Inside Altra Shoes: Are Zero Drop, Wide Toe Box Shoes Just Hype?

[0:00] Jason: Don’t you think shoes are pretty controversial?

Kathy: Controversial? Like you’re not going to start walking around here barefoot, are you?

Jason: Would that be so bad?

Kathy: Keep your shoes on, you dirty hippie.

Jason: I’ve been called worse. But seriously, we’ve talked about it before, footwear matters. It’s important for health and movement.

Kathy: Yeah, but it’s also important to look, as my generation says, fly.

Jason: Fly. In this episode, we’ve brought in an expert from one of the country’s biggest shoe companies and their cutting-edge approach is making a big difference.

Kathy: Okay, that’s right. So, if you’ve got

[0:30] bunions, plantar fasciitis, heel pain, or you’ve got ankle, knee, hip pain, back trouble, this episode is for you.

Jason: Yeah. Let’s get this episode going. This is the PTCH. What happens when a chiropractor and a physical therapist get together to make a health and wellness podcast?

Kathy: But chiropractors and physical therapists don’t like each other.

Jason: Oh, think again. I’m Dr. Kathy Lynch, physical therapist who likes to help people move and get stronger.

Kathy: I’m Dr. Jason Young, an evidence-based chiropractor who uses humor just as much as adjustments to help people get

[1:01] better. Welcome to the PTCH Podcast.

Jason: Remember, there’s no I in PTCH. Okay, welcome back to the PTCH Podcast, everybody. I am Dr. Jason Young. And I’m Dr. Kathy Lynch. Oh, I didn’t know that.

Kathy: Yes. Oh, okay.

Jason: Not a real doctor, though. I’m figuring — I’m figuring this out after about a year. So, yeah, so Kathy, the podcast is a cooking, as they say. I think two episodes ago we were when we were sitting here with Allison, we were talking about how oh, you could be viewer number 1501. You want to

[1:32] know that we have like a thousand more subscribers on YouTube since then.

Kathy:

Jason: What? We’re at 2,500?

Kathy: Pretty close. It’s been — it’s been a good week. It’s been — it’s been a good week or two weeks or something like that. So, yeah, thank you to all the subscribers and everything like that. PTCH Podcast is maybe the most important podcast on Earth.

Jason: Yeah. Like —

Kathy:

Jason: I mean, we would say like we’re coming for you Joe Rogan, but you know, at this point — that’s Joe who? Joe what?

[2:04] So, yeah. All right. Well, let’s get to our guest. I’m so excited to have our guest here. I have been working for months to get him on. Many of those months were spent just building up the courage

Kathy:

Jason: to invite him, and then I was surprised how easily he said yes once I — once I actually asked the question.

Kathy: So, we’re really excited to have Simon O’Brien. He’s here from Altra, the shoe company.

Jason: Altra’s like — they changed — they changed my life recently. And so, I’m

[2:34] excited to talk about that. But, yeah. Al- — not Altra. Your name’s not Altra. Okay? Your name is Simon.

Kathy: Yes. You work for Altra. Yes. Simon O’Brien, welcome to the PTCH Podcast.

Simon: Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m excited to chat to you both.

Jason: All right. So, Simon, first of all, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into this industry, and also tell us a little bit about

[3:04] Altra because maybe like it’s a big company, but a little bit of a new kid on the block. Like I didn’t know too much about it until a few years ago. So, yeah, start with you, and then tell us a little bit about Altra.

Simon: Sure. Yeah, so I — as you’ll probably guess right away on this podcast, I’m not — not originally from the US.

Jason: What?

Simon: Born and raised in a small town called Bray in County Wicklow, Ireland. So, that — for those

[3:34] maybe familiar with Dublin, it’s about 40 minutes south of Dublin City.

Jason: Kathy claims to be Irish, too.

Kathy: She does.

Jason: Yeah. Claims, too.

Kathy: I claim that too.

Jason: Okay. I claim my bloodlines. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. She’s deep deep in the Irish game, and she loves Notre Dame.

Kathy: Yeah, I wish I was born in Ireland. Dang it.

Simon: Have you been there?

Kathy: I just went 2 years ago for the first time and I loved it. We went to — we were in Cork and Galway.

Simon: Oh, great. Yeah. Those are — yeah, two of

[4:06] my favorite spots. Yeah, so I —

Jason: No. No, they got rules apparently. I can put a word in.

Simon: Oh, thanks.

Kathy:

Simon: Yeah. All right, I’ll quit cutting you off. Tell us — tell us all about you.

Jason: Yeah, so started working in the running industry at 17, 18 years old. Started working just in a running shop in Dublin during college where I was doing my business and marketing degree. And really just

[4:38] was working part-time, you know, fitting customers, learning all about data analysis and connecting with the various shoe companies. And really kind of worked my way up through college into what became kind of more of a full-time training coordinator role. So the store I worked for — it’s called Elverys Sports. They had locations scattered all across the country. Shout out to Elverys.

Jason:

Simon: Yeah, it’s — that the OG sporting

[5:10] goods store in Ireland opened in the early 1900s.

Jason: Okay.

Simon: So yeah, and then the store I worked at in Suffolk Street in Dublin, it was the like the OG store. So it was a very very cool location to work at. But yeah, I kind of — you know, I started working there, would do a lot of like community outreach type of events, going into gyms and doctors’ offices over there. Like I said, when I got out of college, I wasn’t fully sure what path I wanted to go on, but I will say

[5:40] during my time in university I pretty much all my projects — my marketing projects, my dissertation that I did in my final year, everything was done around running shoes and kind of picking — because I worked in the store, I was very into it myself. I would kind of use those as opportunities to focus my efforts on the running shoe industry. And then, you know, spent a couple of years in that kind of a training coordinator role

[6:11] with them before eventually moving to the US in 2012 to work for a running store in Jacksonville, Florida. And so yeah, moved over to the US for what I thought was going to be a 12-month stay. I had a friend that lived in Jacksonville that kind of prompted the move and coming over here, but yeah, that turned into an extended stay since now I never ended up going back to Ireland. And that was a number of

in the heel, and then another might have a full length air pocket, but essentially they were all different versions of the same thing. And really more importantly, they all had that element of drop, you know, the heel to toe drop which is the the elevation change from the heel to the toe, that was all between an 8, 10, 12, sometimes a 14-millimeter range. And so, you know, Golden and Brian, they noticed that a lot of what they were seeing in their customers, you know, coming in for fittings, the complaints that a lot of them had, like plantar fasciitis and various other things, they really traced back to, you know, kind of — wait no I’m getting ahead of myself, so what they did first was, so Golden was dealing with his own foot issues, you know. He was a runner himself and he was having issues and

[6:42] years ago. But yeah, so my role really Yeah, but they were also very supportive at the time of kind of taking the opportunity. And so yeah, with that store, you know, I kind of went from just working on the sales floor, helping out with events and things like that, to moving into more of like a community health educator, working. They had a network of six stores across Jacksonville. Medical referrals were a big

[7:12] part of their business, and so I kind of leaned in aside of kind of managing some of the day-to-day stores and training staff and things like that, but a lot of my time was spent, you know, working with various orthopedic clinics, the Mayo Hospital out there. And so a lot of our foot traffic would come from those facilities, and that’s really what got me into like the medical outreach side of the business. You know, and I did that for a number of years there before moving out to Colorado at the end of 2019. And I think a lot

[7:44] of this is really perfect because what you’re talking about it all fits really well into what I know about the Altra brand, what it is that you guys do. So you’re like the perfect guy. Yeah, it was an interesting — you know, because actually the — so when I moved to the US and I started in that running shop in Jacksonville, one of the first ever like seed shoes that I got when I started that first week was the original pair of Altra Instincts, which is like the shoe that launched the

[8:15] brand. Yeah. So I’ve been wearing it since, you know, because the brand kind of came out in 2011, which I’ll touch on in a second, but you know then by 2012 is when they were starting to get into more retailers, and First Place Sports was an early adopter. So yeah, I always reflect on it now, remembering that one of my — the first shoes I ever got when I moved to the US was a pair of Altras, and now fortunate enough to work for the brand. Cool. But yeah, and you know, I — when I first — I’d obviously worked in like the run specialty more retail

[8:45] environment for most of my career, and then when I got out to Colorado I kind of made a bit of a pivot to going to working in the outdoor industry, working more on like the sales ops side, but really undertaking learning the ins and outs of how a brand works, you know. In my position I was working with essentially every function within the company, from product development, finance, to planning, and really just being that cross-functional partner for all those teams, so it was super helpful

[9:15] to kind of just really understand the logistics of and, you know, politics of how a brand functions. And then this role got created on the medical outreach side for Altra as a brand new position, and I will say, you know, I kind of had my eye on Altra for a long time, it was like kind of a dream job situation Yeah. for me, and so yeah, moved over into that role which I’ve been in now for about two and a half years.

[9:45] What’s the official title? So medical marketing manager is my official title. Okay. And that’s — you know, I will say when the role — when I first joined, obviously like I mentioned the role was brand new, so one of the most exciting parts to it is yes there was a job description but it’s been kind of an open runway to build this pillar of the brand out and kind of go down, you know, explore different opportunities for the brand and

[10:15] that are in the medical, wellness, health space. And I think some of the, you know, features and philosophies of the brand, which I’m sure we’ll get into, kind of allows us to play in a lot of different spaces. Yeah, the first time I heard of Altras I was in my last year of PT school, so it was either fall 2014 or spring 2015, and I was doing one of my clinical rotations and one of the PTs that I was working with that day

[10:46] was telling a patient like, hey, there’s these new shoes that you should check out, they’re Altras, they’re zero drop, they got a wide toe box, blah blah blah, and so like that was the first time I had heard about them — like, oh, I’m going to have to check these out. Yeah. Yeah, we’re going to be talking about what all that means in a second. Yeah. And that time frame that you’re mentioning, you know, is obviously very like in the early years of the brand, you know, and it’s kind of — give like, you

[11:16] know, Jason, you mentioned kind of touching on like where the brand came from and started. Outside of my position, you know, so Altra was started by Golden Harper and Brian Beckstead — they’re like the two original founders, along with a couple of other people in the background, but they would be the two more public-facing names that people might know or would have seen over the years. And really the brand was born at the back of a running shop, you know, in Orem, Utah. And Golden and Brian,

[11:48] they met running high school cross country together. Mhm. You know, became friends and training partners, ended up both going to school to study like exercise physiology, whilst working at Golden’s dad’s run shop called Runner’s Corner in Utah. And so, kind of combining, you know, obviously their own — they ran a lot themselves, they were spending their weekends fitting customers for running shoes, and then combined with what they were learning in college,

[12:19] they really were noticing — if you go back in time to like kind of 2006, 2007, this kind of time frame, it was — really the landscape of running shoes was very much a situation where if you went into a running store, you had maybe six or seven brands on the wall, but they were all essentially just different versions of the same thing. Mhm. Yeah. You know, the topic of stack height or like max cushion, you know, that wasn’t a thing yet. Right. Yeah. You know, the thickness of the soles were all pretty much the same. You had ASICS with their

[12:50] gel cushioning technology, Nike with their Air technology, Mizuno using their wave plates. So everyone just had that kind of technologies that I like. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever had a pair of those where that little air thing hasn’t broken, and then I end up falling everywhere while Yeah. Yeah. And so really all you had was — you know, one model might have like — let’s use the Nike Air for instance — one shoe might have an air pocket just

[13:20] in the heel, and then the elevated version would have it in the heel and the forefoot. You know, and that was kind of the landscape across the board. Everything had a — when we talk about heel-to-toe drop, which again we can get into later, but at that time everything was 10 to 14 mm. That was just sort of the status quo for running shoes. But then you also talking about the thickness of the — what’s that? The heel? The sole? The sole.

Jason: Yeah, the midsole. Yeah. So when I refer to

[13:52] heel-to-toe drop or stack height, heel-to-toe drop is just talking about the difference between the rear foot of the shoe. Mhm. You know, like I’ll grab one here and show real quick. So, like just talking about the difference in the cushioning here versus the cushioning in the forefoot. And like I said, so in most cases you had the heel sitting 10 to 14 mm higher than the forefoot. Everything had a more traditional kind of tapered toe box. But simultaneously around that time you had books like Born to Run coming out from

[14:23] Christopher McDougall. You know, which kind of blew up the barefoot running craze that was going on. Golden and Brian were noticing — — And so, what Golden and Brian were kind of seeing, you know, as part of their fitting process when they were working with the customer, they would obviously assess their shoes and see what the wear pattern and things like that was looking like. But as part of it they would take them outside and have them run barefoot on the grass just to kind of see how they were moving and kind of

[14:53] what they would notice is like people are running really efficiently when they run barefoot on the grass. They’re not over-striding. They’re landing more on the midfoot. All those things. And they’re like, but then what we’re sending them out of the shop with is a shoe that’s kind of making them not do that and encouraging that over-stride and heel strike. So really it was kind of — you know, Golden’s kind of the mad scientist of the two. He started playing around with shoes and asked his dad some advice on how he could deconstruct some of the shoes

[15:23] in the back room. Well, can I ask you something actually right here?

Jason: Sure.

Because I heard that Altra has kind of a similar origin story with Nike in that they both used like traditional kitchen equipment to make the prototypes? Like some of their first pairs — so Phil Knight — no, it wasn’t Phil. It was the track coach down there.

Jason: Give it a maybe. I don’t know. Yeah. But he was using the waffle

[15:54] iron to make the bottom of the shoes. But the guys at Altra, they were using — was it a toaster oven? Or something?

Jason: Correct. Yeah, so they were using a toaster oven and famously Golden’s dad, who I mentioned owned the running shop, he advised Golden, you know, “Heat it up to 275°, stick the shoe in there and wait for the glue to bubble.” Oh. And so when that happened, he essentially was able

[16:24] to peel the midsole of the shoe away from the upper. Huh. And from there was able to essentially use like a belt sander to sand the shoe down to level out the cushioning and create what would become known as zero drop running shoes. Because once he had leveled it out, he was able to glue the shoe back together and then they would play around. I’m sure you know, you’ve seen over the years different lacing techniques for shoes to try and accommodate different forefoot issues going on. So at the

[16:54] time because they were dealing with more tapered toe boxes, they would just open up that last section of the shoe lace. So again, like kind of using this like bottom piece, just to help open up and create some more space in the toe box. But yeah, they initially just started doing that and demoing it on themselves, finding some really great results and saying, “Wow, like I feel like I’m running so much more naturally. I feel more connected to the ground, but still had some cushion

[17:24] and protection for running on concrete and sidewalks and things like that.” And so —

Kathy: Can I just interrupt for a second because I think that this might be like a good natural point to just kind of get into some of this shoe technology? Yeah. Right? Like who cares about a wide toe box? And like, what is your drop? So, maybe let’s just take a second, talk about those, and then let’s hear how Altra took that to the market and everything. Okay?

[17:54] Jason: Sure. So, who cares about a wide toe box? Like, why is that even a big deal? It’s — that’s the hippy dippy thing right now. It’s like, oh, you got to get the wide toe box. Which I love it, and I’m a believer, but explain that to people.

Jason: For sure. Yeah, so I’ll use a model just as a visual — I’m here for those that are watching on YouTube. And so, probably, you know, if you’re listening or watching and you are wearing shoes right now, chances are,

[18:24] unless you have a pair of Altras or something similar on your foot, if you look down at the toe box, it’s probably tapered into more of a point. Yes. Where the big toe and the pinky toe are kind of being pushed inward. Think of any sort of real, you know, fashion footwear, any most athletic like running product, you think of football cleats. Everything is sort of engineered to have that more tapered fit where it narrows at the front.

Kathy: It’s kind of like a shape at the bottom of the shoe.

[18:56] Jason: Yeah. Correct. And you can look into — there’s a long history as to why that originally occurred going back hundreds of years and how it’s just been infiltrated into culture throughout the years. Well, I don’t know like — why did anybody think that’s a good idea? A pointed toe. And so, a lot of the reason for like both the elevated heel and the toe box goes back to — I want to say —

[19:27] don’t quote me on this if you’re listening, but I think it’s back into like the 1600s.

Kathy: Yeah, the internet never forgets. Simon says you better not. That’s — this is the one part I didn’t prep on. But yeah, so essentially going back to like, you know, the elevated heel was utilized for putting people on horses, getting into stirrups so that their heel wouldn’t slide out.

Jason: Very important to know. Yeah. And yeah, 100%, and a lot of

[20:00] A lot of the more — when shoes were first becoming a thing, they were obviously more the upper class and wealthy people who were using them. And they were — if you go back and look at old photos of these long pointed shoes that would come to that point — it was seen as like a status signal, I would say. And so it kind of goes back all the way to then, of like when shoes were first being developed and you

[20:30] know, being put into that sort of more tapered shape. But then it’s just continued over the decades. And I know there’s some research out there that actually shows, going back that far, where I feel like now when we talk about bunions, nine times out of ten it’s usually done through the lens of focusing on women’s feet. But back in those times it was actually the men who were more prominent with bunions.

Jason: Damn. Because they were the ones wearing that type of footwear.

Kathy: Yeah, so it’s like — the pointy toed shoe is like the skinny jeans of the 1600s. It’s like,

[21:01] “Hey, this is 100% fashion, not functional whatsoever.”

Jason: Function.

Kathy: Yeah, and I think with most people — you know, like I just mentioned, Jason — I just got back from a big conference last week in California. And a lot of people there, they’re wearing more dress shoes. They’re coming into the booth and I’m taking note. And you know, it’s a very simple question of just pointing at their shoes and saying, “Hey, like, should your foot be shaped —” — the shape that you want your foot to be?

[21:32] “Are you an elf?” And so, yeah. And so I think it kind of boils down to that conversation of like, you know, are we trying to have a foot-shaped shoe or a shoe-shaped foot? And so yeah, when Altra was first coming on the market, like you said, Jason — now it’s definitely becoming more and more popular. Like we see it in the growth of our brand. But even like I said, at that conference last week, the amount of people just walking into the booth like, “Hey, I’m really curious —

[22:02] I want to try wide toe box, zero drop shoes.” But back then when Altra came out, it was pretty rare. You know, you had shoes like the Vibram FiveFingers and things of that nature — the full-on barefoot shoes. But Altra was really the first brand to come to market combining a lot of the functionality of the barefoot style but providing some cushioning. But definitely, I mean, in the early days, people used the term — talked about them as clown shoes,

[22:33] because they were more rounded, creating that space. Definitely come a long way in terms of fashion.

Jason: I’m of an age where I don’t care about that. It’s like, I want comfortable shoes.

Kathy: Yeah. And you know, I did the Vibram FiveFingers shoes for a while.

Jason: You did?

Kathy: Oh, I was so cool. Yeah. I would — I was so fly. Yeah. I would do those obstacle races, and so I did that in a pair

[23:03] of those shoes, and it was actually kind of awesome. It was neat to be able to run barefoot. It was really great — right up until this event, which was out on a farm, and they had these — it was like 10-foot-high walls that you had to climb. And so getting to the top of the wall, that barefoot shoe actually was pretty great, you know? You get to the top of the wall and it’s like, “Oh, now I have to drop into this dry creek bed.”

Jason: Oh.

Kathy: This is an automatic ankle sprain. There

[23:33] was like no comfortable way to drop on top of all those rocks. So that was like the last day for those shoes, because that hurt really bad. But it’s nice that now we’ve gotten to the point where you get that good heel cushion plus you can get that kind of wide toe box — sort of that barefoot feel. I like it.

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Kathy: Yeah. And I would just say, in terms of the last — or essentially the mold that we make

[25:05] our shoes out of — it’s really engineered around creating the space so that that big toe can stay straight. You know, it acts as such a key stabilizer for the foot during propulsion. But again, going back to what we were saying, for some reason in most shoes — you think of the foot as like a tripod —

Jason: Uh-huh.

Kathy: — taking that big toe, that main stabilizer, kind of out of commission.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Kathy: And I think that’s where we’ve gotten to, like, industry-wise — we have

[25:36] shoes that are just so overbuilt, and the shoe is doing so much for the foot because it’s kind of taking the big toe and taking the arch out of commission, that the shoe has to do everything. So with Altra, we try to make — and again, we can touch on this later — but we try to build the line out so that the wide toe box is like a non-negotiable throughout all of the styles, whether it’s a road shoe or trail shoe. But to your point, Jason, we try to make what we call a

[26:06] shoe spectrum. So we have different levels of cushion so that you can kind of meet people where they are. If they’re used to more cushion, you can start there — or just thinking about, particularly for those listening to this, if you have patients that have different capacities for load and they are needing to start somewhere higher up the spectrum with a bit more cushion, a bit more support, because they’re in acute pain, we try to have something to meet them there. Similarly, if you’re down kind of

[26:36] Going down the other end of the spectrum, when you’re looking for something more for strength training or just daily wear where you actually want to put some of that loading on the foot, we can accommodate that as well. Yeah, so are all the models zero drop? They all have the wide toe box, but are they all zero-drop? Correct. Yeah. No. Okay.

So, that’s a great question. And for those who are listening who, maybe like you said, Kathy, that you know, you had first come

[27:07] across Altra in 2014. Mhm. Back then and up until, you know, up until 2 and a half years ago, the brand was strictly a zero-drop company. Yeah. So, every model we made was zero-drop. Everything had the wide toe box — you know, that’s always been kind of the first checkpoint of the design. But a couple of years ago we did add what we now call our low-drop models, which have a 4 mm offset. Okay.

[27:37] So, I still need to get on the horse. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. Yes. This is a primo horse-riding shoe. And so, yeah, a few years ago we introduced a shoe that at the time was called the Ford Experience. This is the Flow 3, which is sort of the newer iteration of that shoe that’s just come out a couple of weeks ago. And so, with these models — yeah, so we have what we call

[28:08] the Experience Collection, which is most of our 4 mm drop shoes. And these work really well for those people transitioning into the brand. Yes. But they also just offer a different ride and experience to run in or walk in. They kind of have a multi-faceted approach, but in reality, you know, the brand had obviously grown over a number of years, had gained in popularity. You had, you know, you mentioned when you were doing your rotations — we kind of had that like following of people that knew the brand,

[28:39] were very passionate about it, both in the medical space. We kind of developed this sort of cult following in ultra trail marathon runners, which is kind of where the brand really grew its legs in the first years. Like, people used them for like 100-mile trail races and things. That model I showed earlier, the Lone Peak, is kind of our — that’s our original trail model. That Brian Beckstead, you know, he built the prototype of this model for himself to run the Wasatch 100 in Utah. That’s

[29:09] cool. And so it had this sort of cult following and, you know, through word of mouth obviously the brand would grow over the years, but you always heard — and I can attest to this because I worked in running stores during that whole period where we sold the brand — you would constantly just hear the comment of like, “Oh yeah, I really love the concept of the wide toe box, but I just can’t do zero drop.” Yeah. Whether they could or couldn’t, you know, obviously in certain instances like if you’re coming off a ruptured Achilles tendon or something,

[29:40] going into zero drop is probably not the smartest idea. Right. But a lot of people just, you know, they were so used to what they were used to, and in many cases it was still, you know, a 10 or 12 mm drop shoe. The idea of going to zero drop — they would be scared of doing that for fear of, yeah. Or also just, say, for someone who is running a lot, who is doing quite a lot of running mileage, they’re

[30:10] not wanting to take the time to adjust and kind of work the shoe into their rotation, irrespective of what benefits they, you know, might get out of it. So, for a number of years that was always a discussion. They used to have kind of transition insoles in some of the shoes where you could start with one and then work down to one that would be flatter. But yeah, ultimately these newer models — you know, we have about five or six models now that have the 4 mm offset —

[30:40] they really just help expand and open the arms of the brand and bring more people in. So, what models are those, if I can ask? So, yeah. The Flow that I showed first is kind of the neutral road trainer. And I kind of feel like when you’re holding that up it’s bothering me because I don’t have that yet. Like, I’m thinking, is it going to look weird if I’m ordering a pair of shoes during the

[31:11] show? Yeah. I can send you some afterwards. Those are pretty dope. All right. So, the Flow — yeah. And then we also have a shoe called the Flow ST, which I have here as well. Okay. For people that are watching. So, the Flow ST — the ST stands for stability. So, both the Flow and the Flow ST are built on the same last. They have the same stack heights, same drop, all —

[31:41] you know, 95% of the shoe is virtually the same. But with the ST version we utilize what we call our guide rail system. Yeah. So, it really just helps create more of that stabilizing feature. Nice. So, again, if you have people that have some excessive pronation, or they just like a little bit more of a gentle hug on the back of the heel of their shoe — the way we build our stability models, you know, we’ve come a long way from where for years the

[32:13] stability shoes all you would see is just this dark gray block on the medial side of the shoe. Yeah. And it was just a firmer density of foam. Altra actually never did that, you know, since the beginning with some of our original support and stability models. But pretty much the whole industry uses this kind of design now where you’re really just building up the side walls of the shoe a little bit more, and you’re almost just creating stability through the geometry of the shoe versus putting in these firmer

[32:44] materials that, you know, aren’t the most comfortable things. Well, they backfire. They backfire. Yeah. I think I told you this story when I saw you up in Portland a few months ago. But I had an opportunity to get some Altras and so I was like, “Yeah, let’s get some Altras.” My wife was not happy that I ordered a bunch of shoes because we had like a bunch of — she’s like, “We don’t need those. Like, we have Hokas and you know,

[33:15] and all this other kind, cuz Hokas are really popular now cuz they’re like the marshmallow shoes or the On Clouds, right? There’s all this cushioning and, you know, I feel like all those shoes are inferior. Like I don’t care if they want to sponsor the show. I don’t want to sell their shoes. So I supinate, right? I’m walking around the edge of my shoes and like the Hokas, like the what is it? The Cliftons or whatever, like I’m just like all the shoe is in the middle and

[33:45] I’m just walking on the sides and like these are ready to sprain your ankle at any moment. Kathy: Yeah. Jason: And so we ordered up some Altras for the whole family and they showed up. Wife was not thrilled that suddenly there was so many shoes in the house and, you know, I had picked them all out. At that time my right leg is like messed up. Like I’ve always had this hip thing and everything. And so periodically I’ll limp, you know, just cuz my leg acts up.

[34:15] And so I put these shoes on. In fact, I think it’s the ones that I’m wearing. I’m wearing the Superior 6s. And I’m walking around in them. I’m like, “Oh, yeah, these are pretty comfortable and everything.” And then my wife noticed, “You’re not limping.” Kathy: Jason: I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m not limping.” Yeah, it’s like it instantly fixed my hip, which is the guarantee that Altra makes. Because you put those on and instantly all of your hip problems are going to go away. Yeah. 100% no money-back guarantee.

[34:45] No, I’m just kidding. Altra doesn’t guarantee that. But for me, that was my experience. It was right away I felt a difference in how my hip felt, my knee felt, and everything like that. And it’s definitely different than other shoes. And so I think I came to you in Portland and I was like, “Hey, so why did this work for me?” Kathy: Yeah. Jason: Yeah. Kathy: But it’s that geometry we’re talking about. Jason: Yeah, cuz I think the one, if I remember, it was like the Escalantes that you were wearing at the conference in Portland, which is like one of our

[35:16] Kathy: Very good memory. Yes. Yeah, I look at people’s shoes all day. Jason: Kathy: That’s the Escalante, which are — Jason: The Escalante. Kathy: Yeah, so this is the Escalante 4 here, which is probably the closest iteration to what like an OG Altra shoe is. It’s like zero drop, lower stack height, more flexible. And again, to your point, Jason, a lot of people they have this misconception of if they’re injured or

[35:46] something hurts, it’s like, “Oh, I just need more cushion.” Or thinking of it almost like putting a band-aid on it. It’s like someone who’s injured and the only solution that they have is putting a knee brace on it versus actually trying to figure out, “Okay, what’s the root cause? Where is the—” with the knee brace on it, you can fix it. Jason: What? Kathy: Yeah. And so we always look at — and it’s when it comes to footwear, you know, and again, we can talk

[36:16] about it later in terms of the conversations that clinicians are having around footwear. Like we just look at footwear as like one tool. You know, it’s one piece of the puzzle, like whether it’s for yourself, like you said Jason, with your hip issue, or when dealing with patients. I always hear this phrase of, you know, you’re stacking therapies. There’s never typically just one single thing that’s going to help fix, you know, whatever injury that

[36:47] the person is having. And the way I always look at it in my role with Altra working at a shoe brand is like we’re just one layer in there that can be helpful. But the amount of feedback that we get on shoes like the Escalante, the lower stack height — and like I said, this conference I was at just last week, it was pretty resounding, the amount of people coming up to us saying like, “Yeah, I’ve been wearing a lot of cushion for a long time and I just want something that helps connect me back to the ground a little bit more.” So even, Kathy,

[37:17] going back to your question on the 4 mm drop still — this is going to be more cushioned, right? Like, when — again, not to go too in the weeds, but when you change the geometry of a shoe and create a heel lift, it creates a platform to where you can shape the geometry of the shoe more. So a lot of people might be familiar with the term like a rocker in a shoe. A lot of the time that’s like a characteristic of a shoe that you’re recommending for someone. So when you

[37:48] start increasing the stack heights, one, it increases more room to play with to create more of a rocker profile to the shoe, but it also just allows us to use some higher-performance foams than what’s in our zero-drop product, I would say, because it’s got a springier, more responsive, bouncy feel to it. Whereas if you’re putting that into a zero-drop product, you just have to be careful so that you’re not creating a negative heel-to-toe situation. Like for someone who is

[38:19] heavy on their heel when they walk or run, you just need to be careful. So you’re trying to find the right balance of stability, ground feel, but still feeling balanced in the shoe. And so even in our models that would be on the kind of more moderate to higher cushion end of the spectrum, we still try to ensure that you have some good ground feel and, when you have that toe splay in there, that you’re not so far removed from the ground that you have zero ground proprioception. So that’s why we’re

[38:50] pretty rigid on how high we’ll go in stack heights. Even in one of our best-selling models, the Torin — that’s like our number one selling road shoe on the zero-drop side — when the new version of that shoe comes out in July, we’re actually dropping the stack height in it by 2 mm. Because the shoe had always been a 28 mm for years, the first like six versions of it. When it

[39:20] got into the last couple of versions, we’d bumped it up 2 mm. And actually, from the top down at the brand of Altra, there was sort of an inflection point of like, did we just do that because of where the industry is and we felt like it needed to be higher? Or did we do it for a specific purpose? And so we’ve kind of realized like we need to bring that shoe back to kind of where the origins of it are. So we’re dropping it back down.

[39:50] But giving an update to the foam, so we’re not losing cushioning per se, but we are going to have just a closer connection to the ground. So, and then on the — I mentioned, sorry, go ahead.

I was just going to say on the Flow and the Flow ST, Kathy, you mentioned. So, on the trail side we have the Wild, which is essentially the trail version of those two shoes I just showed you, where you’re getting a more rugged, grippier outsole. And then typically just on trail

[40:20] shoes you’re going to have a more reinforced toe caps and uppers and things like that, just because it’s obviously built to handle more terrain. And for anyone that looks on the website or in the health food — they’ll see the Wild 3, but they’ll also see the Wild 3 Plus. Yeah. That’s something new that we have that we’ve incorporated. So on the 3 Plus edition you get the Vibram outsole versus our standard MaxTrac outsole.

[40:50] So we’ve done that with the Lone Peak and the Wild. We essentially have two different versions of it depending on the use case and terrain that you plan to use the shoes on. Okay. And I was just going to say that’s one of the things I really like about your brand — actually the website. If you go through the website, you know, a website is a sales tool. It’s also a portal for people to purchase. And a lot of websites for a lot of brands and products you go out there and look at — oh,

[41:21] everything’s got five stars or a suspicious 4.9 stars, right? But you guys let people see the comments whenever it comes to the different shoes. And sometimes you make a change and people are like, “Oh, I like the old Torin. I like the old Torin better.” And I think that that’s really kind of cool from a brand standpoint because it’s very easy to get self-conscious and be like, “Yeah, all of our shoes that we make are perfect for everybody all the time.” And I think that

[41:51] what you’ve really done is created a culture around listening to real people giving feedback about shoes. And from what you’re describing, I think it’s cool how responsive you are to what people want. You recognize that not everybody’s use is the same, not everybody’s feet are the same. And that’s really pretty refreshing. And so it also makes me feel like I need to own all the shoes.

Kathy: Well, I have a good story about Altra too. Not my personal use,

[42:22] although I do wear them. About seven or eight years ago, I would say. So, my partner loves to hike. She’s hiked all over the world and she and her friend decided they were going to, you know, each summer take each part of the PCT — the Pacific Crest Trail? Yeah. So they decided they were going to do that. So like I said, it was like seven or eight years ago they embarked on this journey and I dropped them off and they, you know, had their hiking boots.

Jason: That’s a good way to participate, I think.

Kathy: Yeah, that’s right.

[42:53] See you later. See you later. What kind of shoes were you wearing when you dropped them off? I was probably still wearing Nikes at that point. Bunny slippers. So I drop them off, they got their hiking boots, you know, going to hike, blah, blah, blah. Midway through this trip, I get this SOS call. “Can you bring us Band-Aids, Neosporin, and bring my sneakers?” And I was like, “What’s happening?” “We have the worst blisters ever.” So I meet them there — it was a weekend — I meet them there, I

[43:23] bring them whatever they need and they’re like, “Every person that walks past us is wearing these shoes. And they’re not hiking boots, they look like sneakers.” So we asked them and they’re all wearing — these people that have done this before are all wearing this

brand called Altra. Yeah. And so now that’s all she wears, the Lone Peaks. And I love the Lone Peaks too because you can get a waterproof version, and when I’m out walking my dogs — we have really good trails around here in Corvallis — so

[43:54] when I take my dogs out in the winter, sure enough there’s going to be tons and tons of water, and so I love the waterproof Lone Peaks. Yeah. So yeah, that’s all she wears. Yeah.

That’s true — the hiking community is a big follower of the brand. The PCT, the Appalachian Trail. And the Lone Peak in particular — that’s kind of where that shoe has built its roots. But yeah, and to your point, Jason, like I think with this, you know,

[44:26] we are a newer brand, right? In comparison to a lot of the older ones that are out there, and growing at a very rapid rate. But we’re also very agile and able to react based on feedback on product and make adjustments. The comment you made there is something we hear a lot from the retailers that we work with, because we’ll do like retail summits where we bring in, you know, whether it’s 30 Fleet Feet stores or a group of local independent run shops around the country, and we do what we call

[44:57] pre-lines with them, where they kind of are seeing the shoes in development before they’re fully baked. But they kind of get to see like, “Hey, here’s the direction we’re going. Here’s the color stories we’re thinking of telling this season.” And we’ve gotten really positive feedback of the product team actually listening to them and being able to pivot and make changes. You know, it could be something as simple as just the design language on the shoe and they’re like, “Hey, that’s just not going to look good

[45:27] on the wall next to things.” Or from

a color perspective, they’ll be like, “Oh, of the five colors you’re showing, there isn’t one jumping off the page, but we wish there was something in this color palette.” And being able to pivot. But yeah, the through-hikers and those kinds of stories — I actually have a friend of mine, Sarah, who is through-hiking, she’s spending five months in New Zealand hiking the length of New Zealand. Wow. And she’s using the Lone Peaks over

[45:58] there. And she sends me picture updates and she sends me photos of all the people she’s converting who are having problems with their feet. Yeah. And then, you know, they get in — but yeah, definitely very popular. Like, you know, obviously I live here just in Colorado just outside of Boulder. So like going on a hike or trail run on the weekend, I would say probably like two to three out of every four pairs of shoes that go by are Altras, which is always cool to see. That’s really cool. Well, and I

[46:28] think from what you just described, like it sounds like your shoe company is what you want out of a shoe. It’s agile and it’s got good support. So that’s great. Yeah. So, one more thing that’s really unique — and actually one of the things that got me into Altras — is you guys offer what’s called the Healthcare Hub, which is really, really unique from a provider standpoint, because it’s very easy to have somebody show up and they

[47:00] want a recommendation for footwear, or you want to talk to them about, “Okay, this is why your hourglass-shape shoe is terrible for you. It’s giving you shin splints. It’s why you have to have your bunion surgery.” Those kinds of things. But a lot of us don’t have like training in shoes, or it’s not easy — I mean, I have enough other stuff to catch up on. It’s not easy to know like, “Okay, the shoe technology, how is it going to help somebody’s back or

[47:31] their knee problem or something.” So you guys created the Healthcare Hub. Talk a little bit about that, because this is really unique. I don’t see this from other companies. Yeah, so we launched the Health Hub late last summer. And essentially at a high level, what it is is an online portal for medical practitioners and medical students that they can join for free. I can share the link — we can put it in the show notes and send

[48:02] it out for those listening that qualify. But yeah, when I joined the brand, I had essentially spreadsheets of single-use discount codes for the website. And I was listed as a contact with certain groups and organizations, but on the off chance that you happened to know my role existed at Altra and you could get my email, you could reach out and I would send you a

[48:32] single-use code. But I would also spend a lot of days just sending the same email 20 times, copy-pasting a new code in. So not very efficient. Not truthfully what I enjoy and am passionate about spending my time doing.

Jason: That’s not what you came from Ireland to do.

No. So yeah, just not very scalable. And so really what it started out as was a way to automate that, just

[49:03] building it into the website. But I also know from my time working in the running industry and outdoor industry, like every brand pretty much has a pro deal — a discount program that you can get through things like ExpertVoice and Outdoor Prolink and all those kinds of things. And they’re great, right? You get sweet discounts on products that you are hopefully using, whether at home or out in your time spent outside.

[49:33] But what I wanted to learn — because something that I consistently heard since I started, both from practitioners and when I would go speak at universities and meet with students — is, to your point Jason, the footwear conversation is pretty minimal in school if it’s happening at all. And really, I hear it kind of depending on the school, depending on the profession — between PTs, chiropractors, podiatrists, it sort of

[50:03] varies. But also understanding that if you’re a practitioner, like you said, you’ve got way more other stuff to worry about versus keeping up to date with all the latest shoe releases and all those things. So the Health Hub, I felt, was really an opportunity to lean in on the education side and try to plug some of those holes so that, at least from an Altra perspective, you can understand the design philosophy, the benefits, why

[50:34] it’s important, and then also just keep up to date with the models. Knowing that most shoes are switching every 12 months — we, in fairness, do quite a lot of our shoes on 24-month life cycles so that it’s not updating every year and not constantly making changes; we just look to refine them on some key styles every 24 months. And so with the Health Hub, once you’re signed up and you’re a member, you automatically have a 40% off discount that’s just

[51:05] applied to the account at checkout. You don’t need codes or anything like that to add in. Once you’re a member, post-discount, you have a $1,000 allowance for the year to utilize. But what we also created is a separate section of the website that you only gain access to once you’re a member. And in there there’s kind of a whole variety of — so the concepts that we’re talking about here, the roomy toe box, the zero to low drop, the shoe

[51:35] spectrum — we have videos that we create with practitioners and foot specialists that basically talk you through what a wide toe box is, why it’s important, why you should care about it, and the implications and pathologies that it’s useful for. And the content that we record is done specifically to speak to medical practitioners and medical students.

Kathy: Nice.

So yeah, that content is not

[52:05] outward-facing to consumers. So we’re able to, when we record the content with Dr. Connelly and Dr. Perez from Gait Happens, we’re like, you can speak to the practitioner here and go a little bit more in depth than what we would do for our general consumer-facing content.

Jason: Yeah, it feels smart. It feels more like I know what I’m talking about.

And so —

Kathy: Sometimes it’s just about knowing a little bit more than your patient.

That’s all you need.

Jason: Just a little bit more.

[52:35] And sometimes, like, I mean, I share that content with our — the tech reps at Altra that service our retailers all over the country, because in a lot of instances they’re working a medical night with a retailer, which is another kind of other side to my role — like supporting the retailers doing their own community outreach with the medical clinics in their towns. And so for our internal reps, it’s like, “Hey, here’s content that you can kind of pick out the one-liners, pick out the talking

[53:06] points that, you know, when half a dozen practitioners come up to your table and they’re saying, ‘Tell me about Altra,’ they can kind of speak their language a little bit more and reference it,” versus like talking to the cross-country athlete who is just buying shoes for high school. Just one.

Kathy: But with the help of — yeah, so — and that’s the thing, like we try to train the staff. I definitely, from my side on the medical field, try to bring in that knowledge and expertise to try and

[53:36] elevate the standard of education that they all have. And then depending on who they’re talking to, because it could be different, right? They could be at a medical night one night where they’re giving a presentation to 20 physical therapists, and I want them to feel comfortable in that space, but similarly the next morning they could be in line at their local coffee shop and someone just comments on their shoes and asks about them. Those are two very different conversations and sort of elevator pitches, if you say. And so with the health hub inside of

[54:07] the video content, you also have basically footwear posters that you can download, where we map out the entire line by stack height, by road versus trail product. We have things in there that I reference as like a stiffness and flexibility matrix. So it essentially plots all of our shoes out on an XY axis, and you can see the shoes that are stiffer and have more of a rocker versus going down the

[54:37] other end of the spectrum that are more flexible and have a less aggressive rocker to them. So it just kind of helps them.

Jason: Correct. Yeah, and then one other piece that’s in there, which I think is very helpful, is basically a retailer referral partner feature. So, based on the IP address of your clinic, or where you’re based, you can easily see where nearby carries Altra. So if you are referring a patient out to go

[55:08] try on certain shoes — say you want them to try the Torin and the Torin ST, and you’re not quite sure what’ll work — you can refer them out to a nearby retailer, and we try to just use the hub to help connect the dots between those practitioners and the local running and outdoor shops. I’ll meet a lot of people in my role and they’re like, “I just have no clue where to send people.” And I’ll look up their clinic and I’m like, “Oh, you have a Fleet Feet like 5 minutes down the street from you. They carry like 10 of our shoes.” So,

[55:38] yeah, and we’re really just on version 1.0 of this. I think it’s a really cool space where we can talk about product in a different way. We’re actually already in the process of building out version 2.0 that will launch in the summer.

Jason: Cool.

Kathy: As our whole website will shift to a new platform, and it kind of opens up this whole new aperture of ways we can communicate the content

[56:08] in there.

Jason: Sweet. Yeah. Well, Simon, this has been awesome.

Kathy: It’s been awesome. I feel like we need another episode.

Jason: I know. So much good information. We have a tradition on this show, and you’re about to participate in it. We play a game —

Simon: Okay.

Jason: — every single show.

Simon: Okay.

Jason: And when I made this game I was like, “Ah, I don’t know. Maybe this is going to be too hard.” But you seem like a real expert, so this is going to be good.

[56:38] Basically, the way that this game works is I’m just going to tell you the name of a shoe. Some of them will be Altra, some of them won’t. You just need to tell me, “Did I make that shoe up or is that a real shoe?” Because there are some crazy

Simon: Okay.

Jason: names out there. I think one of the things that’s fun about Altras is I love all the line names and everything like that. And so you see somebody and you’re like, “Oh, what are those?” “These are the Superior 6s.” And it’s like, “Oh.” They’re fun names. You’re like, “Ooh, I’m superior.”

Simon: Yeah.

Jason: So, okay, those are the rules

[57:10] of the game. Are you ready?

Simon: Okay.

Jason: We’re not going to start with Altras because I think he knows them all.

Kathy: Yeah, he probably does.

Jason: We’re going to see — I’m going to see if I can get him though. How about this? The Nike Vomero 17.

Simon: Real.

Jason: That is real. Yes, very good. What about the Brooks Achilles Prime?

Simon: Fake.

Jason: That is fake. Wow, he’s killing

[57:41] it. All right, fine. Let’s get into the Altras.

Kathy: Yeah.

Jason: How about the Altra Olympus 6?

Simon: Real.

Jason: The Altra Toe Spartan X.

Simon: Fake.

Kathy: Okay, when you laugh —

Simon: I’m sorry.

Kathy: I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW. I’M SORRY. NO. OKAY, OKAY, OKAY.

Jason: How about this? Keep a straight face. The Hoka Tecton X 2.

[58:12] Simon: Real.

Jason: Oh my gosh. He’s —

Kathy: Oh, I didn’t know that one.

Jason: He’s perfect so far. How about — how do you say this one? The Saucony — how do you say that?

Simon: Saucony.

Jason: Is that how they say it in Ireland?

Simon: Okay.

Jason: The Saucony Endorphin Edge.

Simon: Real.

Jason: The New Balance Quantum Ranger.

Simon: Fake.

Jason: The Topo Athletic Phantom 3.

Simon: Real.

Jason: Oh my gosh, this guy’s a machine.

[58:44] The Altra Mont Blanc Carbon.

Simon: Real.

Jason: ASICS Metaspeed Pro.

Simon: Fake.

Jason: OH MY GOSH. WOW. UNREAL. This guy is like the shoe prodigy. All right, I’m going to give you three more, all right? The Hoka Infinite Stability Matrix.

Simon: Fake.

Jason: The Nike Pegasus Turbo Next Nature.

Simon: Real.

Jason: Holy crap. And the Brooks Gravity Hammer

[59:16] Elite.

Simon: Fake.

Jason: Oh my gosh. 100%. Oh my goodness.

Kathy: Okay, when we introduced him as an expert —

Jason: He is an expert.

Kathy: — we weren’t kidding.

Jason: Holy smokes. Oh, Simon, I’m so proud of you.

Simon: I will say I spend a lot of my day looking at running shoes on Instagram.

Jason: I guess so. Well, that’s what a lot of my feed is. And when you were giving the Simon O’Brien origin story and you talked about all those years working in your shoe store, you just — you seem like

[59:47] a guy who’s going to know his shoes. And you really do know your shoes, so.

Guest: Yeah. So, real quickly, before we get out of here, if people are interested in Altra shoes, like what should they rush out and do right now?

Jason:

Guest: I think getting in — so, if you’re any sort of practitioner, PT, chiropractor, podiatrist, orthopedic surgeon, athletic trainer, or any students of any of those

[60:18] professions, those are all the parties that are eligible for the health hub currently. We’ll put the link in the show —

Jason: We can add that in there. All you do is submit a copy of your license or student ID through the sign-up process and it gets approved. That’s going to be a really quick and easy way to access a lot of education on the brand, learn the different models. But really just going to altrarunning.com is our primary website. On there you can go into

[60:48] explore the various models that we carry. We do have kind of a — like the Altra Fit page as well, which is something that kind of gives some visuals and explanations on the wide toe box, zero to low drop. We have blogs on the website that have been written by doctors that kind of talk through a lot of the stuff we chatted about today. Those are all really excellent resources.

Kathy: Awesome. And I would just say — the thing I see the most with people who

[61:19] — they either love and are obsessed with the wide toe box shoes once they try it, or they just haven’t tried it yet. And so I think like, even if you’re using other brands in your shoes, I think Altras can be a really excellent addition to the rotation.

Guest: Yeah. Obviously we would love it if all your shoes in your closet are Altras, but I also know that there’s massive benefit to utilizing different types of product — but just looking at adding something into the rotation, getting used to

[61:49] that wide toe box. Because even if you’re using it yourself in that rotation, it just sets you up for success when you’re talking to a patient about it and explaining what the difference is. A lot of people just don’t know.

Jason: Needs at least two or three pair. At least.

Guest: Yeah. So Kathy, take homes.

Kathy: Take homes. I love the origin story. I mean, this is just two college kids baking their shoes.

Guest: I hope they didn’t continue eating using the toaster oven.

Kathy: Yeah. And I think

[62:20] the take home for me is — I need to be talking with my patients more about their footwear. I’m a believer, as you can tell — I had a great experience with them, but yeah, definitely time to spend more time talking with patients about it. So, again, Simon, my man, thank you so much for being on the PTCH Podcast. I think that we’re going to wrap it up, and there is one really important thing that you should know, though, and that is there’s no I in PTCH.

[62:52] Guest: Yeah, thank you.