Faster, Higher, Stronger Book Review

Faster, Higher, Stronger : The New Science of Creating Superathletes, and How You Can Train Like Them (McClusky, 2014) is an excellent update on where the sports science field is at right now.  He reviews current attempts to “hack” the athlete to achieve optimum performance. Throughout the book the author does a good job of simply communicating complex research.

The book details how innovations in technology—including motion trackers and biometric data—are being used to enhance training. A big part of the puzzle is how athletes training has become ever more personalized—or sport specific—to their given activity. When athletes training is tailored to their distinct tasks (for example a golfer may focus on his torso rotational strength) more efficient gains are made.

Physical therapy wise this book has a lot of good information on how at the high end of performance everything matters.  Biomechanics and analytics become of utmost importance when trying to maximize your abilities. Quantifying limb symmetry, power and functional movement are paramount to maximize the athlete.  It takes higher level analysis and (often) advanced technological equipment to identify any weaknesses or wasted movement that the naked eye can't see, but there are simple gains out there for all athletes.  

While this book is geared towards the elite of the elite athletes there is a lot of practical advice that can improve performance at any level. For instance, what’s easier than sleeping, drinking, and eating?

Faster, Higher Stronger details how sleeping more than 8 hours/day has consistently been shown to confer performance benefits. It has also long been known that caffeine can aid performance—it even used to show up on some lists of banned substances because of its benefits.  About 2 cups of coffee is all most people need—more than that does not give additional performance improvement. A unique property of caffeine is that it has benefits for all types of activities—aerobic and anaerobic or running and strength training. There is also a good analysis of the value of the supplement Creatine which has long been known to benefit strength training.  

If anything, in my experience, novice to intermediate athletes can experience even greater benefits by refining movement patterns and addressing deficits simply because they have easier corrections to make and more room to make gains.

Sport Science offers an advanced return to sport motion analysis of the required movements (such as cutting and jumping) needed to perform almost all sports. It’s a great starting point if you are serious about improving your athletic performance or preventing injury.

Born to Run Book Review

Born to Run (McDougall 2009) is a fascinating book that is often credited with popularizing the barefoot running movement. It tells the story of the Tarahumara tribe specifically their unique running style and footwear. The Tarahumara actually wear a type of shoe—the Huarache sandal—fashioned out of old tires with leather laces that would be closer to a minimal support shoe. Either way it appears to be highly effective at running long distances frequently without injuries.

While the story of the Tarahumara is very compelling. I was very interested in McDougall’s telling of the history of running shoes and running shoe companies as I don’t believe this is very well known. The narrative states that running injuries used to be relatively rare. Running shoes at this time were very basic with minimal cushion and neutral arch support. As the sport became more popular in the 1970’s injury rates began to rise. A note of caution with this story is that the incidence of running injuries wasn’t studied much if at all prior to the this time.

The sport becoming more popular also correlates with new running shoes from new companies such as Nike and Asics beginning to hit the market. Over the following decades, the running shoe market continued to grow with additional companies and innovations becoming popular. These shoes grew increasingly specialized with more cushion and more arch support. Surprisingly with all the money, research and innovation poured into the running shoe arena no shoes have been proven to reduce injuries.

McDougall himself adopts the barefoot running style and tells his story throughout the book. He details his transition from a broken down former runner to a pain free runner by switching to a barefoot style. He also relates the stories of other ultramarathoners who have been successful with this style. It is a very interesting and absorbing read for anyone with an interest in running.

The rise of barefoot running is in part a response to the high frequency of injury rates. Commonly, it is reported that up to 79% of runners per year can expect to hurt themselves. The knee is the most often injured area and there is a significant connection to knee demand and the heel strike running pattern. The purpose of barefoot running is to encourage a forefoot or flat foot strike rather than a heel strike. It also promotes foot/ankle strength by putting more demand on this area of the body.

There are a few caveats to all of this information. Practical Physical Therapy advice is to not switch from a successful style or shoe. If you are a fully cushioned heel striker without injury, I would stick with the style that has worked for you. Biomechanical changes to running form are tricky and the group that benefits the most are those with a history of recurring injuries especially of the knee. One of the biggest problems that novice barefoot or minimal shoe runners have is they switch their shoe but not their running style. That often means they take the cushion away from their heel but still pound on it with every stride which is a recipe for injury.

Most important is to allow a great deal of time to accommodate to a new running style or shoe. A walk to run program with limited mileage will reduce the incidence of injury. The most common injuries seen from switching to a minimal shoe are stress fractures, plantar fasciitis, and achilles tendinitis among others. If you would like to be proactive, I highly recommend talking to a PT to get instruction and technique advice to appropriately strengthen the areas of your body that will be involved with your new running style.