Vibram 5 fingers , anyone tried them ?

barrymanilow

Curious about this shoe . Read the book born to run and the argument in it is that the bare human foot is the perfect running tool as nature intended and that wearing trainers is less efficient and causes injury . Does anyone use them ?

Enduro

I'm always fascinated that people read the purported benefits of minimalist barefoot style running instead of paying a fortune for overpriced over marketed running shoes, and find the solution to be a pair of shoes with far less features which costs a similar fortune.

My "barefoot" training shoes cost me a tenner in aldi, and don't look anywhere near as stupid as 5 fingers.

Also, be careful of going down the "barefoot" route. It works very well for some. Others get injured by trying to do too much too soon.

cjt156

Consider how many athletes you see competing and/or training in Vibrams.
And bear in mind that the company settled a lawsuit that alleged false claims about injury prevention. They set aside millions to offer refunds to anyone who bought their shoes (shoes?) since.

kal7

I advise and have seen shops that sell minimalist footwear tell people, to be careful of you calf/achilles because the sudden drop from possibly a 13mm heel to toe drop, to zero drop.

The muscle and more so tendons will need time to adapt. One hundred days is a rough estimate.

Don't transition during race season. I would say go to 5mm drop shoe then down to zero drop over a period of time.

Have seen a drop in the numbers of people trying these, over last few years.

I believe that run barefoot on safe grass area like middle of running track, (ie no glass etc to stand on) is a benefit for technique and this is why some coaches do it for say 10-20% of a run week.

As others say there is probably a good reason so few race in them.

Oafley Jones

I remember asking my physio about easing into bare feet running/vibrams and the like, and her response (which really surprised me) was "don't, unless you've been doing it since childhood"

BennyMul

I wanted to try them but was unwilling to hand out that money on something I was really unsure about, found someone who took the chance and didnt like them so bought them.

I loved the feel of them on my right foot, but they did not suit my left (little toe kept falling out of the sleeve or what ever you call it)
did not like them for running the feeling of "nothing" under you I was really uncomfortable with this feeling.
the wife hated the look of them

So basically used for grass cutting now which I love them for

absolutely horrendous looking items and allegedly they absolutely stink after a little bit of use.



also pretty much guaranteed to get you injured.

most people can go down to 6mm heel-to-toe-drop but going to 0mm takes adjustment and I'm not sure that there is any real benefit.

Chris McDougall has a lot to answer for

thehamo

barrymanilow wrote: »

Curious about this shoe . Read the book born to run and the argument in it is that the bare human foot is the perfect running tool as nature intended and that wearing trainers is less efficient and causes injury . Does anyone use them ?

Barefoot is the ideal, before we lobbed on 2 inches of cushioning to our feet from the age of 3. The common human foot as we know it isn't accustomed to barefoot running because of modern day footware and can easily lead to injury. I do a lot of activity barefoot, spend 60% of my day with no shoes on. But If I am to run I have to put on a cushioned shoe because I know the load will be too much with out it.

If you are hell bent on going barefoot, it needs to be done through slow and progressive exposure and being able to build up the load to tolerate iit.

I did experiment with zero drop shoes before (new balance minimus shoes, not with these abominations) but wasn't dedicated enough to put in the training to adjust - I'm not sure what the real benefit of it is really and then you would have to keep it up.

I found that going to 4mm drop was nothing but going from 4mm to 0mm was a killer on the achilles.

Did do a fair number of short runs but gave up eventually.

Still prefer lower drop shoes but don't see myself going back to zero

Let's be honest a whole lot of people got caught up in the "fad" to some extent at the time (including myself) as "Born to run" was an entertaining read but it has largely passed.

always thought the 5 fingers were laugh-out-loud shoewear though.

peter kern

Enduro wrote: »

I'm always fascinated that people read the purported benefits of minimalist barefoot style running instead of paying a fortune for overpriced over marketed running shoes, and find the solution to be a pair of shoes with far less features which costs a similar fortune.

My "barefoot" training shoes cost me a tenner in aldi, and don't look anywhere near as stupid as 5 fingers.

Also, be careful of going down the "barefoot" route. It works very well for some. Others get injured by trying to do too much too soon.

I quite often run in flip flops to the shop and pretend I'm Kenyan until I realise Kenyans don't buy haribo...

sconhome

barrymanilow wrote: »

Curious about this shoe . Read the book born to run and the argument in it is that the bare human foot is the perfect running tool as nature intended and that wearing trainers is less efficient and causes injury . Does anyone use them ?

I used to sell these damn things and the question I always asked people when I was asked about transitioning following their epiphany was "how often do you currently go barefoot?"

Very, very few people go barefoot (or socks) at home around the house, gardening etc. Think about how many people you've heard going in flip-flops for the first day of holidays and then being crippled for 3 days with tight calfs.

Yes, the book is interesting.
Yes, the science argument is as right as we know.
Yes, many people still pursued and tried transitioning.
Plenty got injured as not everyone can do training as expected and very, few are disciplined enough to take the advise and transition slowly.
I don't know anyone who still wears them though. At least in the last 5-7 years.

Running footwear is gone the other direction on the pendulum and minimalist stack heights are paired with max cushioning at the moment.

Valid point made too about the lawsuit.