There have been several threads recently about barefoot running in general and the Nike Free 5.0 in particular. Instead of posting in all those threads, I decided to start a new one to share my thoughts on the matter. Note from the outset that JackRabbit Sports is a Nike Authorized dealer under the Running Specialty store program, and we sell Nike shoes, apparel, and accessories. We do not accept any advertising or coop money from any of our vendors for shoes.
The general consensus among the running community is that the Free 5.0 does not really mimic running barefoot. Feedback from most people is that it definetly is flexible, and that the feel in the forefoot might be a little like being barefoot, but there’s an awful lot of material under the heel and there’s a little bit of arch support in the shoe (depends which insert you use). For those reasons, most people say that the Free 5.0 doesn’t mimic running barefoot.
I agree with those assessments – I don’t think that the shoe truly mimics running barefoot. For example, it is really forgiving to heel strikers, and your bare feet are not. However, Nike’s engineers are not to blame – in fact, I think they have done a VERY good job with the shoe, as I’ll explain below. Nike’s marketing is not to blame either – I think they’re doing a very good job introducting a completely new concept to a large population. In fact, in a very subtle way Nike says the same thing. The moniker “5.0” is supposed to designate that the shoe is halfway between a normal trainer (10.0) and actually being barefoot (1.0). That’s why the second insert that comes with the shoe is designated “4.5” – it’s supposed to be closer to the barefoot feel.
In my view, the Free 5.0 is designed as a tool to strengthen your feet. It is a shoe that provides very little suppport, which forces the wearer to use the stabilizing muscles in their lower leg that typically go underused, which in turn develops better form and economy. From a marketing perspective, this is a very complex concept – it is much easier to just say that the shoe mimics running barefoot.
From an engineering perspective, I personally think (with absolutely no inside knowledge to back this up) that Nike’s engineers realized that a lot of people were going to try the Free, even though they really need some support from their shoes. I know when we sell a pair it’s with a lot of caveats about not running long distances in it. Other retailers I’ve spoken to joke that they practically make customers sign a waiver before buying them. So I think Nike built up the heel in the shoe to accomodate rearfoot strikers (90% of the US market) and added a little bit of stability in the form of arch support. As a result, a lot more people can wear the Free 5.0 without really hurting themselves – but when I say “a lot” I mean a very miniscule sized market by Nike’s standards.
So I don’t put any fault on Nike’s engineering – I think they’ve done a great job designing a “barefoot” shoe for the mass market, which by necessity means that it’s not truly a barefoot shoe. And their marketing folks have done a good job introducing the concept of barefoot running to a large market. Keep in mind that companies like Nike have made a lot of money selling technology after technology for your feet (think “Air” and “Shox”), so to market a concept that basically says “rely on your body not on technology” is a move that must have created a lot of internal strife. As a first step towards a different philosophy of building and marketing footwear for runners, the Free 5.0 is a very, very positive move. It’ll be very interesting to watch this market evolve.
Part of the reason I say all this is that Nike also designed a shoe called the Free 4.0, which was originally slated for release this summer but has been delayed. I was able to buy a set of Free 4.0 samples from my sales rep and have been wearing them off and on for a few months. The Free 4.0 is a LOT closer to being barefoot than the 5.0. It has much thinner padding underneath the foot, especially in the heel. It doesn’t have laces, so the upper can really hug your foot. Some engineer at Nike is going to cringe when s/he reads this, but they feel like a REALLY comfortable pair of aquasocks. The Free 4.0 really does feel like you’re barefoot, which makes me believe that the engineers knew in advance that the 5.0 would not really feel like you’re truly barefoot.
I also think Nike realized that if they released the 4.0, a lot of people would wear it and get injured. I know that I overpronate more in the 4.0 than I do in the 5.0. I say this because the colors and patterns that were being offered in the catalog were absolutely hideous. There was a bright yellow that doesn’t match any article of clothing you would ever buy, a grey that looked like chain mail, and a couple of other colors. In contrast to the 5.0, which has some absolutely gorgeous color schemes (and custom colors through the Nike iD program), the 4.0 came in colors that only a real runner would dare to wear. Its almost as though they consciously didn’t want the casual customer to buy the 4.0. Someone in the finance department probably took a look at the business model for the 4.0 and decided, rightly so, that they wouldn’t sell enough of them and cancelled it. The article in the Times mentioned the 4.0 and Nike never lets that kind of thing happen casually, so my guess is that we’ll see the 4.0 this coming spring. I haven’t seen the spring line yet, though, so I have no more information than anyone else.
That’s my two cents; I’d love to hear other impressions.
Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
Park Slope, Brooklyn
Stay at your aerobic pace, and go much shorter than you would for even a casual run. I would say no more than twice a week for most runners. After 2-3 weeks if that’s working OK then build up distance, but very slowly. Every single person who tries this gets very excited after the first 3 weeks and goes and does a blowout run and ruins their calves. If you can be more disciplined than the rest of us, you’ll be fine. If not, in all likelihood you’ll develop some of the same injuries the rest of us have gotten from being overenthusiastic and you’ll have to back off.