Sir Isaac comes a calling

OK, it's quiz time. What is Newton's first law of motion? How about the third law? And, finally, what does physics have to do with running shoes? Apparently, plenty.

Once you understand the relationship you may never think of running shoes the same. And, once you apply it to your running you may never run the same. Possibly, you'll run better than ever. That's the message delivered by Newton Running to a packed room audience at Luke's Locker in Dallas on Tuesday.

Newton Running is a relatively newcomer to the running shoe industry dominated by Adidas, Nike, and New Balance. Despite their youth, they are shaking up the multi-billion dollar industry and making inroads, and fans, with their expanding line of products.

The result of nearly two decades of research before coming to market, their shoes are designed from the ground up, literally, to take advantage of the laws of motion and assist the runner to run more naturally and thus more effectively, as told by Newton's Co-founder, Danny Abshire and; Director of Product Management, Ian Adamson. Nearly all of today's running shoes are over-padded, excessivley elevated in the heel, and promote heel striking instead of the more efficient mid-foot strike. They made their case in a well presented series of slides, videos, and dissected shoes.

"Land, lever, and lift is how we were meant to run and that's what our shoes do," says Abshire. The distinguishing feature of their shoes are the external actuator lugs and supporting membrane on the sole designed to absorb the shock of landing and return the energy during the leg lift.

Modern technology meets ages old technique Messrs. Abshire and Adamson were followed by an informative,and no less entertaining, presentation by Mark Cucuzzella, MD, Associate Professor of Family Medicine at West Virginia University and an accomplished runner in his own right. He brought home the point of running in the proper form can mitigate injuries while increasing performance.

After a question and answer session with the standing-room only crowd, the presentation ended with raffle prizes and shopping with a 15% discount throughout the store.

Newton Running plans on conducting more symposiums across the country including at this year's Boston Marathon Expo.

Pencils down

Here are the answers to the opening questions about Newton's Laws:

• The first law of motion is often referred to as the law of inertia in that an object that is at rest will stay at rest until an unbalanced force acts upon it and an object that is in motion will not change its velocity until an unbalanced force acts upon it.
• The second law says the acceleration of an object depends upon its mass and the force applied; Force = Mass x Acceleration.
• The third law is of reciprocal actions; to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

With that, this ends your physics lesson for today.

Stay tuned...