nagging heel pain. This was puzzling: I thought I’d learned ideal running form from Mexico’s Tarahumara Indians and would never be injured again – and yet I was. So I made the usual round of visits to podiatrists and sports medicine physicians, and got the usual useless advice. They said I needed orthotics and Ibuprofen and a night splint. I should stretch my calves, and roll my foot on a golf ball, and take time off. They all warned me about the dangers of distance running, but none of them – not one – ever asked to see me run.
Lee Saxby did. The first thing he did when I arrived at his London headquarters was to take me outside and videotape me as I ran up and down the street. When he played the tape back, I was horrified. In my mind, I was straight-backed and nimble, a gentle forefoot runner with Swan Lake posture. But the guy on the tape was clomping down on his heels and leaning so far back he could be stomping the brakes on the Flintstone-mobile.
It didn’t take long to figure out what had gone wrong. That past winter, we’d had a burst of snow back home in Pennsylvania. Since I believed I’d mastered Tarahumara-style running, I figured I could get away with wearing a thick-soled running shoe. The running shoes were warm and plush, all right, but all that cushioning came at a cost: I could no longer tell which part of my foot was hitting the ground. Bit by bit, I was backsliding to my awful old technique and totally unaware of it.
So how did Lee address the problem? Simple. Unlike every other specialist I’d seen, he didn’t regard running as a danger; he regarded it as a skill. He took me through a series of drills, then brought me outside to tape me again. The difference was astonishing. In less than 30 minutes, he’d totally transformed my gait. “But you’re going to have to lose those things, mate,” he said, pointing to my cushioned running shoes, “or you’re going to be in this fix again.” I took them off and ran barefoot back to my hotel. By the time I got there, not only was my running form better, so was my heel: the pain which had lingered for months was gone – vanished, completely, never to return. Since then, I’ve never run a day without relying on Lee’s instruction: I focus on the form he taught me, and put as little as possible between my foot and the planet.
Professor Daniel Lieberman
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
“I’ve never seen anyone better able to diagnose and correct a runner’s form, and he has that ability — special to good coaches — to translate his advice into words that make sense and which you can follow.”
My job as a scientist is to be a skeptic. So when I first started doing research on barefoot running in 2005, I was naturally skeptical about its relevance to my life. At the time, Dennis Bramble and I had just co-authored our Born to Run article in the journal Nature, which made the case that endurance running has played a key role in human evolution for over two million years (1). So although I didn’t need to be convinced that barefoot running was “normal,” I had no desire whatsoever to run either barefoot or in minimal shoes. But as I started to do experiments on habitually barefoot runners, I noticed that they were running in a wonderfully light and gentle way without any compromise in speed and seemingly without getting injured. Many were formerly shod runners who had tried but failed to cope with a familiar litany of injuries (plantar fasciitis, runner’s knee, tibial stress syndrome, Achilles tendonitis) using orthotics, fancy shoes, and even surgery. Finally, they just ditched their shoes, and the results spoke for themselves.
My journey as a minimally shod runner began soon thereafter, and I can aver that it has improved my running immeasurably, and cleared up the plantar fasciitis that used to hobble me. Then, one day after returning from a trip to study barefoot runners in Africa, I found myself taking off even my minimal shoes at the end of a long run. Since then I have not only published research on the biomechanics of barefoot running (2), but also become a devotee of barefoot running myself.
The last few years have seen the start of a exhilarating revolution in the running world as more and more runners try going barefoot or in minimal shoes. If barefoot running is a fad, then it’s a two million year-old fad that’s here to stay. But, contrary to some reports, running barefoot doesn’t necessarily mean running injury free. Good form matters for all runners, and barefoot runners are no exception. Indeed, I’ve seen some minimally shod runners who might be better off wearing traditional shoes because they are still overstriding and still crashing into the ground, putting massive stresses on their bodies without any of the protection a cushioned running shoe offers. If you are going to run barefoot, you’d better do it right.
Which brings me to Lee Saxby. Of the many coaches I’ve met, Lee stands out as exceptional. He really understands good running form not only on a scientific level but also from a practical standpoint. I’ve never seen anyone better able to diagnose and correct a runner’s form, and he has that ability —special to good coaches— to translate his advice into words that make sense and which you can follow. Whether you want to run barefoot, in minimal shoes, or in cushioned running shoes, it pays to heed Lee’s advice. And I speak from personal experience. A few years after transitioning, I started suffering from some new pains including stiff ankles. Chris McDougall recommended I check out Lee Saxby’s advice, which I’ve followed ever since. And I’ve never run better.
Professor Daniel E. Lieberman
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
1 “Born to Run” was the cover, but the real citation is Bramble, DM and Lieberman, DE (2004) Endurance Running and the Evolution of the genus Homo. Nature 432: 345-352.
2 Lieberman et al (2011) Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners. Nature 463: 531-536.