About the recent vibram lawsuit that has been circulating in all social media, i am standing with vibram and i am not claiming for the product even if vibram lost the lawsuit as i benefited so much from this product.
Vibram was sued by a lady who used the shoes and got injured. Her case for sueing vibram is not that she got injured but she claims that vibram made false claims that the shoe could help reduced risk of foot injury and strengthened foot and leg muscles and therefore she made the purchase. Now she wish to claim back on her vibram. For full details click here.
Previously i did a review on Vibram, you can read here. However i didn’t state much about how barefoot running has benefited me and now i would like to make it up for that post.
I still remember the days when i was running my full marathon with a normal cushion shoes, i would always experience pain on my knees after the run, and i will have problem walking properly for the next few weeks. As i entered army as a PTI, my running increases and slowly i started feeling pain in my shin as well. Well you can say that i was over trained or what but here is my experience after using vibram (barefoot running)
The first run with my vibram, was a painful one(advise : start by walking, dont be a idiot and run like me). Normally i could run 10km easily but with vibram, i couldn’t even complete a 4km. I was getting intense ache from the bottom of my calf the next day after my first run. Now that is a weird area to ache which i never experience before!
So i when on to research and realize why is it good to run barefoot. As a human, it is only natural for us to get the most comfortable position or its our natural instinct to survive better by conserving energy used as well. When we have cushion shoes, our body automatically starts to adapt and rely on the cushion for support instead of using our very own muscle and joints for cushion. As time goes by, the muscle gets weaker as it is used less often (common theory for muscle if you dont use it you will lose it).
For the running stance with a cushion shoes. you will often land on your heels and the curve on the shoes will transfer your energy forward and you save energy on this. This movement shorten your range of movement for your calf, imagine doing a calf raise when you push from your heels (you cant). So this causes your calf to get less develop and muscular imbalance occur. Your Shin muscle start pulling as your rear calf muscle is weaker now and there shin splints.
Imagine yourself barefooted now, and you are out for a run. Landing on your heels will cause you immerse pain! So you got no choice but to change the running style, you start to adapt and land slightly to the fore of your foot, and you realize you are unable to run efficently tiptoeing so you change again and there you got the sweet spot! Around the mid of the foot! Now you got the running style, imagine doing a calf raise using the mid of your feet, a full calf activation! That is why i get a intense ache after running with vibram!
I will only touch on the calf part of the muscular imbalance here and there are many more benefit for going natural! But of course all these needs time to adapt! You are running or walking with cushion shoes for the past 20 years, it is only fair to give yourself at least 6months to adapt and see the benefit from barefoot running!
I would like to thank vibram for coming out with such a great product and i will continue to support you!
