Weekly Weigh-in (Week 58)

Sunday yet again, and time for my weekly weigh-in post.

Well, this week has been one much like many others. The main difference was that some apartment hunting happened. But I also picked up something for my wife, and got directed at a few blog posts from feeds I read, that got me to thinking about a post for this week. So, here goes.

Take a look at your feet. What do they look like? I don't mean generally, they'll be foot shaped and all, but specifically right now. Do they look like feet or do they look like shoes? Those of you who know me at all can probably guess my answer to that question, they look like feet. For as long as I can recall I spend all the time that I'm at home, and usually at anyone else's as well, barefoot and loving it. It's comfortable, natural, and leaves me feeling lighter and more maneuverable than where I to be wearing shoes. These goals have impacted my choice of casual footwear at least as heavily. My feet developed a deep rich tan matching whatever my current sandals were. But recently that tan line has been changing, a trip to Disneyland helped with that.

What has brought about this change you might wonder, and to what. Well, a change in footwear of course. Around 8 months ago now I picked up a new pair of shoes from the REI that had just opened in Tucson. A pair of Black Vibram Fivefingers Classics. At the time I picked them up to use as running shoes, and that was pretty much their exclusive use for me until mid-January or so. They did very well at that and when it warms up enough that I get back out running in the mornings again they will resume being used for that if things continue as they are now. But last month I started wearing them as my wearing around shoes instead of the Birkenstocks I had been wearing. I don't regret this at all and I don't plan to go back.

Now, a lot of you will look at these and wonder how on earth anyone could wear those. They look ugly you might think, they can't possibly be comfortable, you'll hurt yourself if you run in them, they'll destroy your feet, ruin your arches, etc. Well, I can gladly report that I've found that, potential ugliness aside, after the first week or so there was no pain at all, and the other possible issues were also non-existent. The pain was something I fully expected, and it was much reduced as I had worked out most of the kinks in my stride during my running in them. If you look at most tennis shoes and various other types of footwear you'll likely find that there is a lot of padding in the heel of the shoe and that the insole has a very defined arch built in. These things have a couple of effects. The heel cushioning reduces the impact force of your heel hitting the ground first when you walk in an effort to minimize the amount by which you are damaging your leg joints and hip joints. The defined arch keeps your foot in an arched shape at all times rather than letting it flex downward over the course of your stride. Compare those behaviors to how you walk when you are barefoot, you land further toward the front of your foot (personally, I land on the balls of my feet but others seem to land with the ball and the heel at around the same time) and your arch flexes to absorb impact.

There have been a number of studies on human strides that I won't delve into too much here, though you will find links at the end of this post, but suffice to say that the more natural impact, and the lowest force applied to the joints, happens when you don't land on your heels. As to the arch, the human body is a funny thing about that. While you might think that you need arch support to keep your foot functioning properly, structurally speaking supporting an arch is the worst thing you can do for it. Support in the middle of the arch actually weakens it dramatically, which in the case of your foot means weakening the muscles and tendons in the area and limiting how well they can do their job. In this case that's a very important job. Your foot is built so that the arch acts like a spring, absorbing impact force and then letting it back out when you take your next step. Using this absorption in your arch your stride becomes more energy efficient and you can keep walking or running over a much larger distance.

The Vibrams, and other shoes like them, have almost no cushion on them at all, and minimal structure let alone arch support. This forces your stride into a mode that better mimics the barefoot behaviors, but has the benefit of that rubber sole keeping you from cutting yourself on the glass and rocks that are so often strewn about in our modern environment. I love these shoes and can tell you certainly that they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. They may seem expensive at first, but they are cheaper than the Birkenstocks I was wearing before and comparable to standard running shoes and various other high quality footwear, many of which are far less comfortable.

Speaking of comfort, here's a great example of that. I wore these shoes for 5 solid days of walking around Disneyland with minimal pain, certainly much less than I had the last time I was there for 3 days and had my Birks and a pair of sneakers, which is understandable when putting in that much mileage, even still I felt light on my feet to the point of jumping on and over random obstacles as we traversed the park. I got no fewer than 17 people asking me over the course of those 5 days about my shoes, most of whom had never seen them before, and a few of whom had considered them or just didn't think wearing them to the park was a feasible option. I even ran into one woman who also had the idea to wear hers to the park and we had a fun little chat about them with some other guests waiting near us. Shoes that are comfortable, and a conversation starter. Can't go wrong there. Plus, they are machine washable.

Well, having ditched the weight of my Birks in favor of the much lighter Vibrams has left me feeling lighter on my feet, but has it left me lighter elsewhere? Probably not, but let's see what the scale says about it. 199.5 this week, down .1 from last week. Weight staying fairly steady as is to be expected. Well, that's it for this week, until next week, go out and be the you you've always wanted to be.

P.S. For those of you wondering what it was that I got for my wife it was a pair of the Vibram Jaya's in the Black/Grey color. My only complaint from what I've heard about them so far is that they don't come in sizes big enough I could wear them.

Consolidated research on barefoot walking/running:
Unshod.org Research Page
Harvard's Barefoot Running page - amazingly comprehensive guide to what I'm talking about here
New York Magazine Article on Barefooting