Blog

I’m underwhelmed by all the “cures” out there for chronic aches and pains. But there is, and always has been, that one thing that really does work… exercise. I asked Paul Ingraham, a health science journalist and copyeditor for ScienceBasedMedicine.org if he would write about exercise and more specifically to the point that even just […]

Too Cool. We learned yesterday that some extremely intelligent and thoughtful professionals were launching a fabulous new site named the Natural Running Center at http://naturalrunningcenter.com/ The NRC promises to be a superb resource, central to the sophisticated give-and-take presently growing like wildfire throughout the athletic footwear (especially running and walking) world. Of course, all at […]

The innards of one of the press irons used in our OESH Factory here in Virginia, U.S.A. to make the midsole.  These irons are used to shape and cure large sections of carbon fiber after they have been wound and before they have been cut to their final form. A far cry from the “waffle […]

The heart of OESH, the midsole, is made in the United States. In downtown Charlottesville, Virginia to be precise, arguably the best place to live (and this from someone who grew up in San Diego, California)! We are a college town (home of the University of Virginia) at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains […]

The Harvard Indoor Track Revisited (page 4 of 4, the gun lap) For a shoe midsole to behave like the time tested Harvard Indoor Track, this midsole would has to compress and release in perfect tune with the rise and fall of the peak body weight force. It would have to be a sole that remains […]

The Harvard Indoor Track Revisited (part 3 of 4) Okay, so the first big difference between cushioning in a shoe and the successful plywood structure of Harvard is that the plywood does not give at impact like a typical cushioned shoe. The second difference, which needs to be emphasized, is that the plywood maximally compresses […]

The Harvard Indoor Track Revisited (part 2 of 4) Dr. McMahon’s results were just as he expected. In the 1977-1978 Harvard indoor track season, injuries were reduced by one-half compared to the prior season. Running efficiency also improved as evidenced by faster race times of approximately 3%, not just by members of the Harvard Track […]

The Harvard Indoor Track Revisited I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the University of Virginia (UVa), where I recently retired as professor and chair of the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation to launch OESH Shoes. Though I love UVa, I must admit a lot of good things come from dear ol’ Harvard. The […]

A student working with me this summer asked me, “It all seems so obvious when you look at the graphs. Why haven’t any of the big athletic shoe companies ever noticed this before?” Here’s the answer… The graphs are the result of comprehensive human biomechanics research. And meaningful, comprehensive biomechanics research requires you to combine […]

Last time I discussed the common misperception that impact causes injuries. Today, I’m going to show you the critical link in the chain describing the real instant of vulnerability. It’s actually pretty obvious when you think about it (kind of like you always find your car keys in the last place you look)…vulnerability occurs when […]