Nike, Altra, Vivobarefoot, Lems, Xero Shoes, Splays … no shoes?!
Barefoot Professor at Liberty University
I’m not the most prominent popular or knowledgeable person but I have been living practicality for over a decade…
I remember putting on my first pair of red Vibram five fingers. They looked funny but I didn’t care. Walking felt weird. It’s really hard to get used to something between your toes. My toes wanted to rub together but cloth and rubber between them. It sort of hurts like being tickled constantly.
Over time I started to get used to that feeling and began to try new things other than just walking for short periods of time.
…The first time I ran in them I was fast! I could feel the ground and all my foot muscles working. I had a lot of control and I could stop, accelerate and cut left and right easily. I played for a couple hours by running, jumping, cutting or just walking around…
The next day I had overwhelming foot pain. If you’ve ever felt plantar fasciitis, you have a small starting point of what it felt like – then add a lot. So my toes, my plantar fascia, my ankles, my calf, my tibialis anterior (where you feel pain with shin splints) all hurt! Another way to feel it is to try running barefoot in the sand for a while… you’ll get it.
…I learned a lot from that experience. When others have that experience, that’s the time they stop wearing them. And for most people that may be appropriate…
Walking Barefoot is dangerous!
But for me that was exactly the reason that I was wearing them. I had proven myself that I had dramatic weakness in my feet and ankles. It was unexpected and I think that really spurred on the journey.
…In the next decade I progressed how often I wore similar with similar design features as these. For me, I think that’s the path that resolved some chronic back pain that I had been having. And from a physical therapy perspective, I can now make sense of the why! …
I want to make something clear, this is not for everyone. Is it for you?
