Resources
Good for the Soles is a member of The Natural Running Center!
We are proud to be affiliated with the Natural Running Center. Its website combines the world’s top running scientists, clinicians, coaches, and a half-dozen stores that completely embrace better running form and less shoe.Their overall message is simple: Learn, Evolve, Run! With the information, education, and expert advice you will find on this site, it’s our hope and mission that all runners, beginners or veterans, fast or slow, the formerly injured or those hoping to get back in the game, will learn about the health and performance benefits of minimalist, natural, and even barefoot running. On the educational front, it’s also our responsibility to be as neutral and impartial as possible with our recommendations and knowledge that we will be sharing. These are exciting times in the footwear, sports medicine, and running world. The Natural Running Center hopes to makes sense of all this “newness,” and provide a safe, injury-free path for runners everywhere.
Click here or on the image above to go to the Natural Running Center website.
Training offered at Good for the Soles
At Good for the Soles, we are interested in more than just selling you shoes – we want you to love running and walking as much as we do and we feel the best way to do that is to learn to run and walk naturally!
We offer a variety of workshop dates and levels to meet the scheduling needs and individual goals of our customers. Rather than cramming too much information into one day, we've broken both our ChiRunning and ChiWalking workshops into segments. This allows participants to take in more reasonable amounts of information, enjoy at least a week to practice their skills, and then have the option of whether to come back and learn more or go off on their own from there. It's all about getting the exact amount of guidance that you need and having the time to grow and develop your skills, both on your own and with the support of a certified and experienced instructor
Our calendar is updated regularly so please check back for updates.
Have questions about ChiRunning/ChiWalking? Visit our FAQ page here.
Why we Support Natural Running/Walking
From www.stemfootwear.com: Our Missing Experience
As newborns, we are introduced to this world pure and natural with bare feet. We are quickly fitted with socks and footies to keep our feet warm. Then as active toddlers, we are put into our first pair of thin-soled shoes to protect our feet. We continue to walk our way right into adolescence where we are given sturdy shoes to handle even more activity. If we are really energetic, we might play our first sport where we are told to better equip ourselves with heavily cushioned shoes designed to handle strenuous activity. This cycle progresses through life adding more and more cushioned, structured, supportive, and overbuilt shoes to our shelves until our feet are weak and completely dependent.
Not only have we weakened our feet, we have prohibited them from feeling the world around us. Unintentionally, we have lost “touch” with one of our vital senses. Nature designed our feet to feel changes in ground terrain but shoes have restricted us from feeling anything at all. Through our traditional ways of thinking, we are deliberately missing out on this whole sensory experience.
All we have ever been taught is to keep our feet warm and protected, but what about giving our feet the chance to be strong and healthy? By strengthening the muscles in our feet we are inadvertently strengthening our entire body, relieving many common aches and pains we once thought were normal. We are also allowing ourselves this whole new sensory experience. We need to learn to not only touch but listen to the world around us through our feet.
