The Finish Line

Over the weekend The Finish Line hosted a clinic on Natural Running. The clinic was presented by Newton Running, a shoe company which has cornered the market on producing shoes specifically for Natural Running.

What is Natural Running?
In it’s most basic form, natural running is landing on your midfoot and in alignment with your center of gravity. This concept is nothing new. Just watch an elite run and you will see that there is a specific running form that they employ. The problem is that if you have never been coached you may not realize that you aren’t running with good form, thus running naturally.

Can you employ good running form, er Natural Running, in your current shoes? Absolutely! What Newton has done, however, is create a shoe which forces you to run with a midfoot landing. The technology is called Action/Reaction™ technology. It’s meant to reduce impact, return energy, and propel you forward so you can run faster and further. Similar to trail running shoes, Newton shoes have a lug system but only across the metatarsals on your foot. When your foot lands on the ground the lugs actually fall into the shoe (there are empty pockets above those lugs inside the sole) and then bounce back, thus the “reaction” side of their trademarked technology. This technology replaces EVA foam of which you find none in the Newton shoes.

You can read extensively on the Newton website about their shoes and technology. Everything printed there is what was provided in the Newton clinic last Saturday.

Here is the good news: Newton will be returning to The Finish Line periodically for more clinics! I will share the dates for these future clinics as they come available.

Stay tuned!