Learn the Skill of Barefoot Running

Plus Follow-up From Barefoot Ken Bob’s Running Workshop

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Our culture has made a mess of running. You’d think a simple, pleasurable physical activity wouldn’t produce widespread problems, but we’ve butchered running to the point of near death with it having some of the highest injury statistics of all physical activities. Fortunately, there’s a revolution sweeping the running community that is changing people’s perspectives about running – and it all revolves around the idea of going barefoot. The coolest part is that anyone can start re-learning how to run immediately, and you won’t even need to buy expensive, high-tech shoes. Before we get to the tutorial, here’s some background information to whet your appetite.

A couple weeks ago, Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton (interview with him here) visited Cambridge, MA to teach a barefoot running workshop. It was raining for the 2 hour presentation and Q+A, but that didn’t stop dozens of runners from coming out to learn from one of the worlds best barefoot running experts. I’ve never seen so many people barefoot in my life (except at the beach)! So much was shared during that time, and I wanted to forward on some of the most valuable advice I gleaned from the experience.
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5 Steps to Master the Front Spinal Wave Exercise

Note from John: I’ve got a lot of articles half-written, and just haven’t had the time to finish them. I decided to shoot a quick instructional video to hold you over while I’m moving my family across town this week. With the impending arrival of Siffer-baby, we needed another bedroom to hold all the [...]

The Secret Point System of Goal Achievement Champions

“What gets measured, gets done.” Tom Peters

Unless you’re a goal-achieving super-star, one of the best things you can do is setup some sort of feedback loop that will help you determine on a day-to-day basis if your actions are conforming to your goals. Said another way, you need to make sure that you know that what you’re doing today is going to help you get what you want tomorrow and in the future. If you don’t have a consistent system for measuring and tracking your progress, then you can only venture a guess about whether you’re heading towards achieving your goals. Guessing may work for some people, but most of us thrive on cold, hard facts – not wishy-washy assumptions.

Here’s a little known tidbit: Most good goal setting systems have some sort of tracking and measuring method in place, and most goal-achieving champions use them rigorously with great success. What these systems usually lack is some sort of process-oriented feedback loop about how our daily actions correlate with our results. So, while they have a great system for tracking the RESULTS of your efforts, they do not have a way to track the PROCESS of seeking those results. Therefore, if you’re not complying with your established process-oriented tasks, then using a point system is a great way to create a feedback loop to measure, record, and track your daily actions. This will confirm whether or not you’re daily actions are actually lining up with your short-term and long-term goals.

I’ve created a simple 10-point physical compliance rating system for myself that I’ll share with you below. Also, I’ve offered some instructions for customizing this 10-point system to your own lifestyle. I hate cookie-cutter programs, and I’d rather you learn how to apply the reasoning behind such a system than just copy one verbatim.
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