Ep. 18 "You can't name any sport where slipping is helpful to performance." With Stuart Jenkins of Blumaka

An insole that ensures your foot doesn’t slide inside the shoe.

Sounds simple, right?

It is! It’s also unique as Blumaka has created this product and was recently featured on “The Athletic”. This is where I found out about the product and I was immediately fascinated. The San Francisco Giants are a team that is generally known in Major League Baseball as a team to be at the front of the pack when it comes to analytics and development. So when it was them involved, I was piqued. The player, Mike Yastrzemski had some interesting thoughts and the article itself had a ton of great information, none more interesting to me, than this blurb:

“How much force is lost with normal insoles? Blumaka isn’t ready to make any concrete claims yet. But Yastrzemski has done some tests of his own in the team’s biomechanics lab at San Francisco’s spring training complex. “We have some things where we can look at our rotational acceleration” in his swing, the outfielder says — rotational acceleration is measured in G-forces — and he noticed a jump of 5-7g with the insoles versus without. According to Blast Motion, the MLB average rotational acceleration is 17g. - From “The Athletic - Why Mike Yastrzemski and the Giants are sold on special insoles: ‘If you’re slipping, you’re losing’

I had to know more and when I reached out to Blumaka, they were happy to get Stuart on a podcast so we could chat a bit about it!

Stuart Jenkins has been running for decades, including winning some major marathons, and he’s been innovating in the shoe industry the entire time, Blumaka is the latest. Stuart loves trail running and prefers it to road running, he even talks about how it influences where he purchases a home. It’s a great conversation with Stuart about him and the product, and you’ll find more interesting bits from the man who once ran for 22 years, 1 month, and 1 day straight!

“You're not making anything 20% or 30% better, but you're making it a little better. Why do all baseball players wear batting gloves? Babe Ruth had a lot of home runs without a batting glove, but somebody figured out you're going to have less slipping in your hands if you have a glove on your hands.”

Find out more about Blumaka here.

It’s not all baseball talk, I promise :) Check it out and see if the insoles make you curious at all. Let me know what you’re thinking in the comments! I have a pair that Blumaka sent me and have been giving them a go myself. They are very receptive to feedback and really want to hear from runners, so if you do get them, give them as much feedback as you can!

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Music by Skilsel from Pixabay

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