I often get questions about running form and shoes. Over the last few years, I’ve taken to running with more and more minimalist shoes, to simulate barefoot running. There is a lot of evidence that the healthiest your feet will ever be are when they are barefoot. The short story is that big, clunky, cushy shoes allow you to land on your heel, which bypasses the natural, highly evolved, shock absorbing system (small bones, muscles and ligaments) of your foot. It makes sense that we can’t re-engineer something better than evolution can over thousands of years.
There was a great article in the New York Magazine about walking form and barefoot shoes.
As I posted a while ago, I’ve been very happy with my Vibram FiveFinger shoes. I don’t run full-time in them, but hope to do so more and more. For my day-to-day mileage, I usually use Mizunos, Saucony’s… but after a particularly bit bad pair of shoes I got at the Boston Marathon Expo, I decided to try the Nike Free 3.0.
The Free’s come in 5.0 and 7.0 styles, which add more cushioning, but I wanted the close to barefoot. So far, so good. I’ve probably put 500 miles on them, and though they feel like socks with some padding on the bottom, they are holding up pretty well. I even have sold my roommate Niels on them, and he’s now running in the Free’s and uses the Vibram’s nearly full-time for casual walking around. (Warning: running in minimal shoes without good form is a sure-fire way to get injured.)
Both the Vibram’s and the Free’s were featured in the NY Mag article, and I’ve been waiting and waiting to try out the Vivo Barefoot shoes by Terra Plana. They look like normal shoes (the Vibrams fail at that) but simulate barefoot walking because they only have a thin kevlar sole (much more minimal than the Free’s).
Vivo Barefoot’s have been out of stock in the US since May, but tomorrow, they will once again be available! I called the only brick and mortar store (which ships all shoes bought online in the US), and they are closed today because they received their fall shipment of shoes. Sabra, the store manager told me last week she would update the site after the shipment was received, so I hope to order mine tomorrow. At $150 + shipping, these will probably be my most expensive shoes, but if it improves my foot health, I’m all for it.
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Damin..your phd material..you can do one on a shoe hypothesis !
What of the argument that the human foot evolved to walk across soft surfaces (bog, fields, dirt paths) and now we spend most of our time walking in a concrete jungle? When I’m power walking down 5th Ave with the flow of the masses at rush hour, I’m creating a substantial impact on the sidewalks. Shouldn’t I have some sort of cushioning, or do I just need to build up and accept large callouses on my feet?