Naked Treadmill

Been using the Vibram FFs at the gym for the past week. Sure, they get the occasional odd looks (or at least I think so; I don't wear my glasses during workouts, so most things are an impressionistic blur), but that's the price you pay for being cutting edge.

I really like how the FFs work during abs workouts. When you have to do pushups or a front bridge, your toes actually grip the floor, instead of what little flex you get in a pair of running shoes. And I feel lighter on my feet. One guy came over to me after the workout and says he loves to use his for yoga.

Also tried them on the treadmill a few times this week. About a mile, mile and a half each time. After about 5 minutes, I can feel my calves working in whole new ways, because the toes are actually doing some work, and the foot is landing like it was meant to. After closer to ten minutes, my hip starts to twinge. I can feel that my entire leg is getting work it has not previously gotten with my feet coddled in arch supporting casts.

Looking forward to getting outside again. But the two feet of snow we got this week means that won't be happening soon...

Meanwhile, came across a great article in the NYT from last summer, summarizing the "raging debate" over shoes v. barefoot running, or the $17 bn a year industry v. "the fringe."

Dr. Craig Richards, a researcher at the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle in Australia — and, it should be noted, a designer of minimalist shoes — surveyed the published literature and could not find a single clinical study showing that cushioned or corrective running shoes prevented injury or improved performance. 

And yet:

Other experts say that there is little research showing that the minimalist approach is any better, and some say it can be flat-out dangerous.

In 95 percent of the population or higher, running barefoot will land you in my office,” said Dr. Lewis G. Maharam, medical director for the New York Road Runners.

Probably the best upshot, from the "all things in moderation school," of which I am an avid student:

Many professionals agree that while barefoot running may have some benefits, those who are tempted to try running barefoot — or nearly so — should proceed slowly, as they should with any other significant change to their running habits.

Vibram Five Fingers - Day 1

Just back from first outdoor run in the Vibram Five Fingers. Two toes up for the first run...

The thermometer read 41 this noon, so I decided to take these things for their first test run. The high school track is still snowed under, but the bike path is free, so I did a short, 1.5 mile run. Everything I have read about running barefoot or in Vibrams is that you need to take it slow and easy, build up your foot strength, work on altering your stride and form. So I am going to treat this as if I was starting up running again, and add miles and time very slowly.

It felt good to run again, though I can tell it is going to take some time to develop a new, shorter stride that has me landing more naturally on the balls of my feet, instead of the heels. Toward the end of the run, it felt as if I was jamming my toes into the VFFs from forcing a landing on my balls. But I think that will ease up as I learn to glide instead of clomp...

My feet felt very well protected from the asphalt, yet I could still feel larger pebbles and stones and Vermont's ubiquitous frost cracks and heaves - but not in a painful way. In fact, it was actually kind of nice. It made my feet work, making me more aware that they too were participating in this enterprise, not just my lungs and legs.

I am using the Classic model, and am wishing I had gotten one of the other models that has covering for the top of the feet, plus the velcro straps. Because the thermometer was surely lying. It was not 40 out there. More like 30 with wind. Still, my feet did not get cold and, hell, I was only at it for 10-15 minutes (yes, I am that slow).

The best thing is that so far I am pain free. Yes, my feet feel a bit different. Like different muscles have been firing and been called upon to do things they were not called upon to do, coddled as they were in soft, padded running shoes. We'll give them a rest and see how they feel in a day.

Meanwhile, they say some snow may be on the way. I may have to resume this with running on a treadmill, hamster style...

Chris McDougall

Found this great PopSci interview with the author of Born to Run. Includes a nice video of his putting his feet where his mouth is. Best quote:

I have the idea that running shoes are based on a kind of cult idea -- that our feet are flawed and we need shoes to correct those flaws. The shoe companies are in the business of selling shoes. But there's no evidence from running shoe manufacturers that they're right. There's no scientific data that running shoes reduce injury.

Also, here is McDougall appearing on Jon Stewart.

No Shoes for You!

That's it. My new Asics last September did nothing to help the achilles tendonitis that struck last August.

Never had it before. Not even a twinge. Then, at the end of an easy 8 mile run, followed by some hill work, I was done. Could barely hobble home.

That was six months ago.

I have tried a few easy runs since then, but they always resulted in a couple of days of pain.

I have been patient. I have done countless calf raises, with and without weight. Through the winter, I have bored myself to tears on a cross trainer. On a stationary bike. But I can't seem to burn as many calories as I did running (though lately Mike R's "Killer Abs" courses at the gym have been great for the core). I have packed on 8 pounds and itch to run. But I can't.

And then today I finished Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. And it all gelled.

It's not me. It's not the hills. It's not the 8 mile run. It's the shoes.

McDougall goes in search of the world's most perfectly evolved runners, looking at what makes them tick. His quest was set in motion by his own running injury and his desire to answer a simple question: Why do my feet hurt?

Because they shouldn't. We are animals engineered to run. In fact, as McDougall shows (all to late in the book for my taste, but man does he tell a great story getting there; I can't recommend this book highly enough), what set us apart evolutionarily was in fact our ability to run, our need to run in order to survive and run down game. And we don't need any fancy shoes, any anti-pronation, stabilizers to keep doing what we have been doing since we became Homo erectus.

We've been running for 2 million years. Our feet have half the bones in our body and an incredibly strong and ingenious arch structure, engineered to carry us aloft, to help us fly across the Serengeti. But we let some bozos from Oregon (McDougall gives the skinny on them, aka Nike, too) tell us we need arch support and stabilization and heel padding and shock absorbing shoes.

No, we just need a little protection from the road and some way to regain the strength our feet have lost - atrophied and coddled in $100 trainers assembled by Asian slave laborers.

The running shoes we have seen to be so necessary may actually be causing many of our knee and heel and achilles and other foot problems, because they don't allow (demand!) that our feet adjust. They don't allow us to feel the road, to fire the nerve endings in our feet (there's a reason this is one of the most sensitive areas of our bodies!). They don't let us land as we should, naturally, on the balls of our feet instead of striking with our heels.

This also relates to the work of Nicholas Romanov, who I first read about in Runner's World a year or so ago. He and others seem to be on to something about the proper form of running, using gravity to work for you and striking on the balls of the feet. Romanov also wrote a book...

So there are two things that need to be done: (1) change your shoes (or just take them off and run barefoot); (2) change how you run.

Today I jumped online and ordered a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. [Check out the excellent video on their front page; the doctor interviewed is also discussed by McDougall in his book.] Just $75 direct from them, so about the same or less than a paid of new shoes. (They are also available through Amazon.)

On the second issue, I'm going to take it slow, trotting a few miles at a time, waiting for the snow to recede, trying to follow the general technique of Romanov and others, leaning into the run, hitting the balls of the feet instead of the heels, something we apparently do naturally if we take our shoes off.

And I am going to look for some exercises to restrengthen my flabby foot muscles.

I owe my prehistoric ancestors that much.