From your description it sounds like the Nike Free is designed like a “reef walker” type shoe. Some of the posters on the letsrun.com board have talked about running in some variety of Teva shoe that costs like $25. Is Nike really marketing the Free as a running shoe?
That’s what I thought when I first read the description. But when I tried on the samples the Free turned out to be very different. The sole of the shoe is about as thick as a lightweight performance trainer like the Gel Trainer or the Precision. But it’s cut front to back and size to side so the sole has no “structure” laterally. A reef shoe is basically just a piece of rubber under your foot. The Free is much more engineered to provide no structure at all. The story is that it was designed with the help of the track & field coach from Stanford, but I don’t know how true that is.
I have to say, Nike does some things that I can’t get behind, but the Free is a very good concept, and the samples I tried on were well executed. It’s a great shoe for someone who wants to develop their form by running barefoot and developing the muscles we’ve evolves to use for the past 2 million years.
Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY
In shoes: we used to start each fitting by watching people run barefoot. Problem is, people run correctly when they run barefoot – that is, they tend to land first on the ball of their feet. Put shoes on that same person, and 90% of the time they hit with their heel first. I need to see how you land when you’re in shoes, because that’s how you’ll be doing most of your running. Most people who land on their heel do it because they instinctively “reach” forward with their foot to increase their stride length. The cushioning in the heel of the shoe lets them get away with it. But try it barefoot sometime on a hardwood floor and see how much that hurts.
lee, great responses. something else to consider- the cushioning in the heel not only allows them to get away with landing on the heel it can force them to do it. if the heel is artificailly high it’s going to land sooner than your body wants it to. the whole foot strike is happening pretty fast and if that wedge wasn’t hitting the ground so soon your foot would be slightly more forward by the time you made contact. once again changing what the body really wants to do.
“In shoes: we used to start each fitting by watching people run barefoot. Problem is, people run correctly when they run barefoot – that is, they tend to land first on the ball of their feet. Put shoes on that same person, and 90% of the time they hit with their heel first.”
The reason people hit there heel first with the modern shoes of the world today is the hel is so thick and heavy, when you are bare foot or in a racing flat you are less apt tp dp this, especially if you are concentrating on technique.
This is a really informative post. Question for you though. I have extremely flat feet, ie my entire arch contacts the ground when I walk barefoot, and I think I have a flexible arch. How would I determine if my arch is flexible when I run? I don’t have a local shop that I would choose to go to in order to check this out, so if you have something I could do on my own to check it out, that would be ideal.
The podiatrist that I spoke with said it does not matter what type of arch you have, one should be in a shoe that closely resembles nothing i.e. a racing flat.
Last year I trained a fair bit in racing flats (DS racers and Magic racers) or lightweight trainers (DS trainers) at most. This year I started off in Kayano’s, and had some injury issues. Really i want to some info on how light / flexible to go. Running in Magic racers, which are considerably more flexible than the DS Racers, I could feel the tension in the muscles / tendons whatever in the bottom of my foot, I don’t know if that is a good thing or if that indicates further problems or different injuries down the road.
i don’t think the flat foot/flexible foot issue is really as easy to comment on in a discussion forum as say a bikefit picture would be. there are so many variables that come into play when you actually run. the question i’d ask if i were you is are you injury free? if you are not having any real problems in your current shoes i’d say don’t worry about it, but you may want to consider experimenting with less shoe to see if you can run more “naturally” what ever that is. like lee said, i’d do my experimenting on a track or grass very gradually to see how it feels. expect some calf and achilles soreness if you’ve been wearing mc/stability shoes for years. and for god sakes, i’m not a doctor and this is the internet. natural could be very different for you and an elite kenyan runner.
the cushioning in the heel not only allows them to get away with landing on the heel it can force them to do it. if the heel is artificailly high it’s going to land sooner than your body wants it to.
Cat VI – I mostly agree with you, particularly for the higher heeled shoes like the Pegasus or Creation. However the people I see who are reaching with their leg are coming down on their heel hard, with their knee straight. Their forward momentum is carrying them forward, so they roll over their foot then pull back to propel themselves forward. I know this because we have still-frame video anaylsis system and I can see their knee come out to almost locked when their heel hits. The heel strike is usually in front of the knee, which is in front of the hip and hence in front of the center of gravity.
People who run correctly never straighten their leg. They plant their foot directly below them, and their leg is flexed the entire time. They absorb the shock of landing in their calf and their quad because their leg is bent, not rigid. For those people, if the heel is too high they’ll plant their whole foot at once, not their heel first.
Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY
Thanks. I’ve always had issues with shin / calf soreness, regardless of the type of shoes. Last year it was a bit better, possibly because I was training in racing flats / lightweight trainers. This year was horrendous, after I started using Kayano’s again, but I haven’t tried running in several months.
I might start back again soon, with the flats to see how it feels.
as for what i run in- magic racers or zoom waffle racers. with the toes boxes cut open with a razor blade to let my little piggies run freeeee. i’ve never felt better running.
My wife has a terrible time finding shoes with a high enough toe box for her hammertoes. I guess this would be worth a try for her. Can you describe in more detail how you did this?
You will not get durability from a racing flat…I would think less than 100miles before the cushioning system gives. But durability is not a concern of mine when it comes to what I wear for running. Check out this site: www.runningbarefoot.com. I first saw Ken Saxton run in a 10 mile trail race where I live about 5 years ago. Its a great site to post questions for this topic. I also found this article a while back, if you’re looking for any studies on running barefoot in relation to injuries:
I began training in flats about 4 years ago. Some guys on my running team joked that I was showing up to race every morning for practice. This was not the case----it was a paradigm shift. My focus in training had shifted from heart rate and time to running economy and biomechanics. I was more concerned with stride/min. and form than pace or distance.
Based on my experience, the most important contribution by training in flats is biofeedback. How would your form change if ran barefoot? It shouldn’t change when you have shoes on. Coupled with core training and some imagery, training in flats could give you a break through in your running.
I do not believe that training in flats will alleviate your current running related or magically transform you into a biomechanically efficient runner. Running with heavy trainers limits your biofeedback and for some runners, this will limit your performance.
Last year I trained a fair bit in racing flats (DS racers and Magic racers) or lightweight trainers (DS trainers) at most. This year I started off in Kayano’s, and had some injury issues. Really i want to some info on how light / flexible to go. Running in Magic racers, which are considerably more flexible than the DS Racers, I could feel the tension in the muscles / tendons whatever in the bottom of my foot, I don’t know if that is a good thing or if that indicates further problems or different injuries down the road.
Shoe fitting and bike fitting are very similiar in that they have to be done in person. I’m sure Tom D. would agree that any comment about someone’s bike position is meaningless if they haven’t measured your flexibility, strength, limb length, etc. (Although you can be obviously wrong on a bike more easily than you can be obviously wrong in shoes.)
Based on what you said in a previous post about your arch coming down to the ground when you walk, it’s interesting that you had injury issues in a shoe like the Kayano, and having less problems in a lightweight trainer. Without seeing you run it’s really hard to say anything. But (yeah I know this is going to sound really obvious) if the Gel Trainers are working well and the Kayanos aren’t, go with the Gel Trainers. You could also experiment with a less neutral shoe like the Cumulus or the Nimbus. But you’d be doing your analysis based on “ok, this shoe hurts my knees, this shoe doesn’t” kind of approach. Even with everything I’ve been saying, that’s not a bad approach if you’re willing to acknowledge the pain and not try to “get used to it.”
Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY
The barefoot concept is interesting. However, I do many of my runs on a dirt/gravel trail and I hesitate to think what would happen to my feet. I’d just a flat with a more durable sole for training runs. Instead I end up using a cushioned shoe (Nike Pegasus) because it has a very durable sole. I don’t really need all the cushioning, just the durability.
Last year I trained a fair bit in racing flats (DS racers and Magic racers) or lightweight trainers (DS trainers) at most. This year I started off in Kayano’s, and had some injury issues. Really i want to some info on how light / flexible to go. Running in Magic racers, which are considerably more flexible than the DS Racers, I could feel the tension in the muscles / tendons whatever in the bottom of my foot, I don’t know if that is a good thing or if that indicates further problems or different injuries down the road.
jasonk, i can only tell you my experience going with minimal shoes- i operate in a small town and so far it’s just me willing to really push the envelope past say the ds trainer on running with minimal shoes. so i have very limited feed back. i went from very cushioned thick shoes to the magic racers and then the zoom waffle racers. i too, have experienced some tension in the arch of my foot when i really ramp up the training. if i back off it goes away at once so i’m attributing it to fatigue and not giving my body time to adjust. long term? who knows. maybe we will be having a thread in years to come about how the nike “free” shoe ruined my foot. i just don’t think this is the case because so many of my other foot problems have gone away. i’ve battled plantar fasciaitis for years and tried everything short of a cortisone shot or surgery. nothing worked until i moved to minimal shoes and actually started walking around my house barefoot more often. i have a rigid foot so i attribute my success to getting my achilles and calf stretched back out to mormal meaning they pull less on the plantar fascia. a flexible foot to my knowledge pulls on the planter fascia if it overpronates so minimal shoes may mean taking time to develop strength again to let your body do its own thing support wise. i’m just speculating here. it’s just the customers i get from foot docs here are all just having symptoms covered by shots, orthotics, surgery and never really trying to get to any real causes. i like working with customers who are seeing pt’s- they are trying to address ways to solve problems without altering the body mechanically. just my opinions. it is nice to hear that there are some foot docs out there questioning these things. oh yeah, if the kayano’s caused problems why use them? just carefully experiment with less and less shoe.
Let’s just be honest. Barefoot marathon running, like scaling the Sears Tower in Chicago, although done by a few people, is not for the common man.
I would go further and hesitate to think what would happen to my feet if I merely ran down to the end of my block, barefooted, on a flat, concrete, street path.
It would take years to develop the needed callouses that guy in that picture above has to cheerily run over debris, without skin infections, and daily trips to the ER room. In any given mile in America, we have minute shards of glass, small needle like rocks, pebbles, beer can tabs, sharp sticks, brush, spit, vomit, dead bird appendages, sticky spilled gooes of all kinds, auotmotive and industrial oils, poisons, treble hook fishing lures, children’s plastic necklaces, all thrown willy nilly out the car windows into the streets.
