These shoes are apparently designed around the idea that wearing normal trainers impede our natural abilities to run and returning to barefoot running is the purest kind of running ... Human babies are born without shoes. Walking in Vibram Five Fingers promotes the usage of muscles in the foot/leg normally under-utilized. I chatted a little on-line about these with runners. There is a school of thoughts that swears by them. They do take some time to get used to and should be worn for shorter distances when transitioning to them, in the one to three mile range. I was recommended to use them on short runs less than a mile and on the treadmill first ...
Even as one may think the argument that one is born without shoes makes sense at first, the other school of though is that from the time we learn to walk we use shoes so that our bodies are conditioned to use trainers regardless. This argument seemed to be reinforced by what seemed to be an increase in running-related injuries in runners wearing Vibram Five Fingers, or even bare-foot runners in general. The question could be not so much as whether barefoot running causes injuries so much as whether the injuries from running are more prevalent in some individuals as the following article concludes:
I wanted to check some Vibram Five Fingers out at the Seattle Sports Expo. There weren't any on display, my guess because the expo was geared toward long distance running ... Still I can not, not be intrigued by the Vibrams. I think they could make for a nice pair of exercise shoes for the gym. But at a $100 price tag that makes for an expensive bargain so for now ... I satisfy my curiosity with writing about the Vibram Five Fingers and fantasizing what it is like to wear some ...
