Running Barefoot

I get dozens of reports of people experiencing pain in the tops of the feet… Virtually every complaint is from someong trying to run “barefoot” while wearing minimalist footwear – and not to point fingers, but, specifically, and almost exclusively, Vibram Five-Fingers!

If the salesperson sold you this product, under the pretenses that they would help you transition to Running Barefoot, then take them back, NOW! And let them know that this product is only for people who have already learned how to run barefoot, gently, gracefully, and naturally… And be sure to write a letter to the manufacturer too…

Basically, you’re trying to do advanced algebra – rocket science, even – before you have learned simple arithmetic. Sure, 2+2=5 may only be a little bit wrong, but the error is multiplied when we start using those slightly wrong answers in advanced algebra and rocket science.

Likewise, you may be running a bit more gently than you did in your thickly cushioned running shoes, but you also don’t have the support of those thick running shoes. Now your feet have to do some real work. And, until you learn to run gently, and until your feet have developed some strength – and I’m not just talking about toughening the soles – the muscles, tendons, ligaments, even the bones in your feet have atrophied while held virtually motionless in shoe-prisons for years.

No minimalist footwear will teach you how to run barefoot. The purpose of the footwear is in fact, to block the feedback from your sole, the pain that tells us when we’re doing something wrong, so that we know when we need to make changes to our technique, and when it’s time to back off distances and speed, until we have had time to, first: learn how to run, and second: develop the necessary strength in our feet to run further and faster.

So, first of all, take off the footwear – even if only indoors, so that you can get the benefit of all those wonderfully sensitive nerves in the soles of your feet. There are more nerves in the soles of our feet, than anywhere else on our entire body! And, despite what some salesperson might have said, those nerves are not there to sell footwear

The reason we have all those nerves in, of all places, our soles, is to teach us, from the beginning (before we’re ready to start running fast and far), how to stand, walk, and eventually, run gently, gracefully, naturally… So, basically, because many people in our society, did not enjoy this advantage – one of the fundamental advantages which has helped make Kenyans, Ethiopians, Tarahamarans, etc., the best runners in the world – we have to re-start at the beginning, with baby steps, BARE baby steps… ‘cuz I ain’t never seen no baby born with shoes!

Read through the Beginning, and the How sections on this website, and start over again. Pretend like you don’t know anything about running, and that you understand that you certainly aren’t ready to run any distance or speed in minimalist shoes, until AFTER you have learned how to run comfortably barefoot…

Hint: note the parts about lifting the whole foot…