Ben FrantzDale ([info]benfrantzdale) wrote,
@ 2009-05-07 21:16:00
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Entry tags:feet, vibram

Natural Feet
I've been aware of Vibram Five Fingers Shoes for a little while (thanks to [info]istar and others). I haven't tried them.

Tim Ferris had a very interesting post on the topic which cites a 1905 journal article about what natural human feet aught to look like:

as opposed to



Interesting.


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[info]mtbg
2009-05-08 01:36 am UTC (link)
Man, you sure do fail at closing your href quotes today.

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[info]benfrantzdale
2009-05-08 02:33 am UTC (link)
Thanks.

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[info]mtbg
2009-05-08 03:18 am UTC (link)
Previous post too.

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[info]bonboard
2009-05-08 02:47 am UTC (link)
I saw these on [info]patrissimo's livejournal the other week.

One issue I have with them is that, much like squat toilets, "organic" food, the paleo diet, and whatnot, the people proposing these ideas ("do things the way homo sapiens did them 10,000 years ago!") usually stand to profit financially, and the people who pay money for the objects that let you "return to nature" are especially susceptible to the placebo effect, for the same reason that $2 sugar pills are more effective than $1 sugar pills at treating every conceivable disease.

Now, since I'm not an orthopedist or an expert on human musculature, nutrition, or digestion, it's hard for me to pass judgment on the comments people make. I can easily imagine lining up as many experts as needed on either the pro- or con- side of most of these fads/ideas/breakthroughs/pick a noun. My intuition tells me that there must be disadvantages to thin-soled, toe-separating footwear that are not being mentioned. Surely these can't be better than $0.99 sandals, can they? If so, how?

This smells of marketing to me. 10,000 years ago, a 35-year-old man was a wisened elder, people were regularly killed by minor infections, and you were lucky if you could scrounge up enough calories to see the sun rise the next morning. I'd like to see some independent analysis, if such a thing exists.

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[info]maerdi
2009-05-08 07:29 am UTC (link)
Surely these can't be better than $0.99 sandals, can they?

Sure they can, depending on the $0.99 sandals. But I'd bet they aren't any (or much) better for you than the simple, useful, highly wearable leather sandals I saw all over India.

Some things to (theoretically) avoid in cheap footwear: styles that encourage you to use your toes to hold onto your shoe (like most flip-flops, IIRC) or otherwise require you to walk funny in order to hold onto your shoes, items that constrict your natural foot width (including toes), and thick soles that make it harder for you to feel the ground beneath your feet or encourage a heel strike. Research suggests that it's particularly important for kids to not wear shoes that are overly constricting or bulky so as to allow their feet to develop into the shape we evolved (rather than the shape fashion prefers these days), and letting them run around barefoot or in soft, formless leather slippers is useful.

Some lay-man's 'evidence' for these views was presented recently in an article that's been making the rounds, an article which actually stands to harm a lot of companies in its final advice. But my mother, who's studied the human body for most of her life, has espoused ideas like these for as long as I've known her. For instance, she's and huge anti-fan of our overuse of external arch supports to avoid pronation in place of just teaching people how to use their own muscles to walk and run correctly (which would work in most cases as a better long-term solution, but takes more initial effort).

As an engineer, I'm surprised you don't take more kindly to the paleo-mechanical arguments. *grin* However, I make no claims about evo-psych, paleo-diets, or even squat toilets.

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[info]bonboard
2009-05-08 08:44 am UTC (link)
Hmmm.

Well, first, everybody's free to spend their money the way they want, the way that makes them happy. And I'm not about to tell people what does or does not, should or should not make them happy. So, there's that caveat out of the way. Also, like I said, I really know nothing about this.

Next, if you told me that the human foot is the result of millions of years' worth of incremental random optimization for a design that has the best chance of propagating genes within the first 30 years of life, I would obviously believe that. And if you said that thin leather sandals are second only to bare feet for that purpose (successful procreation at an early age), I'd believe that, too.

But there's just no way that I'd buy that bare feet, thin leather sandals, or VFF's are anything near an optimal engineering solution to achieving the fastest sprint, the longest running duration, the fewest injuries over fifty years of training, the most comfort standing around on hard surfaces, or any of the other things that modern humans do and use shoes for. There's just no reason why any of that should be true, so I'm automatically skeptical. Willing to be proven wrong, but skeptical.

The article you linked to is interesting, though fluffy. You could write exactly the opposite article by talking to different "experts", except perhaps for the assertion about a lack of peer-reviewed studies. One glaring gloss-over is the claim about shoes costing twice as much being correlated to increased injury -- post hoc, ergo yadda yadda. There're lots of reasons why people who are willing to drop large amounts of money on shoes (like, say, 94.95 pounds sterling) injure themselves a lot.

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[info]benfrantzdale
2009-05-08 11:49 am UTC (link)
And if you said that thin leather sandals are second only to bare feet for that purpose (successful procreation at an early age), I'd believe that, too.

Wouldn't F-me boots (if they live up to their name) trump even bare feet?

As for whether the evolutionary biomechanics argument is applicable: The two holes in that are usually (1) Are the modern design requirements close enough to the ones we evolved under and (2) can an ideal design be evolved using flesh and bone?

The answer to (1) is "no", but only by a little bit: we have harder surfaces and we have sharp metal and glass out there. Interestingly (2) goes along with that; nature doesn't seem to provide us with grippy surfaces that can hold up against glass and metal.

It would be interesting to track the history of the shoe (which Wiki seems to do poorly); that seems to imply that fassion lead us away from functional shoes toward fancy-shaped foot boxes.


Looking at the VFFs, I see no reason you couldn't use them as a footbed but put a nice shiny leather shell on top without showing off the goofy toe-glove design.

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[info]istar
2009-05-08 04:56 am UTC (link)
tim ferriss is a doucheclown and I don't want to hear his stupid face talk, but I do like the shoes. :) I wear them pretty much all the time now, and just yesterday I got a new pair in purple!

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[info]mtbg
2009-05-08 08:03 am UTC (link)
"Doucheclown." I like it.

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[info]benfrantzdale
2009-05-08 11:01 am UTC (link)
I disagree. He's out there but unlike other lifestyle people, he seems to be earnest in what he's selling (his book, his unorthodox way of life). I am a little turned off by anyone's self-promotion, but Ferris's ideas all seem to make sense and he seems to show that life is more hackable than most bother to try.

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[info]knova
2009-05-08 05:38 pm UTC (link)
"Life is more hackable than most bother to try."

I like this line. I am stealing it.

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"Ought" FAIL
(Anonymous)
2009-05-09 12:07 am UTC (link)
Come on, this whole notion of "ought to" is total bullshit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but left to "nature," most humans would be dead by 40, childbirth would be the leading killer of adult females, and infant mortality would be 25% or more. Heck, everyone's teeth would look worse than the "big book of British smiles" on the Simpsons.

Now, that's not to say that shoes can't totally F your feet up, but come on, natural does not equal better. Crocs are supposed to be horrible, and the shoes you wear as a kid can have a profound impact on adult foot issues (or so I read...).

Anyway, I seriously doubt a human was meant to wear cowboy boots with crazy-ass toes, but that doesn't mean the opposite (no arch support and calluses) is de facto superior.

For all I know, this is what it best for a human:

http://www.kimgrahamstudios.com/gal-legs.html

Plus, you can get custom fur, no problem. ;)

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