Nike Free 5.0 vs Vibram Fivefingers Classic
Fight, fight, fight! How can people who make money out of selling running shoes possibly capitalise on the concept of going barefoot? Surely there’s nothing to sell. If you wanted to make money you’d develop something like a ‘barefoot arena’ where people could go to run barefoot safely. But let us not underestimate the tenacity of the manufacturers and the pull of making money by creating your own market.
Last week we aired a few simple thoughts about being barefoot, which leads into today’s look at two pieces of footwear purported to recreate the barefoot experience.
I have had a pair of Nike Free 7.0 for ages, and then decided to go for a slightly more radical shoe, the 5.0. The numbering system refers to how ‘barefoot’ the shoe supposedly is: the lower the number, the ‘Free-er’ the shoes, so moving from a 7.0 to a 5.0 in theory should recreate more closely the barefoot experience. Despite allegedly being more of a cross-trainer, the 7.0 were pleasant to run in. Very flexible laterally and longitudinally, which I value, broad in the forefoot and low to the ground; contact with the ground is not overcushioned either, also a good point. So basically a really nice pair of running shoes in the true running shoe idiom. Nothing particularly ‘free’ about them, I thought, just like any decent racing flats, no more no less. I was intrigued by the prospect of the 5.0.
The 5.0 actually has less lateral flexibility. It is indeed firmer, even a tad lower to the ground; there is less upper, and no tongue, and it flexes more readily in the longitudinal plane. So far, not bad. But to my continued astonishment, there is a kind of medial ridge (complete with Swoosh, go figure) that not only gets in the way of one’s natural inward roll on footstrike, it blistered the arch of my foot. Silly me, for not using socks; silly me, for thinking wearing socks would defile the purity of these ‘non-shoes’.
How in the name of all the gods of running can a shoe that is supposed to recreate barefoot running blister you on the one point of your foot that generally doesn’t have contact with the ground when you actually are barefoot? How in the name of of all the gods of running can a shoe that is supposed to recreate barefoot running attempt to control your natural foot movement?
I am left with two possible conclusions. One is that people these days are so afflicted by sedentary western life that they have flabby, weak, lifeless feet from never taking their shoes off, and hence have bulbous yet bizarrely muscle-less calves that flex little if at all, bad back function and permanently shortened hip flexors. The only way they can run without injuring themselves is to run slowly and carefully in highly cushioned and controlling shoes. And for these poor people, generous, world-saving, philanthropical Nike is offering a therapy, a cure, a magic bullet that allows them to get the benefits of being barefoot (and there are many) without having to actually not wear shoes. Interestingly, Nike warn you to wear the Free around the house for a while before venturing out in them (otherwise you would probably die of leg pain). Strange, isn’t it, that they don’t ask you to walk around the house, er, barefoot.
The other is that this is a ridiculous scam, a (successful, clearly) brazen attempt to hoodwink as many people as possible to pay Nike money for something they don’t need; an attempt to jump on a kind of barefoot bandwagon set in motion by adidas in the 1990s with their ‘Feet You Wear’ campaign (itself a hangover from Gordon Pirie’s work with Horst Dassler in the ’50s), Dr Nicholas Romanov of the Pose Method and others.
Let’s move on to the presumably less well known ’shoe’ from Vibram, the Fivefingers. I have the Classic, which is like a ballet shoe in that there is essentially no upper, just a narrow band of fabric over the toes and around the foot. The sole is footshaped, and each toe has its ‘finger’, like a glove, and then it can be tightened by cinching in a cord. The sole is, I would estimate - it’s hard to measure - two millimetres of rubber under the contact points of the heel, ball of foot and big toe; and one millimetre elsewhere. Compare that to the Nike Free 5.0’s three centimetres of heel. Just to show you how much of a running shoe the Free is, one of my all-time favourite shoes, the adidas Neftenga, also has 3 cm of heel (and, as it goes, better lateral flexion).
So the Fivefingers is not even a shoe. We’re making progress here. You can feel the ground when you walk or run in them, and you have to be careful. One of my runs in them included a cinder path, and a couple of times I didn’t half hop up in the air after hitting a larger cinder. There was momentary pain, no injury - the rubber is very tough - and a lesson learnt to run more delicately. All good.
While running steadily was fine, sprinting in the Fivefingers Classic was not perfect: under the higher forces, the upper threatens to escape, and I had to stop and cinch them up tighter. I could sprint in them, but I can see why Vibram have produced a ‘Sprint’ version with a strap across the top of the foot. When the wallet fills up again, I will probably add these to my barefoot shoe experience wardrobe.
So not much more to say about the Fivefingers. Wearing them is like going barefoot, but with an extra layer of protection from pointy things on the sole of your foot. They are the real deal. Nike Frees are running shoes. Never, ever forget that they are running shoes. You would be just as ‘Free’, maybe more so, in what we in the UK call plimsolls, or Keds or Converse All Stars…
If you want to get the benefits of running barefoot (and there are many) - you know what? - run barefoot. If you want something to help you on your way, get the Fivefingers. Nike are selling an inaccurate map which is very far from being the terrain.
Happy running!