Ugly shoes or ugly feet, or does anybody care?

[66KingFisher]

As a follow up post to Kory's Ugly shoe post, I was asked to share some of the same info regarding barefooting and/or the ugly toe shoes that have hit the market recently. I first want to say that I'm NOT going thru some sort of midlife crisis....I swear.....I've just had my eyes opened to an area of my life I never gave any thought too, and thats those two things we walk on....Our feet.

My story starts in mid June of last year, when I was babysitting my 2 year old granddaughter one afternoon. We had been playing inside and were both in bare feet....(Something that was very unusual for me at that time)....She wanted to go outside and play in the yard so we did...eventually she took me by the finger and pointed down the street and said "Park, Papa....Park", and she begin to lead me down the sidewalk to the nearby city park. Trying to explain that we should go back in the house and put on shoes was going to fall on deaf ears, so I just went with the flow and we walked to the park in bare feet....Played for an hour or so and walked back home.

By the time that little gal and I had returned home my life had been changed forever....Simply by the sensations I had felt in the soles of my feet.....You see, at no time in my young or adult life have I ever walked anywhere outside without shoes on.....That just didn't happen in my world....Mother always put shoes on us kids and insisted we keep them on.......Who knew about all the sensations that I was missing because I couldn't feel them thru shoes?.....Imagine living your whole life with gloves on your hands and then one day going without them and realizing you've been missing all the sensations from everything you touch.....This is the same thing.

Anyway, after my eye opening walk to the park that afternoon, I decided to look up some info on barefoot walking on the internet, and I was quickly amazed at the information I found. It seemed there was this whole growing community of people that lived a barefoot lifestyle, and gave all the reasons why.....And for those times that shoes must be worn there was this new line of minimalist shoe design that was beginning to emerge, and the forerunner seemed to be the Vibram Five Finger running shoe, that affectionately took on the nic-name of the Toe shoes. Supposedly the closest thing to going barefoot, yet be wearing a shoe.

Since that time I've done a fair amount of research online about barefooting and about minimalist shoes.....and the reasoning behind the whole movement to get away from heavy, thick soled shoes such as the typical running shoe so many of us have worn, day in and day out, since that design became popular in the late 70's. Many of the facts posted about shoe design vs the biomechanics of the foot and they don't really work together seem to make perfect sense why most of us have lower back pain, and hip, knee or foot pain.....We have changed the way we walk as humans, due to the shoes we wear.

After close to 16 months of living a barefoot lifestyle I can only tell you how its changed my life.....And first and foremost was 35+ years of lower back pain that went away within a couple of months of going barefoot.....About 15 years worth of hip pain also went away.....My feet have gone from being so sensitive that I could bearly walk across dried grass, to being more like a soft leather and are tough enough to walk gravel roads without much trouble.....The blood circulation has increased and my toes have spread out and they have started to loose the square sides that had from being packed like sardines in a can.....I have used muscles in my legs I never knew I had....they are now stronger and my general balance has improved 1000%......You think I'm going back to wearing the typical shoe again??....Not a chance guys....never again.

Which brings us to the fact that while living a barefoot lifestyle might be the healthiest thing for us to do, the fact is our society frowns on barefeet in some public places and especially the work place, so thats its almost impossible to live life without shoes.....Hence the minimalist shoe, and the toe shoes come into play.....Ugly doesn't discribe them most of the time, but the fact is they are a better choice for footwear then what we've been wearing.....At this point I'm not going to get into the details of the shoes other then to post a few links below that will lead you to websites where you can do more research for yourself and come to your own conclusions.....But I do challenge you to look into barefooting or minimalist shoes if you suffer from lower back pain...hip,knee,ankle or foot pain....You might be surprised to find out the cure is as simple as taking your shoes off, and changing the way you walk.


A MUST READ article called "You walk wrong"......http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ Its about 6 pages, but very eye opening......Read it and see what conclusions you reach?

Another page full of great info regarding barefooting, and Toe shoes.
http://paleodietlifestyle.com/paleo-barefoot-lifestyle/

For more info about Vibram Five Finger shoes as well as reviews on other brands of minimalists shoes check out http://birthdayshoes.com/

And lastly, a couple of great sites for barefooting info...I highly recommend both. http://www.barefooters.org/ http://www.primalfootalliance.org/


OK, I'm off my soapbox....lol.....I hope some of you find the info helpful...at least,interesting and maybe even eye opening.....Better yet, I hope it helps at least one person, to find a cure for their aches and pains like I did.....Good reading and feel free to hollar at me with questions, comments or whatever on this subject.

[carolina-rig-01]

Thanks Michael! After wearing the toe shoes Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I am a firm believer. Today I had to work wearing my steel-toe Pumas and man the Puma steel-toes feel like junk. Not that comparing them to steel toed shoes is a fair comparison but the Puma version is very light and comfortable, or so I thought. In 3 days of wearing the Skeletoes I have started walking a little different, more on the balls of my feet likey our bodies were designed to do, and donning the steel toes today felt like crap. The one thing that Michael told me via pm that really made me open my eyes was about the common style of athletic shoes. Todays running or athletic shoes have thick soles with a lot of heel cushion (think Nike Shox or Reebok Zigtech) which encourages you to walk or run more on your heels because of the cushion they provide. Over time the cushion starts to lose its effect and at that point when we walk or run on our heels our back, hips, and knees take a pounding. When you walk more on the balls of your feet like is encouraged by a minimalist shoe you are protecting these parts of your body from this jarring punishment. In just a few days I can already tell that there is some weight to this theory, in fact after wearing my toe shoes in the store for 10 minutes my adidas running shoes felt heavy and akward to walk in.

[BigBassin144]

Thanks for the info! I've been reading the articles a little at a time between my classes. Very interesting so far.

BB

[basshunter21]

Originally Posted by 66KingFisher

.....Imagine living your whole life with gloves on your hands and then one day going without them and realizing you've been missing all the sensations from everything you touch.....This is the same thing.

.....We have changed the way we walk as humans, due to the shoes we wear.

After close to 16 months of living a barefoot lifestyle I can only tell you how its changed my life.....And first and foremost was 35+ years of lower back pain that went away within a couple of months of going barefoot.....About 15 years worth of hip pain also went away

You make a few very interesting points sir. I never thought about it like the glove thing, that makes so much sense. And with your comment on how shoes changes our mechanics walking makes so much sense to.

It just like how they say that sitting on the toilet doing your business harms your digestive system alot just because man wasnt made to do that, were made to squat. Theres prolly so many things like this that affect our health so much without realizing it.

Im glad I read this thanks

[66KingFisher]

Originally Posted by basshunter21

You make a few very interesting points sir. I never thought about it like the glove thing, that makes so much sense. And with your comment on how shoes changes our mechanics walking makes so much sense to.

Im glad I read this thanks

Until I started doing some research in this area, I had no idea the human foot has as many nerve endings on the soles of our feet as we do on the palms of our hands...To me that says we are designed to get equal sensory input from both, and when we wear thick soled shoes we suddenly kill half our input.....Same as wearing gloves......Fortunately we seem to only wear those for short periods of time, when we want some extra protection from something sharp, or hot or cold, but it takes away such a large portion from our sense of touch that we take them off as soon as we can....They are just a tool we use for that peticular task right?....There is no way you'd want to wear gloves all the time, yet thats what we are doing with our feet....Unfortunately most shoes don't have anything in common with a pair of gloves....If they did, they wouldn't be quite so bad for us.