Do 5-toed shoes improve run time and fitness? Are there downfalls to wearing these shoes?

I would like information and facts dealing with 5-toed shoes in regards to fitness. I would like to know all the facts before I go buy a pair.Do 5-toed shoes improve run time and fitness? Are there downfalls to wearing these shoes?They can not possibly improve your time. They have no cushion or heel, and other than being a fad along with barefoot running they don't have any benefit to running.Do 5-toed shoes improve run time and fitness? Are there downfalls to wearing these shoes?The fact is that we don't have all of the facts. We do know that there are certain aspects of regular running shoes that promote bad running form, and that running barefoot/minimalist forces you to correct this.



There have not been any studies on the long term effects of wearing these shoes and running on modern engineered surfaces. People may run barefoot in many parts of the world, but they tend to do so on dirt, not concrete.



They don't offer any benefits to your fitness or running times. No shoes do - fitness and running times are dictated by your training, not your equipment.





While I will definitely concede that landing on the middle or front of your foot is the proper way (and there is a lot of science confirming this), I do not think you need a pair of shoes to teach you proper running form. My stance is: Learn to land properly in regular running shoes, and you should be able to get all of the benefits of barefoot running without any of the risks.Do 5-toed shoes improve run time and fitness? Are there downfalls to wearing these shoes?I've been wearing the Vibram sprints since July 2010. I wouldn't run in anything else now. I started because all the talk about running on your midfoot not your heel made alot of sense to me, especially as I was dealing with reoccuring plantar fasciitis in both heels even though I kept buying more and more cushioned shoes.

I started slow in these shoes, alternating wearing them for my easy runs and wearing my standard Sauconys for most of my other runs. There was some inital calf soreness and learning to watch where my feet landed in these VFFs was sometimes painful when it'd hit a rock, but overall the process was positive and I was running in my VFFs 100% of the time after 6 weeks. My average weekly distance is between 40-50km. I ran a PR in them this past fall in a 10k race. This spring-in six weeks-I plan to run a full marathon in them. My longest distance in them so far has been 29km.

All that said, they are not for everyone. Just like any running shoe, some people will find they can adapt quickly and naturally to them, other people never really get the form right and end up with stress fractures in the ball of their foot. I would advise you to read up on this community and start running barefoot on a track or field now to start adjusting your running form. Good luck and have fun!