Toe Shoes
Toe Shoes Seem Strange Now, but Soon May Be a Well-Known Trend
Since at least the early 1970s when the running craze first got started, the magazine Runner's World has been publishing its studies of the best rated running shoes.
A lot of runners, other athletes and even ordinary people are wondering what in the world are toe shoes? Why should shoes have separate slots for each single toe the way these new running shoes with five fingers do?
The key is in the running technique. According to many podiatrists, sports medicine doctors and others who've studied the biomechanics of running, the most efficient and effective way for human beings to run is with back straight, feet landing one at a time on the forefoot.
Then your foot should pronate inward, allowing the arch of your foot to absorb the shock of the impact, and then your heel helps the foot to lift up. According to Christopher McDougall author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, Nike studied this in the early years of this century, to help develop a shoe to encourage the process instead of discourage it (as all running shoes since Nike's first model in 1972 had done).
Running this way, you take more, faster steps rather than longer steps where you land on your heel.
Vibram Toe Shoes With Five Fingers Take Us Back Before 1972 and Nike
However, the traditional running shoes put out by Nike and everybody else since 1972 have elevated heels and large amounts of cushioning. This encourages people to land on their heels instead of the forefoot or midfoot. This is not only not natural, it increases the amount of force that is transmited to our knees.
It's not proven yet to everybody's satisfaction, but there's a lot of evidence and reasoning that indicates this at least partially accounts for the many injuries runners normally suffer -- especially considering that for two million years we ran barefoot not to win races, but to earn our supper or to avoid being some other creature's supper.
I have not yet bought Vibram Fivefingers shoes myself. I am checking all this out. They're too expensive to play around with, and I just bought a new pair of Brooks Beasts -- the antithesis of minimalist running shoes.
However, I did have put a lot more attention on my technique, observing myself, and quickly realized I did have that tendency to land on my heels. I did try to change to landing on my forefoot, but it felt strange, and was quickly tiring.
Vibram FiveFingers are the Opposite of My Thick Heavy Brooks Beast Running Shoes
To me, however, this just means that the shoes themselves -- with heavy cushioning and support because they're designed for runners like me with flat feet -- do indeed encourage heel strike running rather than the natural technique.
I spend most of my indoor time at home barefoot because it's more comfortable, and I can recall running around in the grass of the private swim club I belonged to as a kid, and can see where running that way the heel strike would be uncomfortable if not downright painful. So I can see where I'd naturally have a different strike with barefoot running.
And although most of the area around this house is level, there's one part with enough of a hill that I do see where that forces a forefoot strike style. When I lived in an apartment in Ballwin I used to run up the hill in the park across the street, so maybe that helped me from being injured, because I knew nothing then of barefoot running shoes or barefoot shoes, let alone toe shoes.
Vibram 5 Fingers Running Shoes are Truly Birthday Shoes, as Naked as the Day You Were Born to Barefoot Running
Vibram 5 Fingers shoes may be the ultimate minimalist running shoes. Many people in the past ran in leather moccassins of some kind. No doubt the first ones simply had the idea of wrapping an animal's skin around their feet, perhaps to keep them warm or perhaps to disguise their tracks or their smell.
Vibrams are even better, in that they fit your feet fairly tightly, so they stay on even when you're in the water. One style of Vibram shoes -- the Vibram Flow -- are even insulated for people who plan to go otherwise barefoot in very cold water.
However, do remember that most models are not trail running shoes. Some Vibrams have been used a lot by runners, especially the Vibram KSO, Classic, Flow and Sprint. The Vibram Bikala is especially for runners. Others just know them as the shoes that look like feet or finger shoes.
I've even heard the term birthday shoes -- I guess because they're like running as though your feet were on the day you were born -- naked.
Some Vibram finger shoes are made just for inside sports -- such as yoga, Pilates and aerobics classes. Myself, I'd say that so long as you're inside in a safe environment just go completely barefoot. But your local gym or Pilates studio may not agree that's hygienic, so wearing Vibram Five Fingers shoes is a good solution. At home, just go barefoot.
Some People Wear Their Vibrams Everywhere They Go, Not Just as Barefoot Running Shoes
Shoes with five fingers for your toes are still a novelty. Most casual runners have not considered wearing toe shoes yet. Some are opting instead for minimalist shoes such as the Nike Free or those made by Newton, or other brands of minimalist, barefoot running shoes.
Yet it may be soon that Vibram Fivefingers become the running shoe of choice of many people.
However, you should know that you should not wear your Vibram 5 Fingers running shoes without taking some time to strengthen the muscles in your feet (yes, believe it or not, you have twenty muscles in your feet -- and wearing shoes allows them to atrophy from disuse). If you try to run very far on toe shoes without giving yourself time to adjust, you can strain or injure them.
So wear your Vibram shoes proudly, but with care. When you slip on those toe shoes, you'll feel more alive, but wearing finger shoes makes your feet more vulnerable to injury.
Next: Vibram Five Fingers Shoes -- Vibram Five Fingers Shoes are the most extreme of the new minimalist, barefoot running shoes.