I was reading Mens Health today and came across this article on the Tara Humara Indians. Well they went on this whole spiel about being barefoot and all its benefits. Well there was a blurb about the Nike Free and a quote from Alan Webb were he states his shoe size shrunk from a 12 to a 9 because his foot muscles became stronger and pulled his arches up, all due to barefoot/Free action. Is this shit real?
definitely not
Shoes hold the bones in your feet together. After going barefoot for a while, my feet increased quite a bit in size, because the bones had a chance to spread to their natural arrangement and the muscles between those bones to develop more fully.
In my experience ( full time barefoot), my feet have spread out more in the front area and my heel area has narrowed. My foot has gotton longer too.
I have also heard as the original poster stated that the foot tends to get smaller b/c of the strengthening of the muscles and tendons. I noticed after I started wearing the Free's for almost all my runs that on average I started wearing a .5 or full size smaller but this occured slowly after about a year.
I had something very similar happen from wearing the frees. I now wear 11.5 instead of 12. Interesting.
Van wrote:
( full time barefoot)
Van, what does that mean? You never wear shoes? Or just never wear shoes to run? Only wear the Nike Frees?
Just curious...
Perfect commercial for Adidas. A Nike Free guy v. an adidas shoe and both are trying to pick up these two hot girls but then they see how small the Nike Free guys feet are and they both end up hooking up with the adidas shoe guy.
Hold On Cowboy wrote:
Van wrote:( full time barefoot)
Van, what does that mean? ........ Only wear the Nike Frees?
Just curious...
How on earth would "full time barefoot" possibly mean he "only wears the Nike Frees" ??? Don't buy into the NikeFree bullshit about it being just like being barefoot. What a crock. It's a light flexible shoe, no more, no less. There are PLENTY of other shoes like that out there.
Your other questions were valid. Carry on.
I guess if you're feet are really slack and flat to start with, they may get smaller.
But mine (particularly my injured side) was tight and weak. Barefooting is making my feet spread more (length ways and width ways in forefoot), but i haven't had any dramatic changes in shoe size.
I never wear shoes to run.
This isn't the van townsend from Baylor then, is it?
I've never seen MY van run barefoot.
Van wrote:
In my experience ( full time barefoot), my feet have spread out more in the front area and my heel area has narrowed. My foot has gotton longer too.
This seems to characterize my feet. I can't wear a lot of my previous shoes cause they're too short and/or the forefoot is too small. A narrow forefoot is the only complaint I have with my Puma H's, but I offset it with 10-15% of my weekly mileage done barefoot (at least at the moment with the nice weather :)).
That is a mis-print. It is the size of your johnson that shrinks. Alan Webb went from 12 millimeters to 9 millimeters.
Ol' Alan, he's funny. We call him 'Millimeter Peter'.
I'm with you wrote:
How on earth would "full time barefoot" possibly mean he "only wears the Nike Frees" ???
Well, I was joking, but it doesn't appear that way I guess...
In my head it was funny.
I agree, I got a chuckle out of people bringing up the Nike Frees in this thread.
Van, where do you run? Streets? Trails?
Can you provide a little context, this interests me.
I started ruuning barefoot about 7 months ago.
I was at the track and started running on grass a little each week.
I then decided to hop onto the track a little bit.
I started throwing some road runs here and there and thats basically it.
Some observations:
Running barefoot is more economical for me.
My stride has shortened on easy runs.
My cadence is higher.
Hills are much easier.
My ankles are getting stronger.
I am now a forefoot striker as opposed to a heavy heel striker.
Overall running is more enjoyable.
Most impotantly: My feet are tan!
Again, you're not Van Townsend from Baylor are you?
no
hi I wanted to no about the shoeas thant your talking about the frees how much are they for and where can you get them.
I'm with you wrote:
How on earth would "full time barefoot" possibly mean he "only wears the Nike Frees" ???
The same way a "streaker" can have on a thong and pasties!!
I think there is some credibility to the claim that strengthened feet may also end up being smaller feet.
As a personal example, I am 5'8" but I wear size 7-7.5, down from 7.5-8 or even 8.5 before. That is after a few years of exclusively training in flats.