1) Did you know there are 18 different types of “size 9″? Rather than pick just one of those and pre-make our sandals, the custom-made Invisible Shoes are, actually, custom-made for your unique foot. We use a tracing of your foot to make sure the length and width are correct for your specific foot — and if your feet are different sizes, you get sandals that match. We make sure that the toe and ankle holes are placed correctly based on the size and length of your toes and heel. With Invisible Shoes, you’re getting a product made just for you.

2) We use the 4mm Vibram Cherry sole material to give you the optimal barefoot feel, and for your convenience. Aside from really being able to connect with the ground with our soles, you can roll up Invisible Shoes and keep them in your pack or pocket — go out barefoot, and come back with some protection on your feet. The thicker 6mm sole in the Luna is quite rigid and over 60% heavier… add some glue and a leather upper and you’re further minimizing the minimalist feel.

3) We use soft, durable nylon/polypro laces that don’t stretch or contract when they get wet and dry out, unlike leather or hemp. Our laces are round, meaning that there are no edges to rub on your skin. Nylon/Polypro is a very strong material — I’m still using the original laces in my 12-month old huaraches that I wear every day — and after getting wet, nylon laces dry really fast. And with round laces, you don’t have to worry about “which side is up” or getting them twisted when you use the different tying styles (some of the clever tying variations people have developed require round laces. Plus, you can get our laces in a bunch of fun colors. And if you ever want to replace your laces or get other colors, they’re inexpensive.

4) Our product is “vegan friendly”. So is Ted’s basic Luna Sandal if you get the hemp laces instead of leather.

5) Luna Sandals have an optional leather footbed. Ted is making a fine product… some people like the leather upper — which takes some time to break in and adjust to your foot. We’ve heard from a couple customers who bought some leather and glue and added those to their Invisible Shoes for only a couple of dollars.

Hope that helps.

But this time, he’s got some extra fashion sense added:

Now, some of you may know that I’m a sprinter. In fact, I ran “long-distance” at a meet last week when I did my first 200m race (and, for the sake of bragging, even though I totally lost it at the end, my time of 25.7 ain’t bad for a 48 year old… I think I can get below 24 with a bit of work).

So, to read Jason’s great post about training for and running an ultra was just amazing to me.

Enjoy it here: Burning River 100 mile Endurance Race Report by Jason Robillard

Well, this video has some of my thoughts about the two.

Enjoy.

I usually point out to them that the Tarahumara are known for running ultra-marathons in huaraches, so, Yes.

But some people respond, “Sure, but I’m not a Tarahumara Indian.”

True (but not necessarily relevant).

So, how bout a hometown boy who just ran in his Invisible Shoes huaraches… for SIXTY-EIGHT MILES!

Here’s a picture from Barefoot Jason Robillard after his run:

Read the rest of the thread about his run at the Runners World Barefoot Running forum

Then you’ll enjoy the interview I was invited to do on Boomer Alley Radio’s
“Better Mousetrap” show.

You can hear it online on Saturday or Sunday:

Saturday July 10 7 pm Pacific Time streaming on kfwb.com and live on KFWB NEWS TALK 980 AM (Los Angeles)

Sunday July 11 4 pm Mountain Time streaming on radioconetwork.com and live on AM 1060 in Boulder/Denver metro

ENJOY!

-Steven

p.s. I’ll try to get a copy and put it up here after it airs.

And imagine that you got the idea that you wanted to bench press 500 pounds.

Would you go to the gym, put 500 pounds on the bar, and just go for it?

Of course not. There’s no way you could budge 500 on day one.

Would you go to the gym and put, say, 100 pounds on the bar and lift it, over and over, until you felt tired… and then do a few more reps until you were wasted?

I hope not.

Would you take a small weight, like 20 pounds, and lift it for an hour or two?

Boy, I wouldn’t.

But for some reason people think they can get into barefoot running with one of those plans.

They think they can just whip off their shoes and replace one of their regular runs with a barefoot run. Or, worse, they think that even if they haven’t run for a decade, it’ll be fine to go for a 5 mile barefoot run. Or they get out for a barefoot run, feel some strain or pain in their feet or calves and think, “Oh, I’ll just work through this, it’ll be fine.”

And they pay the price.

They wake up with freakishly sore calves or Achilles tendons. They get blisters. They get plantar faciitis. They get stress fractures.

Look, over-training is over-training. Doing too much is doing too much.

Especially with barefoot running, TAKE YOUR TIME. There’s no rush to get to the point where you’re running an ultramarathon every day for 1000 days in your bare feet. And there’s no way to rush building up the strength in your muscles and ligaments and tendons, or to develop correct and efficient form.

It happens as it happens. No sooner, no later.

How long that’ll be is a mystery. Maybe it only takes you a week or a month. Maybe it takes you a year.

Who cares?

First of all, it’s not all-or-nothing. It’s not like you won’t be able to be barefoot and then, BAM, 6 months from now you can! It’s a process. Maybe today you can only run 100 yards and then need to ice your feet for 3 days. That’s fine. In a month, guaranteed, you’ll be doing more. And a month after that, you’ll be doing even more.

Secondly, nobody is telling you to throw away your shoes the moment you realize you want to become a barefoot runner. Keep your shoes. Enjoy your shoes. And look forward to when you don’t want or need them.

But, please, give yourself time — the amount of time that YOU need — to make the transition.

Honestly, there’s enough to learn and experience and benefit from if all you ever do is an occasional 1 minute jog without shoes.

I hate to toss out “prescriptions for living,” but in this case I can’t think of any better way to say it than, “Enjoy the journey… because there isn’t really a goal.”

Here’s Al running across the Williamsburg Bridge (between Manhattan and Brooklyn) in his Invisible Shoes huaraches running sandals.

Says Al, “Invisible Shoes are the closest thing that I have seen to actual barefoot running. They’re based on the famous “huaraches” that the Tarahumara Indians wear when they run. Putting them on made me feel like a Native American warrior!”

Check out the complete review on Al’s blog (and sign up for his training tips while you’re there) at  http://www.alkavadlo.com/2010/05/invisible-shoes/

Al also emailed me to let me know, “I’ve found that the I-shoes are great for my strength training workouts as well as running.  Check out this youtube clip of me working on muscle-ups in my Invisible Shoes!”

Did they get it right, or not?

Well, overall, I’d say they were right on… with one exception I’ll mention in a moment.

• They repeatedly pointed out that there are no studies that prove barefoot running reduces injuries, nor are there studies that show running in shoes causes them.
• They emphasized that if you want to make the transition to barefoot, you should start slow — run for a short amount of time and distance (and build up slowly) to let your body learn to handle the new demands
• Chris McDougal repeatedly qualified his statements with “I believe…” And it’s true, those of us who have moved to barefoot have our anecdotal evidence that we use to support us.

What they missed:

• The point that Olympic athletes wear shoes is, in certain ways, irrelevant. Why? Because 99.9% of us are not Olympic athletes putting in the mileage they do, or running the speeds they do. And because if you look at their form, it’s closer to barefoot than your average heel-striking jogger.
• The Nike Free is far from being a “barefoot shoe.” Sure it flexes really well (and, full disclosure, I have 3 pair that I used to love wearing… but it’s been a year since I last put mine on), but it has a big, padded, wide heel.
• Ditto on the Vibram Five Fingers (I love how they pronounced it correctly — VEE-bram!). The VFFs have a lot more structure and support, plus a thickened sole on the ball of the foot and heel.

And, of course, the biggest thing they got wrong was right in front of their face! HUARACHES! They talked about the Tarahumara running in huaraches, but when they gave advice about protecting yourself from things you could step on (or in!) in our modern world, they neglected to mention huarache running sandals (let alone Invisible Shoes… even though they had some film of runners in I-shoes).

Ah, well… next time

Anyone else see the show? What did you think?

I LOVE that people are getting so creative with huaraches!

The latest comes from www.LivingBarefoot.info.

It’s an incredible comprehensive review, with great pictures of the process of making your own huarache running sandals from our kit.

Read and enjoy!

(and thanks to LivingBarefoot.info for the review!)

http://barefootjason.blogspot.com/2010/04/huaraches.html

We, of course, believe that with a bit more time in his huaraches, he’ll like them even more than he already does

Thanks, Jason!

Knowing how to make your own shoes — even making minimalist running shoes like Tarahumara-style huaraches — definitely gives you super powers.

Oh, I don’t mean the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound (or even two or three bounds), or the power to fly, or the fun of invisibility… instead, I’m talking about something much super-er:

The knowledge that you can make your own shoes!

If you haven’t yet made your own running sandals, you probably don’t know what I mean. You probably don’t get why I would say that being able to make some running sandals is a super power.

But, I assure you, that’s only because you haven’t done it yet.

After I made my first pair of huaraches, and was walking around in shoes that I MADE with my own 2 hands, I was overcome by a profound sense of self-reliance, a comforting knowledge, a feeling of value… just knowing that, if things get bad, I can make shoes for myself and others.

And in a way that I can’t explain, that knowledge felt like having a super power.

I don’t have to explain it to other people who’ve made their own barefoot running shoes; they’ve told me they have had a similar experience.

It’s like growing your own food… there’s something really comforting about knowing you can take care of one of your basic needs.

So, if you haven’t yet, I highly encourage you to see what I mean and develop the super power of making your own huaraches running sandals. And, honestly, I’m not just saying that because I’m in the biz… it’s such a fun feeling, I want you to have it yourself. (But, hey, if you just want me to increase my super powers and order custom-made huaraches, that’s okay with me )

Anyone else want to chime in about what it was like when you developed your super power?

Invisibleshoe.com Huaraches First Impressions and Kickoff to 100 Miler Training

I received my invisibleshoe.com huaraches yesyerday.  I have been communicating with Steven Sashen for a few months as I love supporting anyone that is contributing to the barefoot/minimalist shoe movement.  Steven started invisibleshoe.com to produce custom made huaraches and do-it-yourself huarache kits.  I’ll give more details about him in my full review in a few days.

The huaraches I received are made of 4mm Vibram Cherry rubber and polypropylene and nylon lace.  I chose neon pink for the lacing.  Why?  I thought it would be fun.  Based on the looks I got while on my run today, “fun” may be the wrong word.

My run today was a 10 miler on gravel roads… my most difficult test of a minimalist shoe.  The huaraches performed well.  I was surprised they worked as well as they did.  I will give much more detail in my full review, but Stevens huaraches have vaulted themselves to the upper echelon of my growing stable of minimalist shoes.

The run itself was the second of a 20 mile/10 mile back-to-back.  Yesterday’s 20 miler was at about ultra pace and went well.  Today’s run was more of a near-tempo run.  I managed to finish the 10 miles with a 7:42 pace (1:17 total time.)  Fitness for this early in the year is very good.  If I can maintain steady improvement, I should be in an excellnt position to finish well at Burning River at the end of July.

Flip-flops and sneakers with flexible soles are easier on the knees than clogs or even special walking shoes, a study by Rush University Medical Center has found. And that’s important, because loading on the knee joints is a key factor in the development of osteoarthritis.

The study has been published online in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

“Traditionally, footwear has been engineered to provide maximum support and comfort for the foot, with little attention paid to the biomechanical effects on the rest of the leg,” said Dr. Najia Shakoor, a rheumatologist at Rush and the primary author of the study. “But the shoes we wear have a substantial impact on the load on the knee joints, particularly when we walk.”

“Our study demonstrated that flat, flexible footwear significantly reduces the load on the knee joints compared with supportive, stable shoes with less flexible soles.”

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and a significant source of disability and impaired quality of life. A higher-than-normal load on the knees during walking is a hallmark of the disease, associated with both the severity of osteoarthritis and its progression.

Shakoor and her colleagues analyzed the gait of 31 patients with symptoms of osteoarthritis in the Rush Motion Analysis Lab while they walked barefoot and with four popular shoe types: Dansko clogs, which are often worn by healthcare professionals who have to be on their feet much of the day; Brooks Addiction stability shoes, which are prescribed for foot comfort and stability; Puma H-Street shoes, a flat athletic shoe with flexible soles; and flip-flops.

The loads on the knee joints differed significantly depending on the footwear. For the clogs and stability shoes, the loads on the knee joints were up to 15 percent greater than with the flat walking shoes, flip-flops or barefoot walking. Knee loading was roughly the same whether the subject wore flips-flops or walked barefoot.

“Currently, knee braces and wedged orthotic shoe inserts are used to relieve the load on the knee joints of patients with osteoarthritis, but everyday footwear is also a factor to consider. The results in our study demonstrate that the reduction in load achieved with different footwear, from 11 to 15 percent, is certainly comparable to reduction in load with braces and shoe inserts ,” Shakoor said.

According to Shakoor, several aspects of footwear affect the joint loading.

“Heel height is one factor, and may explain why the stability shoes and clogs in our study, both of which had higher heels, produced greater knee loads,” Shakoor said.

“Stiffness is also a factor. We’ve shown in earlier studies that barefoot walking is associated with lower knee loads than walking with conventional footwear. It may be that the flexible movement of the bare foot is mechanically advantageous. The natural flex of the foot when it contacts the ground probably attenuates the impact on the joint, compared to the artificial ‘stomping’ movement created by a stiff-soled shoe.”

In the present study, Shakoor said, flip-flops and the walking shoe were flat, flexible and lightweight and seemed to mimic the mechanics when walking with bare feet.

“Clogs and stability shoes, conventionally believed to provide appropriate cushioning and support, actually increased the loading on the knee joints, as opposed to shoes with less ‘support,’ flatter heels and more flexibility,” Shakoor said.

Shakoor cautioned, however, that knee loading is not the only consideration in any clinical recommendations based on her study.

“For the elderly and infirm individuals, flip-flops could contribute to falls because of their loose-fitting design. Factors like these need to be taken into account,” Shakoor said.

Other researchers at Rush involved in the study were Dr. Mondira Sengupta, Dr. Kharma Foucher, Markus Wimmer, PhD, Louis Fogg, PhD, and Dr. Joel Block. Funding was provided by a grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Source
Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois

Doesn’t the string between your toes hurt or cause blisters?

After crafting a number of long-winded answers, I finally realized the simplest one:

Remember, the Tarahumara Indians run in huaraches for hours and hours… sometimes for DAYS at a time.

Clearly, you couldn’t spend hours, or days,  in barefoot running sandals if they caused damage to your feet.

That said, it doesn’t mean you can just put on some Invisible Shoes and go for a 24 hour run without a problem.

In the same way that you wouldn’t wear a new pair of running shoes for the first time on a 20 mile run, you don’t want to wear your huaraches too much until you know you’ve adjusted to them.

And “adjusting to them” means:

• Finding the right tension in the lacing
• Adjusting your stride since you can’t land hard on your heel
• Remembering that wearing huaraches is a LOT like being barefoot, but with a surface that’s really comfortable

What allows the Tarahumara (or anyone who is comfortable in huaraches) to go for a long time without any issues is a combination of factors. Since I’m in the mood for a list, let me list them:

1. With proper barefoot running form, you don’t put a lot of horizontal force on the ground. You don’t “pull” with your feet the way you can do with running shoes, or even with something like flip-flops. So, you don’t create the kind of force that leads to friction and abrasion.
2. Since huaraches don’t offer the kind of padding that shoes or flip-flops or other sandals do, you’re less likely to overstride (whether you’re walking or running) and, again, you have less horizontal/abrasion-causing force. Oh, and you’re less likely to do it, because overstriding HURTS… so you quickly get the hint to CHANGE SOMETHING!

I’m sure I left something off the list… suffice it to say, there’s nothing inherent in huaraches that should cause you any pain. Like most things in life, the problems arise when we overdo it, don’t listen to the signals from our body, or choose to argue with reality instead of adjusting to it.

Remember, once you make your running sandals, send me pics and videos so I can feature you (and your bare feet) on the site!

Right click on the link below to save the PDF file to your computer:

Huarache Running Sandals Instructions – PDF

http://www.dailycamera.com/archivesearch/ci_14458238

There was no big argument when Zola Budd ran barefoot, or when Abebe Bikila won the marathon without shoes.

But once “regular folk” started kicking off their kicks, it’s become a rhetorical battlefield out there — the converts touting the great benefits of barefoot running, and the critics assuring everyone that taking off your running shoes is akin to playing Russian Roulette.

Then the Harvard study came out, showing that when you run barefoot, you adjust your stride to put less stress on your body. And, right on the heels of it (pun intended), came editorials about how running barefoot is the worst thing you could do… though, most of those editorials came from people who own or work for shoe companies or shoe sellers.

Just yesterday, someone forwarded me an email saying “Well, I’ve seen people who tried running barefoot and they got injured! I’ve seen people during marathons, sitting on the side of the road in their Vibram Five Fingers, crying in pain!” And right after, I got an email from an Invisible Shoes huaraches running sandal owner, raving about how old running injuries they used to have are gone now that they’re out of shoes.

Mark Plaatjes, world champion marathon runner, physical therapist, and co-owner of the Boulder Running Company, has said that he doesn’t think most people have the correct body type for running barefoot.

Road Runner Sports sent out an email saying, “Well, if you run barefoot, you could step on something and really screw yourself up!” (that’s not the actual quote, which I’m too lazy to look up, but the gist of what they warned).

What amazes me about this back and forth nonsense is how enraged the anti-barefoot gang is getting, and how they’ve thrown out not only their logic and critical thinking skills, but how they’ve ignored what every well-known barefoot running coach has advised.

So let’s address some of the issues, as quickly as possible (which isn’t hard, since the arguments are simple):

1. Barefoot running will give you plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, ingrown hair, or male-pattern balding (or any other injury). Response: Runners in SHOES get the same injuries! Thoes problems, when they occur are not from “barefoot running”, they’re from OVERUSE.If someone you knew when to the gym for the first time, and did the workout that Arnold Schwarzenegger used in his Mr. Olympia days, they’d end up with all manner of injuries, soreness and overall inability-to-move-for-days-ness. But nobody would scream from the rooftops, “Weight lifting is bad for you!” They would say, to that individual, “Dude, you did too much too soon. Scale WAY back and build up to that slowly.”

   Clearly, the cure for overuse is UNDERuse.  Do less. The only problem is that the only way to know how much you can really handle, is by doing too much… until you’ve done that enough and gotten the hint.

   I will concede though, that barefoot running form may have an overuse bias built into it, and that’s because the motion of absorbing shock is like doing “negatives” in the gym, doing more eccentric contractions of the muscle. With “negatives,” instead of contracting a muscle to move a weight, you try to resist as the weight pulls against you (think about a bench press in reverse — instead of pushing the weight from your  chest, you try to keep a heavy weight from dropping onto your chest). We are much stronger in the eccentric direction, and it doesn’t give the same kind of “burn” you get from the concentric movement… but the next day, you realize you’ve done WAY too much work. This is similar to why walking DOWN a mountain feels fine at the time, but the next day you realize — due to the massive soreness — that it was harder than walking UP the mountain.

   Nonetheless, it’s possible to get smart enough not to over train… just takes some practice.

2. Some people aren’t built to go barefoot. Response: Not only is there no evidence for this, but what the barefoot running coaches all say is that by running barefoot you develop the skills, strength, and form that allow you to run barefoot.Now, there’s not any real science behind that argument, YET, either (some researchers are working on it)… but, come on, which makes more sense: That someone is physically unable to run barefoot or in minimalist running shoes (the way humans have run for hundreds of thousands of years), but is absolutely fine in shoes… or that, due to lack of use, they may need to build up the strength before they can run barefoot.

   Besides, the only reason they would be okay in shoes and not barefoot, is because they’ve transferred the stress that the muscles and tendons and ligaments would have to deal with  if they were barefooted (and get stronger by doing so) into the bones and joints.

   Again, the message is, Go slowly! (seeing a pattern here?)

3. You could step on something or, worse, IN something! Response: Yeah, so?  But: a) How bad would it REALLY be?; b) How often is this REALLY a problem, or are you just imagining it happening without knowing the actual numbers?; c) Are these injuries worse than the various problems people have in shoes?; d) If you do step in poo… which is easier to hose off: your feet or a waffle-soled shoe?This argument, of course, cracks me up since I offer a solution on this website — get some huaraches barefoot running shoes and you’ll add a HUGE (but thin) layer of protection with a barefoot feel.

   By the way, I’m a bigger fan of huaraches rather than Vibram Five Fingers, or Nike Free, or the other minimalist running shoes not because I sell huaraches, but because huaraches feel more like barefoot. The VFFs actually have quite a bit of support, the Nike Free have a big thick heel, and anything with an upper that covers your toes… well, it covers your toes.

Finally, what cracks me up about the anti-barefoot gang is the simple denial of the numbers. That is, there are a LOT of people taking off their shoes without a problem. WAY MORE, it seems, than those who have any of the easy-to-solve overuse issues. You don’t end up with a movement like the barefoot running movement without a high percentage of happy converts. This alone should, but doesn’t, temper their argument.

And, again, the answer couldn’t be simpler: Oh, if you’re going to try barefoot running, you may need to go WAY slower than you thought, you’ll have to learn to listen to your body in a way you haven’t, you’ll need time to build up strength to let you handle the same distances you may now be running, and you may want to get something to give your sole a bit of protection. Enjoy.