Born to Walk: The Surprising Benefits of Slowing Down to Get Healthier, Live Longer, and Not Run Yourself Into the Ground - Mark Sisson

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You are probably familiar with the romanticized maxim that humans are born to run, which has buoyed the so-called running boom of the past 50 years: well-intentioned fitness enthusiasts lacing up their cushioned, high performance shoes and plodding down roads and trails in pursuit of the runner's high, a trim physique, and protection against lifestyle-related diseases. Unfortunately, born to run is a big, fat ruse--a marketing gimmick and a gross misinterpretation and misappropriation of evolutionary biology insights about our Homo sapiens genetic attributes for endurance. While any inclination to just do it, and move away from today's sedentary influences and disease patterns is laudable, it's time to acknowledge the humans are actually born to walk, not born to run. Mark Sisson, former elite marathon runner and Ironman triathlete, 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 confer true health benefits. Unless you are an extremely fit natural runner, you are better off slowing down to a walk to enjoy the wide-ranging health benefits without the risks of injury and burnout associated with running, nor the need for heavily cushioned (and heavily harmful!) shoes. It's time for the masses to slow down and prioritize the quintessential human form of locomotion and one of our most prominent genetic expectations for health--a life of near constant everyday movement, mainly in the form of walking. 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 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, poor metabolic and hormonal health, and a skinny fat physique 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 ca