Born to Walk: The Broken Promises of the Running Boom, and How to Slow Down and Get Healthy--One Step at a Time

The romanticized notion that humans are "born to run" has buoyed the  so-called running boom of the past 50 years: well-intentioned fitness  enthusiasts lacing up their cushioned shoes and plodding down roads and  trails in pursuit of the runner's high, a trim physique, and the  fountain of youth. Unfortunately, born to run is a big, fat ruse—a  marketing gimmick and a gross misappropriation of evolutionary biology  insights about our Homo sapiens genetic attributes for endurance. While  any movement away from a sedentary-dominant lifestyle is laudable, the  truth is that humans are actually born to walk, not run. 

 Mark Sisson, New York Times  bestselling author, forefather of the ancestral health movement,  entrepreneur founder of Primal Kitchen and Peluva footwear, and former  2:18 marathon runner, is officially proclaiming an end to the running  boom. For the vast majority of enthusiasts, running—even slow-paced  jogging—is far too physically, metabolically, and hormonally stressful  to promote health, weight loss, or longevity. Alas, the elevated,  heavily cushioned modern running shoe enables ill-adapted people to run  with poor technique, increased impact trauma, and a truly embarrassing  rate of chronic overuse injuries. 

Born To Walk  will help reshape fitness culture to reject flawed and dated "no pain,  no gain" ideals, and replace them with a simple, accessible, sustainable  program to increase general everyday movement, improve aerobic  conditioning the right way, avoid the risks of injury and burnout  associated with running, and promote a healthy, happy, energetic, long  life–one step at a time. In Born To Walk you'll learn: 

•  How the "endurance runner hypothesis" of evolutionary biology is  irrelevant to most modern citizens, whose genetic endurance gifts are  buried under excess body fat, insufficient daily activity, weak  musculature, and dysfunctional feet caused by a lifetime in shoes 
•  How the running boom was made possible by the invention of the heavily  cushioned shoe. Without this, most people would be unable to run more  than a short distance (especially on pavement) before succumbing to  discomfort or injury 
•  How elevated, cushioned shoes actually increase impact trauma, enable  poor technique, and are the driving cause of overuse injuries 
•  How to avoid the shocking 50 percent annual injury rate among regular  runners by slowing down, improving foot functionality and implementing a  correct midfoot landing technique 
•  How running does not help you lose excess body fat, and in fact can  prompt genetic signaling for increased appetite, carb dependency, fat  storage, and poor metabolic and hormonal health 
•  How running can promote a "skinny fat" physique: deficient strength and  muscle mass, poor posture, and an accumulation of health-destructive  abdominal fat–even if you run lots of weekly miles 
•  How an extreme devotion to endurance training can increase  cardiovascular disease risk, compromise gut health, and suppress immune  and hormonal function 
•  How the misplaced competitive intensity and struggle & suffer ethos  of modern running culture can promote and unhealthy obsession and a  high risk of burnout 
•  How marketing hype, distorted cultural values, and unsavory peer  influences lure you into events like marathons and ultras that are  inherently antithetical to health 
•  How aerobic conditioning at comfortable heart rates is the foundation  of all fitness endeavors, and improves performance at all higher levels  of intensity 
•  How to identify your ideal training pace using "fat max" heart rate–likely a brisk walk for most runners 
•  How the world's greatest endurance athletes train in a relatively less  stressful, more sensible manner than the average novice