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

Mark Sisson · Brad Kearns

Jan 2025 · Primal Blueprint Publishing

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350

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About this ebook

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.

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About the author

Mark Sisson is widely regarded as the forefather of the Primal/Paleo lifestyle movement with a string of bestselling books (The Primal Blueprint and The Keto Reset Diet), a #1-ranked ancestral lifestyle blog, and the Primal Health Coach Institute. Mark is former 2:18 marathon runner and elite Hawaii Ironman triathlete. Known as an innovating entrepreneur, Mark founded the Primal Kitchen healthy condiments and Peluva five-toe minimalist shoe companies. Mark lives in Miami Beach, Florida, where enjoys Ultimate Frisbee, standup paddling, fat-tire beach bike rides, and a walking-oriented lifestyle.
Brad Kearns is the New York Times bestselling co-author (with Mark Sisson) of The Keto Reset Diet, host of the B.rad Podcast, an Apple Podcasts Top-10 ranked Fitness show, Guinness World Record setting Speedgolfer, 2020, '22, and '24 #1 ranked USA masters age 55-59 high jumper, and former US national champion and #3 world-ranked professional triathlete. He lives at Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Mark Sisson is widely regarded as the forefather of the Primal/Paleo lifestyle movement with a string of bestselling books (The Primal Blueprint and The Keto Reset Diet), a #1-ranked ancestral lifestyle blog, and the Primal Health Coach Institute. Mark is former 2:18 marathon runner and elite Haw...

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