Quote Originally Posted by nj_likes View Post

Has anyone tried the Vibram Five Fingers? I'm still not able to make an "educated" decision on these (or the whole barefoot thing). My husband's orthopedist told him that due to the fact that he has almost no arches, he should pretty much wear shoes (with inserts) all the time. I also have fairly flat feet, so I suppose that would apply to me as well. However, from what I've read about the Five Fingers and/or Running barefoot, that's actually supposed to be better for you, once you've accustomed yourself to using the different muscles. Where do you stand on this? Are shoes or no shoes better? Or is this a "it depends" kind of thing?
I have the VFFs and run/hike in them, and think they're great! I do subscribe to the theory that barefoot/minimal shoes are better--it just doesn't make sense to think, as the shoe companies seem to, that our feet are so poorly designed as to need all that padding and built-up heel that most running and other shoes have. As far as I know, hrough most of history, footwear (if any) was pretty simple and served only to protect the feet from extreme temperatures or hazardous objects on the ground: people in biblical times wore sandals (and I'm sure these sandals didn't have the "support" of some modern ones), Native Americans wore moccasins or went barefoot. It seems more logical that the human foot (as well as the rest of the body) is designed to function best without shoes that interfere with its natural movement. That said, most of us now (in this part of the world) are used to wearing such shoes all the time and need to take it slow in changing to barefoot/wearing minimal shoes--if you try to go "cold turkey" you might hurt yourself.