What are those things on your FEET???

WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS ON YOUR FEET? I get this question all the time, and my response is "my shoes." One of the next things most people say is "No way, those aren't shoes or are they comfortable, do they have any support, etc..."

First things first, yes they are shoes. They have a rubber sole on them to keep your feet protected. They are extremely comfortable, especially if you like being barefoot. Now here is the kicker that gets most people, they don't have any support. This is by design and is a good thing as long as you don't already have lots of foot issues. The idea behind the Vibram Five-finger shoe is to allow your foot to act and work the way it was designed to. The average foot has 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles, and hundreds of sensory receptors, tendons and ligaments. With all the support that most shoes give all of those 20 muscles actually get weaker because they don't have to work to support the foot. With the five-finger shoes the muscles have to work and begin to hypertrophy (grow bigger) which improves the strength of the bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments of the foot and ankle. As the foot and ankle gets stronger we can actually improve our balance, posture, and other skills. Once my feet got stronger from wearing these shoes, I noticed that any discomfort in my knees, hips, or back from being on my feet all day long just disappeared.

You can see in the picture that I currently have five pairs of vibram five-fingers and I wear them everyday. In fact I can count on one hand the number of times over the past two years that I have worn other shoes outside of the five-fingers. I have used them for conditioning work, exercising, everyday wear, and I even wore them up on a roof that I ripped off and re-shingled. They do allow a person to still wear socks with them and one of the greatest things about them is that they can just be tossed in the washer and hung out to dry when they start to stink. And they will start to smell if you wear them enough and exercise in them. I'm really not sure what else to say about them right now, but if you have any questions just leave me a comment and I will answer it asap.