Are Barefoot running, Vibram Five Fingers, etc getting way too much hype?

dsa wrote:

But running barefoot/minimalist never necessarily made anyone a better runner overnight.

Strawman

They are mad because it is making them doubt what they are doing. This whole thing probably presents a lot of dilemma for a lot of the people who wear the cushioned trainers. The cultish dogmatic oriented barefooters annoy me as much as anyone, but it doesn't mean that what they are doing is bad.

The critique of it being a fringe thing and that "why dont we see any elites doing it" is also a poor argument. John Walker ran barefoot on asphalt (including road races) for many years in his adolescence. Someone mentioned all those kenyan girls running barefoot.

Also, someone brought up the point that we need cushion because we are running on asphalt.. this again is incorrect. You may be content to aquire knowlege from status quo beliefs but I am not. There is no evidence that I could find showing that this would be true. The golf ball logic is also not worth a crap, we are not golf balls we are dynamic organisms. Actual evidence shows that soft surfaces do not reduce impact forces but only induce different kinematic adjustments than running on hard surfaces (Tillman et al., 2002). This is likely to happen when you are barefoot on asphalt.

How about this wrote:

If the human foot is not designed to run 80-140 miles per week, which I agree with, then you might want to reconsider why you're running 80-140 miles per week.

And I think we know everything we need to know about you as a "runner".

Does anyone remember the scene that racist movie Avatar when Jake first gets his avatar body? He leaves the lab and runs outside, testing out his new legs. There is a close up of his feet– yeah, he's barefoot, and yeah, he's midfoot striking. It really changed the way I look at running. Ever since then, I've been running barefoot.

And how are your ideas of Racism evolving ?

Blue boobies wrote:

Does anyone remember the scene that racist movie Avatar when Jake first gets his avatar body? He leaves the lab and runs outside, testing out his new legs. There is a close up of his feet– yeah, he's barefoot, and yeah, he's midfoot striking. It really changed the way I look at running. Ever since then, I've been running barefoot.

There is too much all or nothing, either/or thinking in this sport. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Find what works for you but don't knock others.

Doing some Barefoot running/minimalist running works for some people at least some of the time. A few people benefit from minimalism most of the time. A few people would get injured and shouldn't do it. I tried barefoot running (mostly on an artifical turf field) and I do about 20% of my total running barefoot. I have been able to increase my mileage with less knee trouble now. By the way, I did this independently from the whole Born to Run fad. An old aussie guy about 70+ told me to try it and said Herb Elliot used to do this a lot. You know, it's not really a novel concept...

I can see why people are annoyed at "fads" but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

The poster who talked about the "slow" runners in vibrams or barefoot and then ridiculing it, is being silly. I saw a really slow runner today in a race wearing the same kind of saucony racing flats as me does that mean I shouldn't wear them?

yup

I've got a runners world article from 1983 (when it was a running magazine, its a shopping catalog now) and it discusses for about 4 pages the benefits of running on the beach and going barefoot.

in this article herb elliot discusses the vast strengthening benefits of running barefoot.

WHY do you care what other people do? You have no idea what the goal of another person's workout is.

I ran 18 minutes barefoot today on grass. It felt great!! That's probably why many "slow" people do it. It's more fun than running with shoes. If you don't overdo it at first.

Sorry this reply was for the 2nd & 3rd poster, making fun of barefoot/vibram joggers.

Racey Grrl wrote:

WHY do you care what other people do? You have no idea what the goal of another person's workout is.

I ran 18 minutes barefoot today on grass. It felt great!! That's probably why many "slow" people do it. It's more fun than running with shoes. If you don't overdo it at first.

Racey Grrl wrote:

Sorry this reply was for the 2nd & 3rd poster, making fun of barefoot/vibram joggers.

I wasn't making fun of them, I just don't understand the popularity of the movement among casual joggers.

i love that people think they can just slap on a pair of these ridiculous feet gloves and tear it up out there, and that's the solution to everyting - jesus christ how stupid can you be?

i've got a little secret for people - you have fundamentally altered your walking and running biomechanics since you started these activities at age 1-2

the simple act of wearing shoes and walking a majority of the time on artificial surfaces of any kind has totally changed the makeup of your legs/ankles/feet - many many muscles in these areas have totally atrophied as a result of this alone as well as essential calluse.

now you think you are going to get back to basics by going and pounding barefoot and overweight on concrete?

again, how stupid can you be?

i can see if someone lived in the woods or in some other natural environment and all they did was walk dirt trails for a few years and then started running in that same environment, you may become totally resilient to the typical running injuries, but short of this it aint gonna happen for you.

and the stupid feet gloves aint the mystery cure

Not nearly as stupid as you appear narrow minded.Good things are happening to a lot of people who are experimenting with barefoot running, including the vastly entertaining humor on this message board.Cheer up.

Has anyone seen pictures of the sandles that the Tarahumara run in? In the few pictures that I have seen, the rubber actually looks rather thick. It appears to me that this type of footwear offers much more protection from roots and rocks than everyone assumes. For all of the Born to Run fans (which I am one), keep in mind that they are not even running barefoot, and what they do run in might offer more protection than most racing flats and certainly more than the five fingers.

Anything but narrow minded. It's exactly the total truth about this Barefoot running thing. Barefoot running is just a fad, just like women not wearing bras. Support is needed.

november5 wrote:

Has anyone seen pictures of the sandles that the Tarahumara run in? In the few pictures that I have seen, the rubber actually looks rather thick. It appears to me that this type of footwear offers much more protection from roots and rocks than everyone assumes. For all of the Born to Run fans (which I am one), keep in mind that they are not even running barefoot, and what they do run in might offer more protection than most racing flats and certainly more than the five fingers.

Which parts of a normal foot "need support".

How about this wrote:

The poster that said barefoot running isn't for everybody...do you mean some people do not have the same foot structure we evolved with? The human foot is designed by nature to handle everything humans need to do on foot. If the human foot is not designed to run 80-140 miles per week, which I agree with, then you might want to reconsider why you're running 80-140 miles per week.

This is just a dumb statement, or rather, several dumb statements.

I don't doubt that the human body (including the foot) is designed, to a large extent, for running. However, there is a big difference between running in the historic sense (for transportation or hunting) and hammering out 120 miles a week with track intervals and structured workouts, and then hammering out 26 miles at race pace (or any distance race distance at race pace, really). Then add the type of terrain it's on, the pace, etc.

You seem to claim that there's no point in doing something that the foot/body isn't "designed for"; well, shit, racing is almost certainly one of those things, as well as most other sports and athletic pursuits. I suppose we should not bother doing those?

For the rest of us, who have some interest in pushing our personal physical boundaries, we might need something above and beyond that which we were born with.

That is the exact picture that I was thinking of. 3/8" of hard tire rubber. That is quite a bit of protection from whatever surface that you run on, and a world of difference from barefoot. The advantage of a running sandal like that is that it offers the ground protection while allowing the foot to function naturally. The cushioning, raised heel, and cramped toebox of minimalist running shoes today (racing flats) is entirely useless an on some level potentially harmful. IMO most everyone could transfer to something like the sandals or a similar "shoe" and rather quickly reap the biological and genetic advantages of the natural footstrike without compromising running speed. As soon as you go completely barefoot, you now have to deal with the issue of conditioning the skin of your foot which takes a considerable amount of time to do and will severely effect your speed while you are doing so. Though if speed is not an issue, and you want to run barefoot just to see if you can, then more power to you...I admire you for doing so.

I switched to VFFs because I have had runner's knee for years and any new supportive shoes never fixed the problem, nor did any amount of stretching. Once I put on the VFFs and went for a run I was fully prepared to start feeling pain in my knee. Didn't happen - I was pain-free for the first time in three years. It's been a couple months and it hasn't come back.

The only problem I see with the minimalist/barefoot approach is that people can push themselves too hard, too soon. As many have said, your feet are used to shoes and need gradual training to develope their capabilities. The bone density needs to increase, the tendons and ligaments need to reinforce their anchor points, and the muscles need to be strengthened.

Essentially you're building a biomechanical shoe which can outperform any running shoe out there. I hope many other people can experience this. I'm loving every minute of it.