In less than a month I’m heading up North to attend a seminar with Erwan La Corre founder of the system of movement training a lifestyle philosophy MovNat.
Needless to say, I’m looking forward to it immensely, and will be sure to come back with some great new insights that I can pass onto you guys and incorporate into Primal Fitness.
If you’ve not heard of Erwan before, check out this video to be inspired! If you have any questions you’d like to us to put to Erwan, please post them in the comments below and we will do our best to get them answered for you.
I’d like to know what Ewan’s starting point was in terms of his ‘transition’ in to the MovNat approach. Has he ever been out of shape or is this a distillation of his training having been very fit all his life? Have there been any significant step-changes brought on by his training regime or diet?
Good questions Jezza, hopefully all will be revealed in the seminar, though in the meanwhile check out a great interview with Erwan here:
http://conditioningresearch.blogspot.com/2009/01/erwan-le-corre.html
Any chance there will be one further south?
I’m definitely going to try to encourage him to come and do a seminar at Primal at some point in the future – Not sure if you can really class Manchester as South, but it is probably more accessible for most than Edinburgh!
The hill after about 1 minute is like the scree hill at Deerstalker, only without the falling rocks and not in the dark.
Considerably warmer too I dare say!
…. the one after 2 minutes is just like the hill in Deerstalker…
Anyway back on topic. Would be good to know if it hurts to run completely barefoot on off road/rocky terrain (looking at the video I guess it doesn’t hurt him), how long it takes to adapt to be able to run completely bare foot and how best to make the transition.
That is my number one question for Monsieur Le Corre also!
I read up on that somewhere – Will try and retrieve the article. Basically there are two factors – Gradual toughening of the soles of the feet (doesn’t take that long I found, when going ‘nature boy’ on holiday and stuff – I came to the conclusion that hotter surfaces toughen your feet up quicker – So maybe firewalking would be a quick route to leathery feet) and the running style – With barefoot/forefoot running, in the terrain he’s on, you do a higher cadence lighter stride that allows you to quickly adapt to sharp or gritty ground. I’d be interested to see what he says – Clearly in the video he knows the track well, so he’s not just free running in the open country.
As even running on just slightly uneven ground with fivefingers on feels uncomfortable.
I spent a week training with Erwan in the woods of West Virginia this summer. The #1 question for all of us was about going barefoot as well. I don’t want to steal any of Erwan’s thunder, but he did talk about how he conditions his feet. He also taught us about relaxing and not keeping our feet extremely tight when we walk so rocks and things don’t hurt as much…you learn to view it almost as a massage walking on rocks barefoot. I have been training barefoot ever since this summer and the more you do it, the more your feet get used to it. Just like anything else, it just takes time and practice.
Did you enjoy it? I was at the Saturday session – reviewed here – http://conditioningresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/one-day-movnat-fundamentals-clinic-in.html
and loved it.