the benifits of five finger vibrams

Chances are you’ve just purchased your first pair of five finger vibrams or are considering getting a pair. They’re a lot of fun, and you’ll likely soon find yourself with a near permanent case of the ear-to-ear grin.

But this is a double-edged sword, because if anything,five finger vibrams are too much fun.

If you don’t learn to go slow in the beginning, sooner or later the perma-grin you’re experiencing may be replaced with a perma-ouch.

Running in FiveFingers feels so much like being a kid all over again. They’re just so much fun we can’t help but overdo ourselves. We go too far, and too fast, before our feet our ready, and then BLAMMO, we hit the dreaded ‘setback’.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. If you go slow, and let your skin be your guide(more on this in a minute) you’ll build the strongest, healthiest, happiest feet in the world, capable of mile after mile of near effortless enjoyment,fast and free in or out of your

But first, we need to wake things up slowly. Unfortunately, modern shoes have weakened our feet.

In short, our feet have been asleep for years, trapped in a dark, narrow constrictive boot that has shortened, weakened, and stiffened our muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and left our bones weak and brittle. We can build them incredibly strong and supple, but it takes time. If you do too much before they’re ready,you risk tend onitis, muscle tears, strained ligaments, or stress fractures.

To avoid all of this, you need to go slow, and consider tiny distances to begin with.

Let your skin be your guide

Over time, your Vibram Five Fingers can help you become the strong, efficient, healthy and fast runner you were born to be. But to transition safely, you need to first feel
the ground by going fully barefoot. If you take the time to feel the ground,build your feet, and develop your stride, you greatly diminish your chances of injury when it comes time to slipping on your five fingers

When you run fully barefoot, you learn to run incredibly light, because you can fully ‘feel’ the ground and your impact. Most importantly, when your skin gets raw and tender, you stop and head for home. There aren’t too many people out there who will push through raw skin or a blister, at least not on an easy training run.That’s why I always tell my runners, “Let your skin be your guide.”

When you let your skin be your guide, you protect everything underneath the skin. The challenge with Vibram Five Fingers Sprint shoes are not that your skin get sraw, it’s that it doesn’t. You also don’t feel the cumulative damage you’re doing to weakened parts on the inside of your foot. First off, your muscles are still asleep, and aren’t used to the new stride yet. Second, even if the muscles are ready, the tendons that attach the muscles to the bones are still asleep. Third, EVEN if the muscles and tendons are ready, your bones haven’t grown beefier to handle the muscles and tendons pulling at their attachment points. You also haven’t developed the flexibility for the foot to handle afull range of motion, stride after stride, mile after mile. And last, you haven’t developed the ‘padding’ in your foot, to help naturally cushion the impact.

Add all of this up, and you’ll find if you do too much too quickly, you’ll soon tear your feet apar

If you buy five finger vibrams,have fun exploring in them. Just don’t go running too far in them just yet.Instead, invest in your future with a month or two of barefoot running first.Consider this foot conditioning — or boot camp for your feet — to wake them back up and help them get strong. So, before running far in your Vibrams, begin running fully barefoot, and let your skin be your guide.

But I feel great in my five finger sprint Black-Black Men Shoes

Even if you think all is good, it’s likely not the case. Our bodies follow the use-it or lose-it principle and the principle of ‘specificity.’ This means if we use something we get stronger, if not, it goes away. And it means if we’re used to a specific movement, we get stronger for it, and if not, we lose the ability (at least in the short run) to perform that specific movement. These two principles dramatically affect our feet and the transition into Vibram fivefingers shoes and barefoot-running.