I read up about this theory a few years abo and decided to test it out with some Vibrams Five-Fingers shoes.
I declare total bullshit. You might as well say that human skin has been evolving for 2 billion years (from primordial soup) and clothing ruins it.
It's interesting because of how plausible it seems, and it made me think about how many people follow astrologers or feel cured of something by acupuncture.
Barefoot walking is great. But I live in a climate where we get a snow or two most winters, and enough cold weather even without snow that a Zulu might be willing to risk his pedal health and put on shoes. I live in city that has broken glass on its concrete pavements, and plenty of stones on its park trails. I think I'll keep my shoes for now.
You should try some Nike Frees. They are very flexible and have the flattest sole of most athletic shoes. Other than the Five Fingers talked about above the Frees are the closest thing to barefoot without being barefoot.
For what it's worth, I think MBTs are great. I first tried them a few years ago, before they were trendy and available in mainstream stores, while I was having some therapy for a recurring knee problem. My physio had suggested that the cause might be turning out more with one foot than the other, and since MBTs encourage a better walking action, they seemed like they might help.
I can't say whether it was the specialist physio exercises or the MBTs that did more to help my immediate problem at the time, but I can vouch for many of the claims that MBT marketing tends to make. They do reduce that nasty impact on each step (which you probably don't notice until you have another problem, but then you really do). They did encourage me to walk with both feet aligned properly, and on the odd occasions that I've had a similar problem again over the years, switching back to MBTs for a while has rapidly cured it. You definitely feel the more active use of certain muscle groups when you first switch to them, but in my case I found that after using them for a few days, all kinds of minor irritations that might be explained by relative weakness/imbalance in those muscle groups started to clear up.
They are expensive shoes, but if the pairs I've had are at all representative, the quality means they last way longer than expensive-but-not-that-expensive regular shoes anyway. I always have at least one pair in good condition now, and at the first sign of any irritation in my legs (usually if I haven't been doing much physical training for a few weeks and I'm getting out of condition) on they go.
The only major downside I've found is that because of the curved sole, MBTs aren't particularly comfortable to stand around in for extended periods. These shoes are made for walking, not standing (or running/sports).
For the record, I have no commercial interest related to MBTs, I'm just a very satisfied customer.
Glass and stones, thorns, various disgusting substances, surfaces that are too hot, surfaces that are too cold, and my personal favourite, bees.
Too much time spent walking outside barefoot as a kid led me to step on a lot of bees. Get stung by enough bees and eventually you'll probably develop a bee sting allergy, like I have. Now, the next bee I step on could kill me.
Anyway, there's a lot of things on the ground which suck in one way or another. Our ancestors invented shoes for a reason, and it wasn't because Nike marketing told them to.
> Our ancestors invented shoes for a reason, and it wasn't because Nike marketing told them to.
Agreed, but only partially. Our ancestors invented shoes because they provided a benefit, and continued using shoes because of that benefit. What they didn't (and couldn't really) know was the cost that came along with it. Now we have the science to find out exactly what that cost is. Ignoring that cost isn't going to make it go away.
That being said, if, with full knowledge of the costs and the benefits, you decide to wear shoes anyway, then that's your choice and I can respect that.
I bought some Vibram Five Fingers recently, and I have to admit that they are ridiculously comfortable, despite being essentially toe-socks with a thin-but-strong sole. I've been walking around inner-city Saint Louis in them, over broken glass and gravel, and my feet hurt less than when I was wearing my previous lightweight walking shoes.
It's honestly a little weird, getting rid of all those things like arches and padding that seem so necessary, and discovering that they're actually doing nothing for you.
Edit: Of course, in a few weeks I'll have to switch back to big waterproof boots for the winter. Alas.
The real problem would be the cold, I'd think. I'm not sure how easy it would be to insulate them sufficiently to let you walk in the snow, while keeping the form-fitting flexibility that's their appeal.
It depends on the model you`re wearing. The Flow is waterproof, and the KSO Trek is made of leather. I wore the latter every day while running in the snow last winter in Southern Ontario.
The Flow is as far from waterproof as it gets. It's Neoprene, which means you won't mind getting wet, in fact you'll probably enjoy it. But you'll definitely get wet.
If you really want to keep wearing something similar to the five fingers over the winter take a look at some wetsuit boots. They come up your calf a bit, have a flat decent sole on them and will keep your feet quite warm. Keep in mind that your feel will probably sweat a bit in them, but that thin layer of water is what will end up keeping them warm.
I've been wearing VFFs on and off for the last two years and a bit (on my third pair now), and I agree, they still feel much better than "normal" shoes.
My wife and I started running in them, starting with walking only, then running only a bit at a time (1/2 mile run, then walk another 1 or 2 miles). Now, about 3 weeks on, we run about 2 miles straight at a time (we've never run at all before, which is supposedly ALOT harder with VFFs than if you had started out with cushioned running shoes).
At first, we had pains in places we'd not had before being on elliptical machines or my wife doing aerobics, especially in the shins and forefoot and midfoot. I got some slight blistering on the big toe the first week as well, but it's all gone away over the subsequent weeks.
The verdict? It's about as fun as running as a kid barefoot on a summer's day. We actually look forward to doing 5k in them. Then, we go trail running, which I'm sure will be a blast. It seems to feel alot better underfoot on soft dirt than paved surfaces, anyway.
Trail running in Vibrams is awesome. As it is trail running provides an uneven surface, which means every step will use a different combination of leg muscles. This prevents any one muscle from getting too tired, and balances out your leg. With Vibrams the effect is amplified even more; add in the fact that you're constantly aware of every step you take, rather than just plonking down your foot on whatever is there, and you end up with a form of running that can feel simply amazing.
Good for you guys, especially starting out not running at all and already looking to do a 5k. I just did a 5k in them last week and it felt great - I picked the shoes up in august and I've been able to run ~3 miles every other day with them since.
I'd recommend trying, if you haven't already, a bit of actual barefoot running - only for a short distance to just get a feel for how it changes your stride. The reason I say this even though you're starting "barefoot" is I notice that the vibrams have enough padding to have a slightly different feel for me than actually going barefoot, so it might be worth testing it out and seeing if you notice a difference (if so, try to maintain the barefoot stride while wearing the shoes).
Have you ever considered how necessary the "toe" aspect of them are? If the problem is the sole, well fine wear something with a thinner sole. But then you'd really feel like you're just wearing flip-flops or ballerina flats for men. The genius of the Vibram Five Fingers in particular over all other alternatives that meet the same end of improving your gait is that they look ridiculous (read: distinctive). That's why they get all the press mentions (possibly in addition to having a good PR firm) and that's why people wear them: they start conversations. I'm not discounting the value you see in them, but I'm curious if there were other similar products that you considered, and if you find any particular value in the toe-sock nature.
I can feel a difference while I walk, as most of my foot lands and then my toes touch. I can't speak for whether that actually represents any measurable benefit to it, gait-wise.
I suspect that it'd make you more stable just because your toes can settle on slightly different levels on uneven ground, but that's just guessing.
Mainly I like that it's letting my toes spread out as much as they feel like. My toes are less lumped together now after a day in shoes. (And my old shoes weren't overly narrow or anything like that.)
Quite important, actually, I'd bet. They keep your toes from toeing-in like essentially every shoe does. Just look at how many people have bunions - they're almost exclusively caused by shoes, plus some genetic causes which typically start much later in life.
There's also a very big difference in toe strength from having them be able to move separately, and I've had a noticeable improvement in balance from wearing them. And I'm pretty stable anyway. When your toes are stuck moving together, they don't develop any ability to do so, and toes are pretty important to walking / balancing.
(edited for toes instead of bunions, as I think it makes a better case)
Same here. I switched to Vibrams 4-5 weeks ago and I'm enjoying some pleasing results.
For example, prior to using Vibrams, I could only run for 10 minutes or so before my ankles and hips started to hurt. (This was almost certainly due to poor technique as much as the "hard strike" cushioned by my trainers.) Now though, I'm actually enjoying running again. I can do 30-40 minutes, and it's my fitness - or lack, thereof - that makes me stop rather than joint pain.
I can only think that having so little cushioning on the foot forces better technique (I'm certainly aware that my running stride is now much shorter and that I'm lighter on my feet, too).
It took a couple of weeks to really get used to them and adjust both my walking and running strides accordingly, but now I feel as though I can run like a kid again rather than a puffing middle-aged bloke.
i've been a runner for about 10 years.
i bought vibram five fingers 6 months ago.
i used to run for mental stability, but it was a painful exercise that only paid off in well... mental stability.
vff's may not be fully barefoot (but i live in a country where i wouldn't dare run fully barefoot), but i've never enjoyed running so much in my life.
when i switched it took a good 2 months to adjust, but now i run 7 miles on average per time as opposed to 4 before.... i just cant help myself.... its SO much fun to run. who knew?
edit: p.s. everything they say about it is true. there is a very noticeable difference in the amount of wear on my body after a long run in shoes and VFFs. my calves and feet take the brunt of the impact, not my hips/knees/back.
This is the biggest change to my physical life in the last 5 years.
I remain skeptical of anyone trying to tell me that I'm suffering from a horrendous disease for which there are no symptoms. The whole thing smacks of pseudoscience.
Back problems are very common. Digestive problems are very common. Foot problems? Not so much. Most old people have feet which are still perfectly functional and comfortable, and the shoes they wore most of their lives are less comfortable than shoes are now. Even women who have spent most of their lives in high heels do not, for the most part, seem to suffer from serious foot problems.
So where's the horrendous downside, that I seem to be missing, of shoes?
Even women who have spent most of their lives in high heels do not, for the most part, seem to suffer from serious foot problems.
I don't think this is true. All the women I know who wear high heels routinely complain of foot or knee pain (at least, the women I know well enough who would complain to me). I know of at least two women with permanent knee injuries caused (in large part) from wearing high heels.
If you ride the subway in NYC, you'll see plenty of ads for podiatrists typically featuring an unhappy looking woman (call 1-800-???-FOOT).
"Curious, they used MRI and saw that the Achilles’ tendon compensated for muscle fiber length. The tendon was significantly thicker and stiffer in high-heel wearers."
> Back problems are very common. Digestive problems are very common.
They are in the civilized world, where everybody wears shoes with fat heels, and eats garbage. Take a look at places where people have to walk barefoot and you'll see a huge difference.
Yes, but on the other hand, places "where people have to walk barefoot" often have high rates of hookworm infection - they typically enter the body through the soles of the feet - causing anemia, stunted physical and mental growth, child morbidity, etc.
As my medical history professor put it: "Have you ever noticed how in [American civil war] pictures, Confederate soldiers looked smaller than the Northern soldiers, like some of them were still kids? A lot of them had their growth stunted because of hookworm, due to walking barefoot." This was a major public health issue in the Southern US in the 30s. It still is in much of the world. Suggesting people run barefoot is pretty irresponsible, and shows how many things they take for granted - like people crusading against vaccination .
Also, a lot of peasants centuries ago ate poorly, too. Want an example? Read about pellegra in Italy, beri-beri, or how much alcohol was commonly consumed in colonial America on a daily basis. As counter-intuitive as it must sound, many peasants were poor, and weren't always able to eat well.
Humans moving to Northern climes traded the hazards of living in clothing for the hazard of living with endemic diseases (which both clothing and a colder climate warded off).
But I'd personally like to avoid both kinds of problems if I could...
Also, Pallegra wasn't a disease of the traditional peasant diet but was a result of the introduction of corn into the diet, a feature of development. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#History)
About pellegra - you're right. I added more examples.
Better example: When health-food advocates talk about how whole grain bread is more nutritious than bread made with just white flour* , they sometimes note that people favored white flour because of some elaborate cultural subtext about whiteness and purity. That's BS - it's because without refrigeration, the oils in the bran go rancid . Readily available whole grain bread is actually a modern luxury, thanks to transportation infrastructure and pervasive refrigeration. White flour has a much longer shelf life, so it was common historically - it's not junk people started getting fed recently due to some evil processed food conspiracy.
* Spoiler alert - it is, and it often tastes better.
Interesting, didn't know about hookworms. But two points:
(1) According to Wikipedia, "the usual method of infection is ... walking barefoot through areas contaminated with fecal matter". How often do you see fecal matter lying around in the areas you walk in? When I suggested comparing the "civilized world" with "places where people have to walk barefoot", I didn't mean that you look at /all/ aspects of those places. You can have your cake and eat it too - in the "civilized world" you can walk barefoot without having to worry about hookworm as much as you would in the developing world.
(2) If hookworm is still an issue, feel free to go with a middle-ground option like wearing Vibram Five Fingers. They're almost as good as barefoot while still protecting you from hookworm et al.
> How often do you see fecal matter lying around in the areas you walk in?
Have you ever been to San Francisco?
How about any city with any stray animals whatsoever? Have you never accidentally stepped in dog crap in a park? Fecal matter doesn't have to be human in origin to spread disease.
The fact that this story keeps getting reintroduced and the Vibram Five Fingers are always mentioned makes me suspect it's a marketing ploy, much like "the suit is back" / The Men's Warehouse in PG's "The Submarine" (http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html).
How many companies sell suits vs how many companies sell barefoot running shoes? I mean, if you had to write an article on this subject, who else would you mention? I guess you could say "Nike, Adidas, ASICS, and Reebok don't offer any serious products for this market yet" but that's a bit like mentioning that Microsoft, Palm, and RIM didn't offer a serious competitor in the market of touchscreen smartphones right after the iPhone came out.
I suspect that Vibram was encouraging people to discuss running barefoot, because it's inevitable that they would get mentioned in the ensuing discussion.
"In heel striking, the collision of the heel with the ground generates a significant impact transient, a nearly instantaneous, large force. This force sends a shock wave up through the body via the skeletal system. In forefoot striking, the collision of the forefoot with the ground generates a very minimal impact force with no impact transient."
In other words, your knees, hips, and back act as shock absorbers when you heel strike.
Try this experiment - jump into the air, landing on your heels. Then jump, landing on the balls of your feet. How does each one feel?
The interesting thing about the body is, when you damage one area, lots of times another area feels the pain.
When you support yourself day in and day out with the wrong shoe, your back has to work harder to pick up the slack. The average person is a heel striker which sends up vibrations to the knees and back. Since the knees work harder than normal, the muscles in your legs work hard and develop. From there, the average person does little to no exercise to stretch out the muscles, especially the hamstrings which when developed and tight pull on the back.
Then there's the simple fact that we have five toes which normally would be spread apart and help with balance and agility. We then shove them into badly fitting shoes and we squeeze our toes together practically forming one giant toe. This of course due to the fact that humans as a race decided walking on concrete and asphalt was much better than grass and dirt.
Very good point. I had lower back pain until I switched to being mostly barefoot or wearing barefoot shoes. After a few weeks of not heal striking, my back pain disappeared. Sample size of one, so take that for what it's worth.
It's not a stretch to think that adding new elements to a complex system that's developed over millions of years may introduce problems. Eliminate the new element, and you may eliminate the problem.
The argument you give could easily be made about cigarettes or any other well known health hazard. "I can't see what's bad about X, many people X all their lives and they seem fine".
Not really, the increase in lung disease due to cigarettes was very noticeable.
These supposed foot problems which supposedly 80% of 40-year-olds have are apparently invisible and symptomless. How is this different to someone telling me that my aura is misaligned or that I have too many body thetans?
The increase in lung disease is not noticeable in the sense that you could not connect cigarettes and lung disease without scientifically studying it. In the 1920's, you'd find claims cigarettes helped the lungs.
I'm not certain about the direct shoe-body-misalignment thing. But I know physical therapists can measure habitually shortened or stretched muscles in people and this is a condition that will often cause physical problems as a person gets older even the person doesn't notice anything at the moment of measurement.
you're missing the point. improper use of your feet causes problems up the whole skeletal structure. hips, knees, ankles, back, etc. LOTS of old people I've seen have problems with bad hips, knees, etc.
The theory is if we strengthened our foot muscles and such, there would be less load on the muscles further up the body so to speak that are compensating for improper balance or gait. basically your feet should be handling those functions, in extremely thick shoes, the feet aren't doing their job as well.
I started running regularly in VFFs. Previously I didn't run much at all. After a couple months I started running in my old sneakers (I forgot the VFFs when traveling). The transition back was unpleasant (ie knee and ankle pain), to the point where I kicked off my sneakers and ran barefoot on the treadmill, which stopped the pain. This doesn't imply the VFFs are better for me, as the reverse transition could have caused pain as well. FWIW I'll probably buy another pain though.
I got a pair of super-flimsy canvas shoes for $20 from Payless Shoes on Market street two weeks ago. I've noticed that my calves aren't sore anymore and I have generally more energy.
Counterpoint: when I walk six hours in my flimsy canvas Converse, my feet hurt a lot. When I walk for six hours in my fancypants Saucony running shoes, they don't.
I could try walking around for six hours in my bare feet, but I'm pretty sure I'd slice my foot open on something.
I'm not sure how flimsy Converse are, actually. The top of the shoe is canvas and flexible, sure, but bending the sole (at least on mine, which are relatively new) is pretty difficult, and that's what impedes "proper" foot motion. I get pain if I walk a long time in Converse, as well, but for me I'm pretty sure it's because the toe box in them is rather narrow and doesn't let me spread my toes enough. When life calls for sneakers, I usually pick other shoes -- but sometimes, vanity wins.
For a really flimsy canvas shoe, I'm imagining something along the lines of the cheapest Keds.
"... One of the lead researchers, Dr. Bernhard Zipfel, when commenting on his findings, lamented that the American Podiatric Medical Association does not 'actively encourage outdoor barefoot walking for healthy individuals. This flies in the face of the increasing scientific evidence, including our study, that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for the feet' ..."
Same here. This at least the third time I've seen this kind of article in the last couple years, and that same brand of shoes has eventually been mentioned each time. (I remember the articles because those shoes are really ugly.)
It's sneaky, because by even bringing the issue of running barefoot up, they get to look like the pragmatic choice, unlike all those members of the Evil Shodding Conspiracy.
This article is from back in 2008, and does go through waves of popularity, so you might have seen the same brand of shoes each time because it's this same article each time. :)
It's likely you keep seeing the brand because they were the first to market, and everyone else has been so slow to follow that they're the only serious game in town right now. That doesn't stop this article or any of the others you've seen mentioning them from being a PR piece they wrote or promoted, however.
As far as conspiracies go, you don't actually need to buy their product to try it for yourself - just take off your shoes, run for a bit, then try to maintain the same stride when you strap your shoes back on. The only reason you'd need "barefoot shoes" is if you like it and end up wanting to run barefoot often enough to warrant wearing them to protect your feet from glass and other dangers.
I'm not a runner, but I'm an avid cyclist, and given how much broken glass (and metal shards, etc.) I've pulled out of my tires over the years, it gives me pause. Plus, I live in Michigan - it gets COLD here.
Moccasins certainly do meet many of the same goals as these shoes. But the area they're missing in is having enough of a sole to feel confident while walking through an urban area. There's enough random broken glass on the ground that I wouldn't entirely feel comfortable knowing that there's just leather between me and it.
I'll agree that the "barefoot" shoes are on the more expensive side, but I'd expect that's a function of being in a relatively niche market.
I spent this spring and summer walking about an hour a day, first in Vibram Five-fingers. I have a funny twist in my step on the left side which wore holes in a couple toes in the first 30 miles, so I switched to cheap Wal-Mart sneakers (it's hard to find ones with no arch-support), and eventually flip-flops. Once I got used to the flip-flops, I started taking them off on a smooth asphalt road that climbs a gentle hill near my house. I keep an eye out for obvious dirty spots, and figure several hours of Eastern Washington summer sun probably kills most of the really nasty stuff. Once my feet toughened up a bit, I added another stretch of asphalt that's quite a bit rougher.
My feet feel better than they have in years, and I now seem to have arches! Both feet were pretty flat, but I now have a nice arch on the right side, and some on the left.
I had a similar experience as the guy who began to play tennis barefoot. In the 80's I was a long distance runner, had innumerable injuries running with best running shoes money could buy, and expensive orthotics.
Finally, i began to run barefoot and never had an injury again. Barefoot running also encourages you to land your feet softly on the ground, in addition to the major benefit of not weakening tendons and ligaments etc by supporting/raising them.
A Terra Plana store opened up near me so I went in to try the vibro barefoot shoes, since I needed new footwear.
I bought a pair as soon as I tried them on because they are so immensly comfortable; it feels less like a shoe and more like a snug, high-tech sock. Any health benefits are a bonus. (It may have improved my posture slightly, but I never paid attention to this before so can't be sure)
as someone who switched to vibrams 6 months ago, and not having been an avid runner before (I do play soccer a lot) due to knee and ankle pains from heel-strike running, I've noticed distance running has become infinitely more enjoyable than it used to. That aside. I think people are missing the point of this article. The point is more about the WAY we are walking/running than what we are wearing. The solutions out there (thick soled running/walking shoes) are merely trying to alleviate the pressure caused by this poor WAY of walking (heel strikes, etc).
The fact is, when we were kids running around barefoot, we ran on the balls of our feet, because that is the instinctual way to run.
The fact is, when we were kids running around barefoot, we ran on the balls of our feet, because that is the instinctual way to run.
Funny, I belong to some autism boards. "Toe walking" is considered indicative of ASD -- ie it is viewed as pathological. Makes me wonder if that view is partly a product of a culture where we are so used to shoes that we simply don't know how to walk/run without them. My oldest son sometimes runs the trash down barefoot -- roughly a quarter of a mile -- and he runs on the balls of his feet when he is barefoot. I have read this is the norm with barefoot runners.
well is toe walking like walking on your tip toes? thats not the same as walking on your balls of your feet/forefoot.
interesting though, i'd never heard of a link between autism and "toe walking," but i suspect you are right, this is one of those situations where society has shoe-style-walking so heavily ingrained in our minds that we see something else (even if its natural) and think something must be wrong.
Oh, I'm sure it can be indicative of something. But I have two ASD kids and they are doing well in part because I was careful to not pathologize every little thing they did. Lots of things "normal" people do get viewed as pathological once someone qualifies for some label or other. I think that is extremely harmful.
I really can't say for sure what they mean by "toe walking". I filter out a lot of what gets said as "noise".
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 152 ms ] threadI declare total bullshit. You might as well say that human skin has been evolving for 2 billion years (from primordial soup) and clothing ruins it.
It's interesting because of how plausible it seems, and it made me think about how many people follow astrologers or feel cured of something by acupuncture.
After that you will be glad you did it, and you will be glad that you have a pair of shoes.
I can't say whether it was the specialist physio exercises or the MBTs that did more to help my immediate problem at the time, but I can vouch for many of the claims that MBT marketing tends to make. They do reduce that nasty impact on each step (which you probably don't notice until you have another problem, but then you really do). They did encourage me to walk with both feet aligned properly, and on the odd occasions that I've had a similar problem again over the years, switching back to MBTs for a while has rapidly cured it. You definitely feel the more active use of certain muscle groups when you first switch to them, but in my case I found that after using them for a few days, all kinds of minor irritations that might be explained by relative weakness/imbalance in those muscle groups started to clear up.
They are expensive shoes, but if the pairs I've had are at all representative, the quality means they last way longer than expensive-but-not-that-expensive regular shoes anyway. I always have at least one pair in good condition now, and at the first sign of any irritation in my legs (usually if I haven't been doing much physical training for a few weeks and I'm getting out of condition) on they go.
The only major downside I've found is that because of the curved sole, MBTs aren't particularly comfortable to stand around in for extended periods. These shoes are made for walking, not standing (or running/sports).
For the record, I have no commercial interest related to MBTs, I'm just a very satisfied customer.
Pick the less of the evils.
Too much time spent walking outside barefoot as a kid led me to step on a lot of bees. Get stung by enough bees and eventually you'll probably develop a bee sting allergy, like I have. Now, the next bee I step on could kill me.
Anyway, there's a lot of things on the ground which suck in one way or another. Our ancestors invented shoes for a reason, and it wasn't because Nike marketing told them to.
Agreed, but only partially. Our ancestors invented shoes because they provided a benefit, and continued using shoes because of that benefit. What they didn't (and couldn't really) know was the cost that came along with it. Now we have the science to find out exactly what that cost is. Ignoring that cost isn't going to make it go away.
That being said, if, with full knowledge of the costs and the benefits, you decide to wear shoes anyway, then that's your choice and I can respect that.
It's honestly a little weird, getting rid of all those things like arches and padding that seem so necessary, and discovering that they're actually doing nothing for you.
Edit: Of course, in a few weeks I'll have to switch back to big waterproof boots for the winter. Alas.
Example: http://www.billabong.com/eu/product-cat/225/booties#_
At first, we had pains in places we'd not had before being on elliptical machines or my wife doing aerobics, especially in the shins and forefoot and midfoot. I got some slight blistering on the big toe the first week as well, but it's all gone away over the subsequent weeks.
The verdict? It's about as fun as running as a kid barefoot on a summer's day. We actually look forward to doing 5k in them. Then, we go trail running, which I'm sure will be a blast. It seems to feel alot better underfoot on soft dirt than paved surfaces, anyway.
I'd recommend trying, if you haven't already, a bit of actual barefoot running - only for a short distance to just get a feel for how it changes your stride. The reason I say this even though you're starting "barefoot" is I notice that the vibrams have enough padding to have a slightly different feel for me than actually going barefoot, so it might be worth testing it out and seeing if you notice a difference (if so, try to maintain the barefoot stride while wearing the shoes).
Good luck on the 5k, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!
I suspect that it'd make you more stable just because your toes can settle on slightly different levels on uneven ground, but that's just guessing.
Mainly I like that it's letting my toes spread out as much as they feel like. My toes are less lumped together now after a day in shoes. (And my old shoes weren't overly narrow or anything like that.)
There's also a very big difference in toe strength from having them be able to move separately, and I've had a noticeable improvement in balance from wearing them. And I'm pretty stable anyway. When your toes are stuck moving together, they don't develop any ability to do so, and toes are pretty important to walking / balancing.
(edited for toes instead of bunions, as I think it makes a better case)
For example, prior to using Vibrams, I could only run for 10 minutes or so before my ankles and hips started to hurt. (This was almost certainly due to poor technique as much as the "hard strike" cushioned by my trainers.) Now though, I'm actually enjoying running again. I can do 30-40 minutes, and it's my fitness - or lack, thereof - that makes me stop rather than joint pain.
I can only think that having so little cushioning on the foot forces better technique (I'm certainly aware that my running stride is now much shorter and that I'm lighter on my feet, too).
It took a couple of weeks to really get used to them and adjust both my walking and running strides accordingly, but now I feel as though I can run like a kid again rather than a puffing middle-aged bloke.
i used to run for mental stability, but it was a painful exercise that only paid off in well... mental stability.
vff's may not be fully barefoot (but i live in a country where i wouldn't dare run fully barefoot), but i've never enjoyed running so much in my life.
when i switched it took a good 2 months to adjust, but now i run 7 miles on average per time as opposed to 4 before.... i just cant help myself.... its SO much fun to run. who knew?
edit: p.s. everything they say about it is true. there is a very noticeable difference in the amount of wear on my body after a long run in shoes and VFFs. my calves and feet take the brunt of the impact, not my hips/knees/back.
This is the biggest change to my physical life in the last 5 years.
Back problems are very common. Digestive problems are very common. Foot problems? Not so much. Most old people have feet which are still perfectly functional and comfortable, and the shoes they wore most of their lives are less comfortable than shoes are now. Even women who have spent most of their lives in high heels do not, for the most part, seem to suffer from serious foot problems.
So where's the horrendous downside, that I seem to be missing, of shoes?
I don't think this is true. All the women I know who wear high heels routinely complain of foot or knee pain (at least, the women I know well enough who would complain to me). I know of at least two women with permanent knee injuries caused (in large part) from wearing high heels.
If you ride the subway in NYC, you'll see plenty of ads for podiatrists typically featuring an unhappy looking woman (call 1-800-???-FOOT).
"Curious, they used MRI and saw that the Achilles’ tendon compensated for muscle fiber length. The tendon was significantly thicker and stiffer in high-heel wearers."
They are in the civilized world, where everybody wears shoes with fat heels, and eats garbage. Take a look at places where people have to walk barefoot and you'll see a huge difference.
More relevant links: http://mtkfitness.typepad.com/mtk-fitness/2009/07/more-antis... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-...
As my medical history professor put it: "Have you ever noticed how in [American civil war] pictures, Confederate soldiers looked smaller than the Northern soldiers, like some of them were still kids? A lot of them had their growth stunted because of hookworm, due to walking barefoot." This was a major public health issue in the Southern US in the 30s. It still is in much of the world. Suggesting people run barefoot is pretty irresponsible, and shows how many things they take for granted - like people crusading against vaccination .
Also, a lot of peasants centuries ago ate poorly, too. Want an example? Read about pellegra in Italy, beri-beri, or how much alcohol was commonly consumed in colonial America on a daily basis. As counter-intuitive as it must sound, many peasants were poor, and weren't always able to eat well.
Humans moving to Northern climes traded the hazards of living in clothing for the hazard of living with endemic diseases (which both clothing and a colder climate warded off).
But I'd personally like to avoid both kinds of problems if I could...
Also, Pallegra wasn't a disease of the traditional peasant diet but was a result of the introduction of corn into the diet, a feature of development. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#History)
Better example: When health-food advocates talk about how whole grain bread is more nutritious than bread made with just white flour* , they sometimes note that people favored white flour because of some elaborate cultural subtext about whiteness and purity. That's BS - it's because without refrigeration, the oils in the bran go rancid . Readily available whole grain bread is actually a modern luxury, thanks to transportation infrastructure and pervasive refrigeration. White flour has a much longer shelf life, so it was common historically - it's not junk people started getting fed recently due to some evil processed food conspiracy.
* Spoiler alert - it is, and it often tastes better.
(1) According to Wikipedia, "the usual method of infection is ... walking barefoot through areas contaminated with fecal matter". How often do you see fecal matter lying around in the areas you walk in? When I suggested comparing the "civilized world" with "places where people have to walk barefoot", I didn't mean that you look at /all/ aspects of those places. You can have your cake and eat it too - in the "civilized world" you can walk barefoot without having to worry about hookworm as much as you would in the developing world.
(2) If hookworm is still an issue, feel free to go with a middle-ground option like wearing Vibram Five Fingers. They're almost as good as barefoot while still protecting you from hookworm et al.
Have you ever been to San Francisco?
How about any city with any stray animals whatsoever? Have you never accidentally stepped in dog crap in a park? Fecal matter doesn't have to be human in origin to spread disease.
The fact that this story keeps getting reintroduced and the Vibram Five Fingers are always mentioned makes me suspect it's a marketing ploy, much like "the suit is back" / The Men's Warehouse in PG's "The Submarine" (http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html).
from http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/4BiomechanicsofFo...:
"In heel striking, the collision of the heel with the ground generates a significant impact transient, a nearly instantaneous, large force. This force sends a shock wave up through the body via the skeletal system. In forefoot striking, the collision of the forefoot with the ground generates a very minimal impact force with no impact transient."
In other words, your knees, hips, and back act as shock absorbers when you heel strike.
Try this experiment - jump into the air, landing on your heels. Then jump, landing on the balls of your feet. How does each one feel?
When you support yourself day in and day out with the wrong shoe, your back has to work harder to pick up the slack. The average person is a heel striker which sends up vibrations to the knees and back. Since the knees work harder than normal, the muscles in your legs work hard and develop. From there, the average person does little to no exercise to stretch out the muscles, especially the hamstrings which when developed and tight pull on the back.
Then there's the simple fact that we have five toes which normally would be spread apart and help with balance and agility. We then shove them into badly fitting shoes and we squeeze our toes together practically forming one giant toe. This of course due to the fact that humans as a race decided walking on concrete and asphalt was much better than grass and dirt.
It's not a stretch to think that adding new elements to a complex system that's developed over millions of years may introduce problems. Eliminate the new element, and you may eliminate the problem.
These supposed foot problems which supposedly 80% of 40-year-olds have are apparently invisible and symptomless. How is this different to someone telling me that my aura is misaligned or that I have too many body thetans?
The increase in lung disease is not noticeable in the sense that you could not connect cigarettes and lung disease without scientifically studying it. In the 1920's, you'd find claims cigarettes helped the lungs.
I'm not certain about the direct shoe-body-misalignment thing. But I know physical therapists can measure habitually shortened or stretched muscles in people and this is a condition that will often cause physical problems as a person gets older even the person doesn't notice anything at the moment of measurement.
See: http://www.amazon.com/Muscles-Function-Florence-Peterson-Ken... The standard reference for physical therapists.
And do people get up votes these days on HN for taring any opponent with over-the-top New Age rhetoric?
The theory is if we strengthened our foot muscles and such, there would be less load on the muscles further up the body so to speak that are compensating for improper balance or gait. basically your feet should be handling those functions, in extremely thick shoes, the feet aren't doing their job as well.
So the solution can be pretty easy.
I could try walking around for six hours in my bare feet, but I'm pretty sure I'd slice my foot open on something.
For a really flimsy canvas shoe, I'm imagining something along the lines of the cheapest Keds.
Lots of expert & product placement in this article. I call a Sub ~ http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
It's sneaky, because by even bringing the issue of running barefoot up, they get to look like the pragmatic choice, unlike all those members of the Evil Shodding Conspiracy.
As far as conspiracies go, you don't actually need to buy their product to try it for yourself - just take off your shoes, run for a bit, then try to maintain the same stride when you strap your shoes back on. The only reason you'd need "barefoot shoes" is if you like it and end up wanting to run barefoot often enough to warrant wearing them to protect your feet from glass and other dangers.
I'm not a runner, but I'm an avid cyclist, and given how much broken glass (and metal shards, etc.) I've pulled out of my tires over the years, it gives me pause. Plus, I live in Michigan - it gets COLD here.
It's NYMag...
I'll agree that the "barefoot" shoes are on the more expensive side, but I'd expect that's a function of being in a relatively niche market.
My feet feel better than they have in years, and I now seem to have arches! Both feet were pretty flat, but I now have a nice arch on the right side, and some on the left.
Finally, i began to run barefoot and never had an injury again. Barefoot running also encourages you to land your feet softly on the ground, in addition to the major benefit of not weakening tendons and ligaments etc by supporting/raising them.
I bought a pair as soon as I tried them on because they are so immensly comfortable; it feels less like a shoe and more like a snug, high-tech sock. Any health benefits are a bonus. (It may have improved my posture slightly, but I never paid attention to this before so can't be sure)
The fact is, when we were kids running around barefoot, we ran on the balls of our feet, because that is the instinctual way to run.
Funny, I belong to some autism boards. "Toe walking" is considered indicative of ASD -- ie it is viewed as pathological. Makes me wonder if that view is partly a product of a culture where we are so used to shoes that we simply don't know how to walk/run without them. My oldest son sometimes runs the trash down barefoot -- roughly a quarter of a mile -- and he runs on the balls of his feet when he is barefoot. I have read this is the norm with barefoot runners.
interesting though, i'd never heard of a link between autism and "toe walking," but i suspect you are right, this is one of those situations where society has shoe-style-walking so heavily ingrained in our minds that we see something else (even if its natural) and think something must be wrong.
I really can't say for sure what they mean by "toe walking". I filter out a lot of what gets said as "noise".