Latest Vibram Five Fingers Reviews 2/21/10

This week’s latest Vibram Five Fingers reviews:

• Feet, the way God intended them at MyNeChimKi [ Sprint, Performa, and Classic ]:
  

  Revolutionary Moment #2 came just the other night when I started my C25K program. Of course, I’ve done tons of reading that says that when you run in barefoot technology shoes that you naturally revert to the rolling motion that your foot should do, rather than striking on your heel. But I’ve been running (or trying to run since I’ve never really succeeded before) for nearly 30 years now. Heel-Toe is just the way it’s done, right?

  Wrong.

  Not in the Vibrams. Suddenly, I was running in a natural gait that felt wonderful. It wasn’t jarring, it didn’t feel like I was going to shake my head loose and my feet felt awesome! I truly never want to run in any other shoes ever again. Never never never again.

• Running: Not so bad after all at Adventure Insider [ KSO ]:
  

  My run times (for the 1.5 mile fitness test that I’m required to take) have dropped by an average of 30 seconds over the last few months. Beyond that, while I’m still not a HUGE fan of running (you won’t see me in any marathons), with the Five Fingers I almost look forward to it. What’s more, I’ve not had to wear a knee brace at all since I’ve been using these shoes. Since running is more efficient and less jarring, the impact is less intense and my knees are very thankful for that. In fact, there have been times that my knees have hurt (from wearing dress shoes at work) when I began running, but stop hurting after running for a few minutes in the Five Fingers. I’m not sure if this is typical, but it sure has me sold! I’m considering buying a set of KSO Treks for light hiking this summer. I’ll let you know how that works out.

• Primal Feet Update: Biomechanics of Barefooting and My Results So Far at Primal Wisdom [ Model uncertain ]:
  

  So far I consider this experiment positive. I will keep wearing the Five Fingers as my primary footwear for the foreseeable future. I have in the past three weeks (since starting the experiment) worn my New Balance walking shoes only a couple of times. Before wearing Five Fingers I didn’t notice that the New Balance shoes confine the front of my foot and feel uncomfortable, compared to the Five Fingers. Now I prefer the Five Fingers even to my Birkenstocks, which have a pretty wide forefoot bed compared to other shoes. I’ll update my report as time passes.

You can find last week’s latest Vibram Five Fingers reviews here.