Another minimalist non-success story

Yeah, I was in a similar position as you. I didn't get injured, but my times just got worse.

this is the danger of blindly getting advice from the internet. some is good, like high mileage, but some advice is bad. looks like minimalism is one of the bad advises.

what shoes did you use?

I used the Brooks ST racer

Man, I'm in a worse situation than all of you combined. I told my coach that minimalism was good, and he suggested it to our varsity runners. All of them followed his advice, which was bad. Not only did my times stagnate, but over half of the varsity runners ran worse, and one of them got injured.

.......minimalism totally messed me up. My 2 mile PR's were:

Age PR

10 15:48

11 14:47

12 13:52

13 13:18

14 12:32

15 11:51

16 11:23

17 10:56

18 10:22

19 9:49

20 9:28

21 9:12

22 9:03

23 8:57

24 10:20

25 8:56 (so far)

What happened at age 24? I tried minimalism.

What happened at age 25? I ditched minimalism.

You're a bloody liar. No one has 2 mile Pr's from age 10, and no one has near perfect linear improvement except for one year. Not everyone's as foolishly gullible as you.

If you land on your heel, you need to fix that, it slows you down and injures you in lighter shoes.

If you land on you forefoot you can wear lower supporting shoes and reap the benifits.

im on 80mpw in flats, not even a niggle, just quick efficiant forefoot strides.

Actually, that is not exactly a perfectly linear improvement. A 6 second improvement is nowhere near to a 1 minute improvement. No one has 2 mile PR's from age 10? Well, 5 year olds have completed marathons, and my elementary school had a 2 mile run once a year for P.E. We were told to just finish the race for full points, but the teacher gave us our times in case we were curious. Although some of us had to walk the whole way, we all finished.

Anyway, I've never tried minimalism, but a few of my teammates have. None of them has gotten injured, but none of them has made a significant improvement either.

OK, here's the question I have for all of those tempted by "minimalism." Why, given all the things you could do to be faster that you *already know* will work, would you try minimalism? Shouldn't minimalism be maybe #26 on the list, behind such notables as upping one's miles, bettering one's diet, sleeping more, practicing proper technique (and I don't mean POSE stuff--I mean, staying relaxed, running hills properly, etc.), and learning to focus one's mind on racing (as is very well set out in _Running Within_)?

I am not surprised to see others had the same issues I did. I am surprised to see it took this long for the blowback.

I have said it before: NIKE's air pegasus circa 1987-9 was the best shoe for me. I never, repeat NEVER, got hurt. I heartily condemn them for ruining a great shoe. Not that anyone out there gives a flying (bleep).

I wish, I WISH, they would bring back that design. The new pegs are hollow mockeries.

i think part of the idea is that minimilism will allow you to train injury free. Which will subsequantly allow the other things you mentioned such as high mileage. Whether this is true or not is the subject of much debate but I think many (not all) try minimalism when they are desperate because of repeated injuries in standard trainers.

This doesn't seem this hard to me - everyone's different. If something works for you, good. It may not work for someone else. I don't see why everything has to be all one way, or all the other - some people may find minimalism works all the time, for some it may work in moderation, for some not at all.

Coming back from a serious injury this summer, I found I could only run barefoot without pain. So I did that for a while, and then obviously I did it too much, and my stride was still favoring one side, because I ended up fracturing the other foot. So I took time off for that, aand then started in very very minimal shoes which felt good for a while. Then I started gradually feeling like more support would be more comfortable, so I got slightly more shoe, and eventually I compromised into mainly wearing a reasonably lightweight shoe but with some support, sometimes running in very minimal shoes if my feet feel better in them (sometimes I put on shoes and it just feels like it's not working that day, and I wear something else, either less or more depending on how I feel), and the occasional day of some barefoot running for strength and balance, etc. This is what's working for me - and while I'll never go back to the orthotics which I feel caused my injury, I'm not comfortable doing large amounts of running without some degree of support either.

THe point is, I've found a combination of things that works for me. If orthotics work for someone else, then good. If all minimalism all the time works for another person, then good. I don't understand why it's everyone feels the need for everyone to be doing the exact same thing they are.

go mental pal wrote:

quick efficiant forefoot

"efficient"

Angry! wrote:

My advice - Don't fix something that works fine.

I'm in the same boat as you. I tried minimalism after reading so many compelling stories on Letsrun. I made the transition really slow (slower than what was recommened here) and injured my achilles after about 6 weeks. That was my first significant injury in 4 and half years of running.

I eventually reached the conclusion that its just not worth it to me. I run my once a week interval workouts in flats and my races, but that's it. Haven't been injured since. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I'm able to run consistently and get my workouts in, so I have no complaints.

I'm not saying that minimalism is bad in all cases, but I'm sure its not for everyone.

Also, in the world of Letsrun, so many people claim to run 140 mpw in flats and get 1200 miles on each pair. I find that most of the solid runners I encounter in real life run in a mixture of shoes (flats and trainers) and replace shoes more frequently than that.

You guys who try this are so stupid, I can't believe you are so dumb.

Why don't you run in rice paper wrapped around your toes?

I tore the soles off my Nike Daybreaks from 1980 and started to run in them. All I had on my feet were the sock liner, which I bought 50 on Ebay to replace periodically. I got 4000 miles on theses and I feel fine.

My 5K time improved from 27:10 to 21:45.

I think minimalism is the best.

You have to be careful -- I almsot ended up like you. just as I was starting to ramp up my running, my achilles became seriously irritated. So I put my Tiger Pwas away for 3 weeks and went back to the Burn. The achilles irritation subsided and I was able to go back to my Tiger Paws. Now I'm in my second pair of H Streets (after retiring the first pair after more than 1700 miles at which point I wore right through the rubber).

I tried it too...a slow transition, ended up with an achilles problem. Four months later, I'm back in my old shoes and about back to normal.

Please remember that trackhead is a 19 year old shoe clerk/student, not a biomechanics expert.